Viewed in its extremes, society, in the Iroquois cantons, still exhibits no unequivocal vestiges of the tie which bound them to the hunter state; and even, among the more advanced classes, there is too much dependence on means of living which mark either the absolute barbaric state, or the first grade of civilization. Hunters they are, indeed, no longer; yet it was desirable to ascertain how much of their present means of subsistence was derived from the chase. This will be found to be denoted in appropriate columns. It is gratifying to observe, that the amount is so small, nor is it less so, to the cause of Indian civilization, to remark, that the uncertain and scanty reward of time and labor which the chase affords, is less and less relied on, in the precise ratio that the bands and neighborhoods advance in agriculture and the arts. In cases where the cultivation of English grains and the raising of stock have thoroughly enlisted attention, the chase has long ceased to attract its ancient votaries, and in these instances, which embrace some entire bands, or chieftaincies, it has become precisely what it is, in civilized communities, where game yet exists, an amusement, and not a means of reward.

That delusive means of Indian subsistence, which is based on the receipt of money annuities from the government, still calls together annually, and sometimes oftener, the collective male population of these tribes, at an expense of time, and means, which is wholly disproportioned, both to the amount actually received, and the not unimportant incidental risques, moral and physical, incurred by the assemblage. I have denoted both the gross sum of these annuities, and the distributive share to heads of families, obtained from the office of the local government agent at Buffalo. These are believed to be authentic in amount. Estimated at the highest rate which can be taken, the sum, per capita, of these annuities, will not, on an average of crops and prices, for a series of years, equal the cash value of seven bushels of wheat—a product, which, as a means of actual subsistence to the Indian family, would be of double or treble value. But this is far from being the worst effect of both the general and per capita cash distribution. Time and health are not only sacrificed to obtain the pittance, but he is fortunate who does not expend the amount in the outward or return journey from the council house, or in the purchase of some showy but valueless articles, while attending there.

A still further evil, flowing from these annual gatherings for the payment of Indian annuities, is the stimulus which it produces in assembling at such places traders and speculating dealers of various kinds, who are versed in this species of traffic, and who well know the weak points of the native character, and how best to profit by them. In effect, few of the annuitants reach their homes with a dime. Most of them have expended all, and lost their time in addition. Health is not unfrequently sacrificed by living on articles, or in a manner not customary at home. The intemperate are confirmed in intemperance; and the idle, foppish and gay, are only more enamoured of idleness, foppishness and pleasure. That such a system, introduced at any early day, when it was policy for governments on this continent, foreign and domestic, to throw out a boon before wandering, hostile, and savage tribes, to display their munificence, and effect temporary interests, should have been continued to the present day, is only to be accounted for, from the accumulated duties, perpetually advancing jurisdiction, and still imperfectly organized state of that sub-department of the government, which exercises its, in some respects, anomalous administrative functions, under the name of the Indian Bureau. So far as the Iroquois are affected by the policy adverted to, their interests demand an immediate consideration of the subject on enlarged principles. It behooves them to meditate whether, as a people, now semi-civilized, and exercising, in their internal polity, the powers of an independent government, some more beneficial appropriation of the fund could not be made. Perhaps nothing would better serve to advance and exalt them, as a people, than the application of these annuities to constitute a confederate school fund, under some compact or arrangement with the State, by which the latter should stipulate to extend the frame-work of the common school system over their reservations.

Horticulture, to some extent, and in a limited sense, was always an incident to the hunter state among these tribes, so far, at least, as we are acquainted with their history. They brought the zea maize with them, we must concede, on their early migration to the banks of the Mohawk, and the Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga and Seneca basins; for this grain is conceded, on all hands, to be a tropical, or at least a southern plant, and if so, it reveals the general course of their migration. It is of indigenous origin, and was not known to Europe before the discovery. We learned the mode of cultivation from them, and not they from us. This grain became the basis of their fixity of population, in the 14th or 15th centuries, and capacity to undertake military enterprises. It was certainly cultivated in large fields, in their chief locations, and gave them a title to agriculturists; but it is equally certain that they had a kind of bean, perhaps the same called frijoles by the early Spaniards, and some species of cucurbita. These were cultivated in gardens.

The tables will show a general and considerable advance, or any probable assumed basis, of the cultivation of corn. We cannot consider this species of cultivation, however, as any characteristic evidence of advance in agriculture, while the more general introduction of it, and the harvesting of large fields of it, by separate families, is undoubtedly to be considered so. Taking the item of corn as the test, another and an important result will be perceived. In proportion as the cereales are cultivated, the average quantity of corn is diminished; and these are the very cases where, at the same time, the degree of civilization is most apparent in other things.

