The Mohawks have 5 sachems,[[72]] The Onondagas, he thinks have 4, also the Oneidas and Cayugas four each, the Senecas have 4 also and two war chiefs, the other tribes had no war chiefs.
Sha-dye-na-waho,[[73]] Nis-ha-nye-yant,[[74]] Gah-nya-gaeh,[[75]] Shah-de-gao-yes,[[76]] Sho-guh-jis-wa,[[77]] Ga-no-ga-ih-da-wit, De-yo-ne-ho-gaah-wah,[[78]] were Seneca Sachems.
The Long House was first opened at Onondaga[[79]]; the Senecas also had a long house.[[80]] When anything occurred to render a council necessary, any trusty young man might be sent as a runner to the other tribes to call them together.
When they came together the evening before the council they sang a song (In Seneca Wa-a-non-dah ga-ya-soh,) and in the morning one man sang a different song as they were going to start, i.e. the volunteers to revenge the murder or whatever the injury was.
In the council some leading chief would state the business and ask, what shall we do? A few of the chiefs would tell their views and then leading men of influence would say, We will do so and so, and the multitude would acquiesce and the council would break up.
In case of making peace between the Senecas, or the Iroquois, and the Cherokees, e.g., two messengers would be dispatched by the party desiring peace. They would be called before the enemies’ council and introduced by the chief and then would deliver their message. If their proposals for peace were accepted they would agree to bury the whole list of grievances (bury the hatchet, Dyo-an-jo-gut,) so that they should not come up in sight again. If they refused the terms they would send the ambassadors back again to convey their refusal to the people and the war would continue.
The Quapaw war was long before the Cherokee war. This last was the last Indian war carried on by the Six Nations with the other Indians. Jak Snow’s widow was a Cherokee and Gah-no-syoot Hay-a-soo-oh who died at Allegany, but Johnson never heard that Blue Eyes was a Cherokee.
The office of the Ga-yah-gwaah-doh was to give notice of the death of a sachem and the convocation of the general council to mourn for the dead and to raise up some one in his place, and at such convocations all the subordinate vacancies would be filled by the “raising” of chiefs and the elections of new ones.
In the election of new chiefs the women of the family in which the vacancy occurred having the name of the office in her keeping could confer it on any one of the family (always on the female side), whom she should regard as the most reliable. It was always the province of the female head of the household to settle such questions although she consulted the whole household as to their judgment of the fitness or unfitness of any candidate. In like manner she could also depose (knock the horns off), for any dereliction of duty. After the election etc. the act would be confirmed (Da-ye-a-wit ha-di-yaas-gwah), by the relations and then by the council. These rules applied to all ranks even to the Ho-ya-neh-gowaak of the Grand Council.
Johnson says that 72 years ago[[81]] last spring, he with many others, was invited over from Canada by the chiefs and that he was 20 years old at this time and he says at that time the Indians had an idol over at Cornplanter’s made of wood and ornamented with feathers around which they sung and danced and called it GOD. He had seen the idol but not the dancing around it. He says that Cornplanter’s son threw it into the river (corroborating the story I have heard before). He says that he never knew of any other such idol. But he says that the women very commonly made little images, made in conformity to their dreams. (They consider all remarkable dreams as revelations from the spirit world.) And not alone the dolls, but images of any other object they might be impressed by in a dream, they considered them to be their gods, considered them as their protectors, etc. Some of them, not all of them, used to dance before them as objects of worship. (He does not know that the women ever received from the Catholics any images of the Virgin, but he has often seen gold or silver crucifixes among them used simply as ornaments.)