advised its representatives to go on at once to
the westward, and enlist the populous Seneca towns, pointing out how this
might best be done. This advice was followed, and the adhesion of the
Senecas was secured by giving to their two leading chiefs, Kanyadariyo
("beautiful lake") and Shadekaronyes ("the equal skies"), the offices of
military commanders of the confederacy, with the title of door-keepers of
the "Long-House,"--that being the figure by which the league was known.

The six national leaders who have been mentioned--Dekanawidah for the
Mohawks, Odatshehte for the Oneidas, Atotarho for the Onondagas,
Akahenyonk for the Cayugas, Kanyadariyo and Shadekaronyes for the two
great divisions of the Senecas--met in convention near the Onondaga Lake,
with Hiawatha for their adviser, and a vast concourse of their followers,
to settle the terms and rules of their confederacy, and to nominate its
first council. Of this council, nine members (or ten, if Dekanawidah be
included) were assigned to the Mohawks, a like number to the Oneidas,
fourteen to the lordly Onondagas, ten to the Cayugas, and eight to the
Senecas. Except in the way of compliment, the number assigned to each
nation was really of little consequence, inasmuch as, by the rule of the
league, unanimity was exacted in all their decisions. This unanimity,
however, did not require the suffrage of every member of the council.
The representatives of each nation first deliberated apart upon the
question proposed. In this separate council the majority decided; and
the leading chief then expressed in the great council the voice of his
nation. Thus the veto of Atotarho ceased at once to be peculiar to him,
and became a right exercised by each of the allied nations. This
requirement of unanimity, embarrassing as it might seem, did not prove to
be so in practice. Whenever a question arose on which opinions were
divided, its decision was either postponed, or some compromise was
reached which left all parties contented.

The first members of the council were appointed by the convention,--under
what precise rule is unknown; but their successors came in by a method in
which the hereditary and the elective systems were singularly combined,
and in which female suffrage had an important place. When a chief died
or (as sometimes happened) was deposed for incapacity or misconduct, some
member of the same family succeeded him. Rank followed the female line;
and this succe