_Deskenonghweronne_, or in the modern French orthography, _teskenonhweronne_, "we come to greet and thank," is a good example of the comprehensive force of the Iroquois tongue. Its root is _nonhwe_, or _nanwe_, which is found in _kenonhws_, I love, like, am pleased with--the initial syllable _ke_ being the first personal pronoun. In the frequentative form this becomes _kenonhweron_, which has the meaning of "I salute and thank," i.e., I manifest by repeated acts my liking or gratification. The _s_ prefixed to this word is the sign of the reiterative form: _skenonhweron_, "_again_ I greet and thank." The terminal syllable _ne_ and the prefixed _te_ are respectively the signs of the motional and the cislocative forms,--"I _come hither_ again to greet and thank." A word of six syllables, easily pronounced (and in the Onondaga dialect reduced to five) expresses fully and forcibly the meaning for which eight not very euphonious English words are required. The notion that the existence of these comprehensive words in an Indian language, or any other, is an evidence of deficiency in analytic power, is a fallacy which was long ago exposed by the clear and penetrative reasoning of Duponceau, the true father of American philology. [Footnote: See the admirable Preface to his translation of Zeisberger's Delaware Grammar, p. 94.] As he has well explained, analysis must precede synthesis. In fact, the power of what may be termed analytic synthesis,--the mental power which first resolves words or things into their elements, and then puts them together in new forms,--is a creative or co-ordinating force, indicative of a higher natural capacity than the act of mere analysis. The genius which framed the word _teskenonhweronne_ is the same that, working with other elements, produced the steam-engine and the telephone. _Ronkeghsota jivathondek_. Two translations of this verse were given by different interpreters. One made it an address to the people: "My forefathers--hearken to them!" i.e., listen to the words of our forefathers, which I am about to repeat. The other considered the verse an invocation to the ancestors themselves. "My forefathers! hearken ye!" The words will bear either rendering, and either will be consonant with the speeches which follow. The lines of this hymn have been thus cast into the metre of Longfellow's "Hiawatha:"-- "To the great Peace bring we greeting! To the dead chiefs kindred, greeting! To the warriors round him, greeting! To the mourning women, greeting! These our grandsires' words repeating, Graciously, O grandsires, hear us!"