In eulogizing their completed labors the founders of the league represented and described it as a great human tree of flesh and blood, noted for size and length of leaf, which was also represented as being set up on a great white mat—that is to say, on a broad foundation of peace, and whose top pierced the visible sky. It was conceived as having four great white roots composed of living men and women, extending respectively eastward, southward, westward, and northward, among the tribes of men who were urgently invited to unite with the league by laying their heads on the great white root nearest to them. It was further declared that should some enemy of this great tree of flesh and blood approach it and should drive his hatchet into one of its roots, blood indeed would flow from the wound, but it was said further that this strange tree through its orenda would cause that assailant to vomit blood before he could escape very far. In certain laws the federal chiefs are denominated standing trees, who as essential components of the great tree of the league are absorbed in it, symbolically, and who are thus said to have one head, one heart, one mind, one blood, and one dish of food. The ties which unite a tribe with its gods—ties of faith and the bonds of duty and obligation of service which bind the persons of the tribe unitedly together, ties of blood and affinity—are the strongest operative among tribal men and women. Every undeveloped people or human brood of one blood and origin live under the direct care and special providence of its gods and so seeks to maintain, by suitable rite and ceremony, unbroken and intact relation and converse with them. From the legends and traditions of such a people it is learned that all that they have, all that they do ritually, and all that they know, they have received freely by the grace of their gods. The tribes of the Iroquois people were no exception to this rule. In Iroquois polity there was a definite separation of purely civil from strictly religious affairs. So the office of civil chief was clearly marked off from that of prophet or priest, and in so far as an incumbent was concerned it was the gift of the suffrages of a definite group of his clanswomen, and so in no sense was it hereditary. The office was hereditary in the clan, and strictly speaking in some family line of the clan. The civil assembly, or the council of chiefs and elders or senators, was in no sense a religious gathering, notwithstanding the custom of opening it with a thanksgiving prayer in recognition of the Master of Life—a strictly religious act. The officers of the religious societies and assemblies were not the same as those who presided over the councils of chiefs. And it is noteworthy that a federal chief must not engage in warfare while clothed with the title and insignia of office; to do so he was required to resign his office of federal chief during his absence on the warpath. * * * * *