Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/434

 go Journal of American Folk-Lore.

Oa ordinary occasions now men and women eat together, but when there is company, the women eat last. When Le Moyne left Onondaga in 1654, the principal men and women were invited to his feast of adieu, according to their custom, but this custom seems to have changed at a later day.

Some things may be summarized. Women were represented on bark with braided hair and waist cloths. The Mohawks sometimes called them Te hondatkentiogen, because the hair was divided above the forehead, but braiding was always a custom. Lahontan said, "The hair of the Iroquois women is rolled up behind with a sort of ribbon, and that roller hangs down to their girdle.'' When the Iro- quois came to the Lancaster council in 1744, "several of their squaws or wives, with some small children, rode on horseback, which is very unusual with them." It became quite customary a hundred years ago. Circumstances changed clothing also. I still see blankets over the head, but shawls are more common, and these are drawn down over the face in anger or grief. Old women delighted in men's hats, and all wore moccasins and leggings.

Indians in general reckoned " the paying of tribute becoming none but women and children." The Iroquois gave none, but their women made the tasteful council belts. They were experts in star gazing, and they now have a place in medicine societies, and some rela- tions to the False Faces. Some dances and games belong to them. Bruyas assigns to them the game of the eight bones or buttons. In 1656 we have an account of their prominent part in a medicine dance at Onondaga. L. H. Morgan assigns 14 out of 32 dances to men and women, and seven for women alone.

The French at Onondaga in 1657 said that "the children there were docile, the women inclined to the most tender devotion:" Their funeral rites were as important'.as those of the men. A woman buried in f/62 had new garments, "set off with rows of silver brooches, one row joining another. Over the sleeves of her new ruffled shirt were broad silver arm spangles," etc., and wampum. and silver ornaments appeared elsewhere. Their part in funerals is now less conspicuous than in earlier days. David Zeisberger described an Onondaga funeral in 1752. The female friends of the dead man gathered at sunrise and sunset to bewail him before burial. Old squaws dug the grave, which was lined with loose boards." Suitably prepared, he was borne to the grave amid the howls of the v/omen, who wept there morning and evening for some time longer. Rev. Mr. Kirkland saw a Seneca warrior's funeral in T/64, an hour after sunrise. Iso man was present but the grave-digger, but 150 women and girls sang a mournful song as they here the body in their pro- cession .0 the grave. Some screamed and yelled. At the" primary

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