The condition of herdsmen is deemed by theorists and historians to be the first step in the progress from the hunter state. But we are in want of all evidence to show that there ever was, in America, a pastoral state. In the first place, the tribes had tamed no quadruped, even in the tropics, but the lama. The bison was never under any subjection, nor a fleece ever gathered, so far as history tells us, from the Big-horn or Rocky Mountain sheep. The horse, the domestic cow, the hog and the common sheep, were brought over after the discovery; and the Iroquois, like most of their western brethren, have been very slow, all advantages considered, in raising them. They have, in fact, had no pastoral state, and they have only become herdsmen at the time that they took hold of the plough. The number of domestic animals now on their reservations, as shown by the tables, bears a full proportion to their other industrial field labors. It will be seen, that while horses, neat cattle and hogs are generally raised, sheep come in, at more mature periods of advance, and are found only on the largest and best cultivated farms. Sheep, therefore, like the cereales, become a test of their advance. With this stage, we generally find, too, the field esculents, as turnips, peas, &c. and also buckwheat. I have indicated, as a further proof of their advance as herdsmen and graziers, the number of acres of meadow cut. The Iroquois cultivate no flax. They probably raise no rye, from the fact that their lands are better adapted to wheat and corn.

The potato was certainly indigenous. Sir Walter Raleigh, in his efforts at colonizations, had it brought from Virginia, under the original name of openawg.5 But none of the North American tribes are known to have cultivated it. They dug it up, like other indigenous edible roots from the forest. But it has long been introduced into their villages and spread over the northern latitudes, far beyond the present limit of the zea maize. Its cultivation is so easy and so similar to that of their favorite corn, and its yield so great, that it is remarkable it should not have received more general attention from all the tribes. With the Iroquois, the lists will denote that, in most cases, it is a mere item of horticulture, most families not planting over half an acre, often not more than a quarter of an acre, and yet more frequently, none at all.

The apple is the Iroquois banana. From the earliest introduction of this fruit into New-York and New-France, from the genial plains of Holland and Normandy, these tribes appear to have been captivated by its taste, and they lost no time in transferring it, by sowing the seed, to the sites of their ancient castles. No one can read the accounts of the destruction of the extensive orchards of the apple, which were cut down, on Gen. Sullivan’s inroad into the Genesee country in 1779, without regretting that the purposes of war should have required this barbaric act. The census will show that this taste remains as strong in 1845, as it was 66 years ago.

Adverse to agricultural labor, and always confounding it with slavery, or some form of servitude, at least, deeming it derogatory, the first effort of the Iroquois to advance from their original corn-field and garden of beans and vines is connected with the letting out of their spare lands to white men who were cast on the frontiers, to cultivate, receiving for it some low remuneration in kind or otherwise, by way of rent. This system, it is true, increased a little their means of subsistence, but nourished their native pride and indolence. It seems to have been particularly a practice of the Iroquois, and it has been continued and incorporated into their present agricultural system. I have taken pains to indicate, in every family, the amount of land thus let, and the actual or estimated value received for it. These receipts, I was informed, low as they are in amount, are generally paid in kind, or in such manner as often to diminish their value and effect, in contributing to the proper sustenance of the family.

I have been equally careful to ascertain the number of families who cultivated no lands, and insert them in the tables. The division of real property among this people appears to fall under the ordinary rules of acquisition in other societies. But it is not to be inferred in all cases, that the individual returned as without land has absolutely no right to any, or having this right, has either forfeited or alienated it, although the laws of the tribes respecting property, permit one Iroquois to convey his property in fee to another. It is only to be inferred, in every case, that they are non-cultivators. In a few cases the persons thus marked are mechanics, and rely for support on their skill. In the valley of the Allegheny, some of them are pilots in conducting rafts of lumber or arks down that stream. It would have relieved the industrial means of this band of the Senecas, extended as they are for forty miles along both banks of this river, could the amount received for this species of pilotage have been ascertained, together with the avails derived from several saw-mills owned by them, and from the lumber trade of that river generally. But these questions would have remained a blank in other tribes.

Not a few persons amongst the Onondagas and Tuscaroras, and the Tonewandas and other bands of Senecas, living in or contiguous to the principal wheat growing counties, labor during the harvest season as reapers and cradlers, for skill and ability in which occupations they bear a high reputation, and receive good wages in cash. There are a few engaged some parts of the year, as mariners on the lakes. It will be sufficient to denote these varied forms of incipient labor and strength of muscle and personal energy among these tribes, which it was, however, impracticable to bring into the tables.

