In the ceremonies attending the making of a living mask, the tree is visited for three days. At the dawn of the first day the leaders of the False Face Society gather around the tree and smoke the sacred tobacco into the roots and throughout the branches to their topmost. As the smoke “lifts to the sunrise” songs of incantation are sung and the tree is asked to consent to share its heart with whomsoever the sacred gift is to be sent. At sunrise the ceremony is repeated and the next day continued in the same manner until the three days’ propitiation chant is completed and then the axe is lifted to the tree. If at the first stroke of the axe the tree remain firm and unbending it has consented to lend its heart. An outline of the face is then drawn on the bark and cut into the tree to a depth of about six inches. After thanking the tree this block is gouged out to be carved into the desired shape during a final song and dance that concluded the ceremony.
GENERAL NOTES.—This account of the stone giants or stone coats, Gĕnnon’´sgwa’, has been compiled from the accounts of several informants. There appears to be some confusion as to the origin of the stone coats as well as a disagreement as to the origin of the false faces. In one widely accepted account the Hadui false faces were the whirlwind spirits; in this account the last survivor of the stone giants is the founder of the False Face Company. In 1903 I was given a wooden mask covered with sand and pebbles and having a large flint arrowhead in the center of the forehead. The Cattaraugus Seneca woman who gave it to me stated that it was a secret mask and represented the stone giant. There appears, therefore, to be a ceremonial connection between the stone giants and the false faces.
71. THE ORIGIN OF THE LONG HOUSE.[[63]]
Chief Big Kittle relates the following story of the origin of the League of the Five Nations.
Where the Mohawk river empties into the Hudson in ancient times there was a Mohawk village. The people there were fierce and warlike and were continually sending out war parties against other settlements and returning would bring back long strings of scalps to number the lives they had destroyed. But sometimes they left their own scalps behind and never returned. They loved warfare better than all other things and were happy when their hands were slimy with blood. They boasted that they would eat up all other nations and so they continued to go against other tribes and fight with them.
Now among the Mohawks was a chief named Dekānăwī´da, a very wise man, and he was very sad of heart because his people loved war too well. So he spoke in council and implored them to desist lest they perish altogether but the young warriors would not hear him and laughed at his words but he did not cease to warn them until at last dispairing of moving them by ordinary means he turned his face to the west and wept as he journeyed onward and away from his people. At length he reached a lake whose shores were fringed with bushes, and being tired he lay down to rest. Presently, as he lay meditating, he heard the soft spattering of water sliding from a skillful paddle and peering out from his hiding place he saw in the red light of sunset a man leaning over his canoe and dipping into the shallow water with a basket. When he raised it up it was full of shells, the shells of the periwinkles that live in shallow pools. The man pushed his canoe toward the shore and sat down on the beach where he kindled a fire. Then he began to string his shells and finishing a string would touch the shells and talk. Then, as if satisfied, he would lay it down and make another until he had a large number. Dekaniwida watched the strange proceeding with wonder. The sun had long since set but Dekanawida still watched the man with the shell strings sitting in the flickering light of the fire that shadowed the bushes and shimmered over the lake.
After some deliberation he called out, “Kwē, I am a friend!” and stepping out upon the sand stood before the man with the shells. “I am Dekanawida,” he said, “and come from the Mohawk.”
“I am Haio´wĕnt’ha of the Onondaga,” came the reply.
The Dekanawida inquired about the shell strings for he was very curious to know their import and Haio´wĕnt’ha answered, “They are the rules of life and laws of good government. This all white string is a sign of truth, peace and good will, this black string is a sign of hatred, of war and of a bad heart, the string with the alternate beads, black and white, is a sign that peace should exist between the nations. This string with white on either end and black in the middle is a sign that wars must end and peace declared.” And so Haiowentha lifted his strings and read the laws.
Then said Dekanawida, “You are my friend indeed, and the friend of all nations.—Our people are weak from warring and weak from being warred upon. We who speak one tongue should combine against the Hadiondas instead of helping them by killing one another but my people are weary of my advising and would not hear me.”