The descriptive details are highly interesting to the antiquarian because they shed some faint light on the kind of pledge or vouch which was in use before wampum and wampum strings came into vogue for that purpose. On this journey some of the persons delegated to communicate with Hiawatha used for a pledge small shoots of the elderberry bush which were cut into short pieces, and from which the pith was removed, and these little cylinders strung on small cords of sinew; likewise, the tradition continues, the quills of large feathers, cut off and strung on cords, were also used as tokens, pledges, or vouches for the good faith of the messenger or speaker. Fresh-water shells were substituted by Hiawatha for these things. Coming to a small body of water, he saw its surface literally covered by ducks swimming about. He went near and exclaimed, “Do you not attach any importance to my mission?” At once the ducks flew up into the air, bearing up with them the water of the lake. Hiawatha at once went down into the bottom of the lake, thus made dry, and there he saw many shells of various colors. These he gathered and placed in a skin bag which he carried. When the bag had been filled he returned to the shore of the lake, and selecting a suitable place sat down there and, tradition says, strung the 28 strings with their messages, which are employed in the ritual of the condoling and installation ceremony of the league to this day, although these fresh-water shells have long been replaced by wampum beads. It is thus seen that this tradition makes Hiawatha the designer of the pledges for this rite, although the matter of the tradition shows that this cannot be true, because the use of a set number of topics of the “comfort,” or rather “requickening address,” was in vogue among other tribes of the Iroquoian linguistic stock—the Huron, for example. The name Hiawatha was immortalized by Longfellow in the beautiful poem bearing this name, although there is nothing in the poem that can be predicated of the historical person bearing that name. This was due to the mistake of confusing two names—that of Hiawatha with that of the Iroquoian god, the Master of Life, the one who gives or creates all life, both faunal and floral, on the earth.