Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/422

84 instances of their both burning and eating women in the seventeenth century are so many that it is hardly worth while to discuss this. Four Andastes women were burned at Oneida alone in 1663, and another was burned and eaten at Cayuga the same year. Jogues' account of the burning and eating of a female prisoner in sacrifice, by the Mohawks, is well known. She was first burned all over the body, then thrown into a great fire, taken out in due season, and then "her body was cut up, sent to the various villages and devoured." Similar things were common.

I do not now remember any instance of polygamy among the Iroquois, though it was common among other races. Marriages could be dissolved at pleasure as they yet are, but in early days this seems to have been rarely done. Informal as Indian marriages usually were, there were some points more definitely observed by the Iroquois. Among the Mohawks Gakwarinna was the portion of the woman who gets married; Gakwarinnionton the ceremony of carrying her into the cabin at this time. For the time being, at least, she then had reserved rights. The union was arranged by mutual friends, and wife and husband lodged together at his home. During the day they were with their respective relatives, the husband not daring to enter his wife's cabin until she had children. At Onondaga, in 1657, it was observed that for the time being "the only community of goods there is between the one and the other is that the husband gives all the fruits of the chase to his wife, who renders him some services in recompense, and is obliged to cultivate his fields and make his harvest."

Men and women of the same clan might not marry, all these being esteemed near relations. For a long time clan burial prevailed, so that husband and wife were not interred together but in the grounds of their respective clans. The children were of the mother's clan and nation. Thus the noted Logan was a Cayuga because his mother was one, though his father was a distinguished Oneida chief. This feature of Iroquois life is a great bar to the division of their lands in severalty. Marriage into another clan or nation might bring personal advantages to a man if he desired them. Two of the leading framers of the Iroquois League were reputed Onondagas by birth, but Dekanawidah or his father and Hiawatha married Mohawk wives and became chiefs of that nation. In 16.37 a young Seneca was displeased because his people had made peace with the Hurons. He "married among the Onondaga, in order always to have liberty to bear arms against them."

Men might change their nationality in order to build up a nation or clan. This is sometimes done now by both men and women. In the Relation for 1645 it appears that nearly all the Oneida men were