The Lore of the Longhouse: Myth, Ritual and Red Power

• Published in: Anthropological quarterly Vol. 48; no. 3; pp. 131 - 147
• Main Author: Fenton, William N.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington Catholic University of America Press 01-07-1975; Catholic University of America Press, etc
• Subjects: Ceremonies; Confederation; Descendants; Ethnology; Kinship; Longhouses; Myth/Myths/Mythic/Mythical/ Mythification (see also Mythology); Myths; Peacetime; Society, The, of; Symbol/Symbols/Symbology/ Symbolism/ Symbolic/ Symbolization; Symbolism; Treaty lands
• ISSN: 0003-5491; 1534-1518
• DOI: 10.2307/3316920

The Deganawidah epic, the origin myth of the Iroquois Confederacy, represents the symbolic justification for the traditional system of life chiefs on the Six Nations Reserve at Brantford, Ontario. Although versions are extant today in truncated form, two long texts in Onondaga were collected by J. N. B. Hewitt in 1899 and by A. A. Goldenweiser in 1912 from the same source, Chief John A. Gibson; these were translated by the writer with the aid of Gibson's descendants. The two versions are compared and their contents analysed, employing a revitalization paradigm (Wallace 1958), and structural analysis. Kinship relations are projected to a political level and metaphors are used symbolically. The epic is still enacted in the Condolence Council, for mourning and installing chiefs-ceremonies which have long historical roots. Thus, the League as a symbolic system has continuity; but as a means of organizing and distributing power today it raises questions both among its descendants and among social anthropologists.