haihhaih

Updated: June 21, 2025

This litany is sung in the usual style of their mourning or religious chants, with many long-drawn repetitions of the customary ejaculation haihhaih, an exclamation which, like the Greek "ai! ai!" belongs to the wailing style appropriate to such a monody. The expressions of the chant, like those of a Greek chorus, are abrupt, elliptical, and occasionally obscure.

Horatio Hale - The Iroquois Book of Rites