by official messengers, who bore for credentials certain strings of
wampum, appropriate to the occasion. The place of meeting was commonly
the chief town of the nation which had suffered the loss. In this nation
a family council, under the presidency, and subject, indeed (as has been
shown), to the controlling decision, of the chief matron of the deceased
senator's kindred--usually his mother, if she survived him--was in the
meantime convened to select his successor. The selection must be
approved both by his clan and by his nation; but as their sentiments
were generally known beforehand, this approval was rarely
withheld. Indeed, the mischief resulting from an unsuitable choice was
always likely to be slight; for both the national council and the
federal senate had the right of deposing any member who was found
unqualified for the office.

At the appointed day the chiefs of the other nations approached the
place of meeting. A multitude of their people, men and women, usually
accompanied them, prepared to take part both in the exhibitions of grief
and in the festivities which always followed the installation of the new
councillor. The approaching chiefs halted when they reached the border
of the "opening," or cleared space surrounding the town. Here took place
the "preliminary ceremony," styled in the Book of Rites,
"_Deyughnyonkwarakda_," a word which means simply "at the edge of
the woods." At this point a fire was kindled, a pipe was lighted and
passed around with much formality, and an address of welcome was made by
the principal chief of the inviting nation. The topics of this address
comprised a singular mixture of congratulation and condolence, and seem
to have been prescribed forms, which had come down from immemorial
antiquity, as appropriate to the occasion.

The guests were then formally conducted--"led by the hand," as the Book