Positions on the Iroquois Confederacy Council were filled in an elaborate ceremony in which the names of all fifty titles of the council members were recited. As an aid to remember the lengthy text, the Cayuga ceremonial specialist Andrew Spragg used this cane on the Six Nations Reserve in the early twentieth century as he sang the condolence ritual and recited the list of chiefs. The pegs on the right represent the chiefs of the Mohawk, Onondaga, and Seneca; those on the left, the chiefs of the Oneida and Cayuga. Each peg grouping is a particular "committee" of chiefs serving on the council. The cane was sold by Spragg about 1918, but after blueprints of the original were circulated in 1945 several individuals made copies, often embellishing or altering the design of the original.
Courtesy: Cranbrook Institute of Science, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (1914)
