Note 170-1 — Chapter VI

The names I8skeha and Ta8iscara I venture to identify with the Oneida owisske or owiska, white, and tetiucalas (tyokaras, tewhgarlars, Mohawk), dark or darkness. The prefix i to owisske is the impersonal third person singular; the suffix ha gives a future sense, so that i-owisske-ha or iouskeha means “it is going to become white.” Brebeuf gives a similar example of gaon, old; a-gaon-ha, il va devenir vieux (Rel. Nouv. France, 1636, p. 99). But “it is going to become white,” meant to the Iroquois that the dawn was about to appear, just as wanbighen, it is white, did to the Abnakis (see note on page 166), and as the Eskimos say, kau ma wok, it is white, to express that it is daylight (Richardson’s Vocab. of Labrador Eskimo in his Arctic Expedition). Therefore, that Ioskeha is an impersonation of the light of the dawn admits of no dispute.