It is an interesting fact, as showing the antiquity of the names of the chiefs in the foregoing list, that at least a fourth of them are of doubtful etymology. That their meaning was well understood when they were borne by the founders of the League cannot be questioned. The changes of language or the uncertainties of oral transmission, in the lapse of four centuries, have made this large proportion of them either obsolete or so corrupt as to be no longer intelligible. Of all the names it may probably be affirmed with truth that the Indians who hear them recited think of their primitive meaning as little as we ourselves think of the meaning of the family names or the English titles of nobility which we hear or read. To the Iroquois of the present day the hereditary titles of their councillors are--to use their own expression--"just names," and nothing more. It must not be supposed, however, that the language itself has altered in the same degree. Proper names, as is well known, when they become mere appellatives, discharged of significance, are much more likely to vary than the words of ordinary speech. NOTES ON THE ONONDAGA BOOK 1 _a. Yo onen onen wen ni sr te,_ "oh now--now this day." It will be noticed that this address of the "younger brothers" commences in nearly the same words which begin the speeches of the Canienga book. This similarity of language exists in other parts of the two books, though disguised by the difference of dialect, and also by the very irregular and corrupt spelling of the Onondaga book. To give some idea of this irregularity, and of the manner in which the words of this book are to be pronounced, several of these words are subjoined, with the pronunciation of the interpreter, represented in the orthography of the Canienga book: _Words as written._ _As pronounced by La Fort._ wen ni sr te wennisaate ho gar a nyat hogaenyat son tar yen sontahien na ya ne nayeneh o shon ta gon gonar osontagongona gar weear har tye gawehehatie on gwr non sen shen tar qua ongwanonsenshentakwa ga nen ar ta (or, ga nen ar ti) ganenhate kon hon wi sats konthonwitsas o wen gr ge ohwengage nar ya he yr genh nayehiyaken.