first Indian friends.

Her new friends told her many beautiful things about the Red Children.
The more the writer learned about the Iroquois people, and things
Indian, the more interested she became. After a time she began to tell
the Paleface the things she had learned.

Soon, one of the tribes, the Senecas--the tribe to which her new friends
belonged--heard that she was speaking for them. They wished to honor
her, so they asked her to be present at their Green-Corn Feast, and
become one of them.

So when the Green-Corn moon hung her horn in the night sky, the writer
found the trail to the Land of the Senecas. There the Senecas adopted
her into the Snipe clan of their nation. She was called _Yeh sen noh
wehs_--"One who carries and tells the stories."

Thus it was that the writer became one of the Red Children, _Yeh sen noh
wehs_--the Daughter of the Senecas.

The more _Yeh sen noh wehs_ learned of the Red Children, and their
simple stories, the more she loved them. One day, _Yeh sen noh wehs_
said she would be the story-teller not only of the Senecas, but of all
the tribes of the Iroquois. There are six great families of this people.
Each family is called a tribe or nation.

Once, the council fires of these six nations burned from the Hudson on
the east, to Lake Erie on the west, and they were a great and powerful
people.

It was at the time of the Berry Moon that _Yeh sen noh wehs_ hit the
story trail. Since then she has journeyed through all the lands of the
Senecas, the Onondagas, the Cayugas, the Oneidas, the Mohawks, and the
Tuscaroras.

Like the story-teller of old, _Yeh sen noh wehs_ wandered from lodge to
lodge of the Iroquois. "_Hanio_," she would call, and as the Indians
gathered round, she would tell them one of the stories that other Indian
friends had told to her.

Sometimes this would remind the Red Children of another story, which
_Yeh sen noh wehs_ did not know, and they would tell it to her. It was
in this way that these stories have been gathered.

There were many days when _Yeh sen noh wehs_ told her stories, but none
were told in return. Few members of the tribes--these usually the
oldest--could remember the stories "they used to tell."

Sometimes _Yeh sen noh wehs_ heard a story as she trudged along a
furrow, beside a ragged Indian who was plowing with a more
ragged-looking team. Or she would listen as she helped an Indian woman
prepare the evening meal, pick berries, or gather nuts