The Path on the Rainbow: Memorial Ode (Iroquois)

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The Path on the Rainbow, edited by George W. Cronyn, [1918], at sacred-texts.com

MEMORIAL ODE

Chief John Buck, hereditary Keeper of the Wampum, made and sung his ode in 1884 on the occasion of the removal of the bones of Chief Red Jacket from their original burying place to Forest

p. 27

Lawn Cemetery. The Great League is the League of the five Iroquois nations in Western New York.

CHANT

Now, listen, Ye who established the Great
League,
Now it has become old,
Now there is nothing but wilderness.

Ye are in your graves who established it.
Ye have taken it with you and have placed it under you,
And there is nothing left but desert.
There you have taken your great minds.
That which you established, you have taken with you
Ye have placed under your heads what ye have established,
The Great League.

REFRAIN

Woe, Woe! Hearken ye!
    We are diminished
Woe, woe!
    The land has become a thicket.
Woe, woe!
    The clear places are deserted
    They are in their graves who established it.
Woe, the Great League!
    Yet they declared it should endure.
The Great League, Woe!
    Their work has grown old
    We are become wretched. Woe!

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