And from the circles of indistinct figures came a muttered chorus—
"Yo-hay!"
Donehogaweh turned to us as we stood by the fire-pit whence the smoke had ceased to rise.
"You are going upon a long journey," he said gravely. "Perhaps many enemies will assail you. Perhaps you will know great danger. Perhaps you will be faced by death. But I charge you, do not show fear. If you return with the scalps of all who oppose you, we will be proud of you. We will dance for you the Wasaseh, the War Dance. If you do not return at all, we will remember you, and the women shall teach the children to honor your memories. But do not return to us unless you can boast of all that you have done, and be ashamed of nothing.
"Na-ho!"
He caught up his skin-robe and draped it around his shoulders as he led us from the Council House, the assemblage of Royanehs and chiefs crowding after us through the narrow door. In the flat, hard-beaten Dancing Place outside, the center of the wide-spreading Seneca village of Deonundagaa, stood hundreds of warriors, women, and leaping, scrambling children. They stretched from the door to the gaondote, or war-post, its charred, splintered stump rising in the center of the open space, around which were ranked the ganasotes, or Long Houses, in which the people dwelt, and from which they took their name.
Most of them were only idly curious, friendly, but with no personal interest. But many who knew us pressed forward for a last, informal word before we left. Guanaea, wife of Donehogaweh—I dislike the debased word squaw, which is inept for a people like the Iroquois, who rate their women far higher than we do—snatched at my hand, her kindly, capable glance examining my equipment. The deerskin garments I wore had been fashioned by her. She had prepared the provender of jerked meat and mixed charred corn and maple-sugar which filled my food-bags. She had contrived my barken box of coarse salt. And she had done as much for Tawannears and Corlaer, too.
"Good-by, Otetiani, my white son," she said, with tears in her eyes. "May Hawenneyu have you in his keeping! I have no son of my body to tell me brave tales of what he has done, and you know that you are doubly dear to me. You must do as Tawannears and Corlaer when the snow flies and rub yourself with bear's grease. It is good at all times, and you should learn to like it. And do not bathe so often. Hanegoategeh, the Evil Spirit, is always on the watch to send ills to those who rub their skins. But here!"
She took a small pouch of deerskin from her breast and hung it around my neck by a strip of rawhide.
"That will protect you against all evils! Keep it always on you."