Iroquois Journey: An Anthropologist Remembers

Notes

notes Introduction 1. See “The Publications of William N. Fenton,” herein, for bibliographic information on works cited. 2. Anthony F. C. Wallace, “The Career of William N. Fenton and the Development of Iroquoian Studies,” in, Extending the Rafters: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Iroquoian Studies, edited by Michael K. Foster, Jack Campisi, and Marianne Mithun (Albany: State University of New York, 1984), 2. Wallace provides the best summary of Fenton’s career, paying special attention to his contributions in ethnology and ethnohistory. 3. Voget’s overview of Fenton’s contributions is in “Anthropological Theory and Iroquois Ethnography: 1850 to 1970,” in Foster, Campisi, and Mithun, Extending the Rafters, 343–57. 4. See James Axtell, “Ethnohistory: An Historian’s Viewpoint,” Ethnohistory 26 (1979):1–13. 5. Thomas S. Abler, “Upstream from Coldspring: William N. Fenton and the Investigation of Seneca Culture in Time” (paper presented at A Celebration in Honor of William N. Fenton, Cooperstown, ny, October 2003). 6. In our description of Bill’s celebration, we have borrowed heavily and shamelessly from presentations made that day by several colleagues. They are Thomas S. Abler, Ernest Benedict, Wallace Chafe, Harold C. Conklin, Maxine Crouse Dowler, Michael K. Foster, and Anthony F. C. Wallace. 7. See Joy A. Bilharz, The Allegany Senecas and the Kinzua Dam: Forced Relocation Through Two Generations (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press,1998). 8. See Hanni Woodbury, Concerning the League: the Iroquois Tradition as Dictated by John Arthur Gibson. Algonquian and Iroquoian Linguistics. Memoir 9 (Winnipeg, 1992). 1. Upstaters in Suburbia and at Home 1. Carved wooden masks worn by members of the Society of Faces, a medicine society among the Iroquois. 2. “Outdoor Wisdom,” [Review of] The Boy Campers, by William Hillcourt. The Saturday Review of Literature 8, 17 (1931): 282. 2. At Yale and among the Senecas 1. An account of my first fieldwork appeared as the article “Return to the Longhouse” (Fenton 1972) and was later reprinted as “He-Lost-aBet (Howan®neyao)” (Fenton 2001). Excerpts from the latter edition, reprinted with permission, make up the following section. 2. The Seneca clan system comprises eight clans, divided equally into two moieties, or “sides,” which are seated on opposite sides of a symbolic fire. The Bear, Wolf, Beaver, and Turtle clans make up one moiety, and the Deer, Snipe, Heron, and Hawk clans the other. A Seneca clan is an exogamous kin group that reckons descent, inheritance, and succession matrilineally. A clan holds a “bag” of personal names that it awards at birth, changes at puberty, and confers upon a person’s acceding to an exalted status. Adoption is a clan function, rarely nationwide. 3. The following account is taken from my typed field notes, written soon after the event. 4. In 1948, Olive and our three children would be adopted by the Beaver clan during the Green Corn Festival. Mary John and Myrtie Crouse urged their mother, Phoebe Nephew, matron of the clan, to choose the names and make the presentation. Olive received the name meaning “watch out for her opinion.” 3. From Teaching to the bae 1. Jesse Cornplanter (1889–1957), resident intellectual at Tonawanda, grew up at Newtown on the Cattaraugus Reservation during the height of the Handsome Lake religion, of which his father, Edward, was the leading preacher. Jesse knew collectors for museums and developed a reputation as an illustrator of traditional Seneca activities in his boyhood (Fenton, “Aboriginally Yours,” 1978). 2. The reference here is to Rueben Gold Thwaites, ed., The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents: Travels and Explorations of the Jesuit Missionaries in New France, 1610–1791, 73 vols.(Cleveland: Burrows Brothers, 1896–1901). 3. Upon the death of a chief, his “antlers of office,” a string of white wampum, are set aside until the clan matron chooses a successor, when they are “requickened” (installed on the candidate) at a Condolence Council. 4. See Woodbury, Concerning the League. 5. After I refused to abandon Iroquois studies for work in Latin America, as requested by Steward, we went our separate ways. Steward was my 176 | notes to pages 18–56 neighbor in McLean, Virginia; his two boys Mike and Gary played with John and Betsey. He actively opposed my appointment as senior ethnologist . John Swanton, upon retirement, went to Stirling and supported my candidacy for the position. Stirling, without consulting Steward, had me reclassified in Swanton’s title. 6. See James W. Herrick, Iroquois Medical Botany, edited and with...