Individual character vindicates its claims to wealth and distinction among these tribes in as marked a manner as among any people in the world. Industry, capacity and integrity, are strongly marked on the character and manners of numbers in each of the tribes. The art of speaking, and a facility in grasping objects of thought, and in the transaction of business, separate and distinguish persons as fully as physical traits do their faces. And it is to be observed that these intellectual traits run very much in certain families. That there are numbers, on the contrary, who are drones in the political hive, who do not labor, or labor very little; others who are intemperate; others who neither work nor own land, or would long remain proprietors of them, were new divisions and appropriations made, and all of whom are a burden and drawback upon the industrious and producing classes, it requires little observation to show. Admitting what reforms teaching and example may accomplish among these, it is yet certain that of this number there are many who do not assimilate, or appear to constitute material for assimilation, in tastes and habits with the mass, nor appear likely to incorporate with them in any practical shape where they now reside, in their advances in agriculture, government and morals. The hunter habit in these persons is yet strong, but having nothing to stimulate it, they appear loth to embrace other modes of subsistence. Others stand aloof from labor, or at least all active and efficient labor, from a restless desire of change, or ambition to do something else than plough and raise stock; or from ill-luck, penury, or other motives. The proportion of the population who thus stand still and do not advance in civil polity, are a strong draw-back on the rest. It is conceived to be a pertinent question whether this class of the population would not find a better theatre for their progress and development by migrating to the west, where the general government still possess unappropriated territory at their disposal. It is believed by many that their migration would result in benefit to both parties. The question is one which has been often discussed by them in council, and is not yet, I should judge, fully settled. A point of approach for the Iroquois has already been formed in the Indian territory by the Senecas and Shawnees from Sandusky in Ohio, who, at the last accounts (vide President’s Message to Congress, 1844,) number in the aggregate 336 souls. They are located on the Neosho river, (a branch of the Arkansas,) west of the western boundary of the State of Arkansas, where the reports of the government agents represent them as raising horses, cattle and other stock, and being producers of grain. In any view, the subject of the several classes of persons represented in the accompanying tables, as semi-hunters and non-cultivators, or individuals without lands, is one entitled to attention. They should not be permitted to live within the boundaries of the State without lands. The State should cherish all who choose to remain as vestiges of a once powerful race, to whose wisdom and bravery we owe the preservation of the domain. It would be unjust to expect the industrious and forehanded Iroquois to redivide their lands with the poor, and, to some extent, thriftless numbers of the cantons; while it may, at the same time be observed, that it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to provide by legislation, suitable guards against their deterioration and depopulation in their present locations without destroying wholly the fabric of their confederation, chieftainships and laws.

IV. Whether the Iroquois have advanced in population since they have laid aside the character of warriors and hunters, and adopted agriculture as their only means of support, we have no accurate data for determining. That their ancient population was overrated, and very much overrated, at all periods of our history, there can be little question. We may dismiss many of these rude conjectures, of the elder writers, as entitled to little notice, particularly that of La Houton, who estimates each canton at 14,000 souls. Still, after making every abatement for this tendency in the earlier authors to exaggerate their actual numbers, it could have been no small population, which, at one time, attacked the island of Montreal with twelve hundred armed warriors, and at another (1683) marched a thousand men against the Ottagamies.6

Smith puts the whole number of fighting men, in 1756, with a moderation which is remarkable, compared to others who had touched the subject, at about twelve hundred. Giving to each warrior a home population of five, which is found to hold good, in modern days, in the great area of the west, we should have an aggregate of 6,000—a result, which is, probably, too low. Douglass, four years afterwards, gives us data for raising this estimate to 7,500. Col. Bouquet, still four years later, raises this latter estimate by 250. It must be evident that their perpetual wars had a tendency to keep down their numbers, notwithstanding their policy of aiding their natural increase by the adoption and incorporation into the cantons, in full independence, of prisoners and captives.

Mr. Jefferson estimates the population of the Powhatanic confederacy or group of tribes, at one individual to the square mile.7 Gov. Clinton, who ably handled the subject in a discourse in 1811, estimates that, if this rule be applied to the domain of the Iroquois in New-York, an aggregate of not less than 30,000 would be produced;8 but he does not pass his opinion upon an estimate made so completely without reliable data.

At a conference with the five cantons at Albany, in 1677, the number of warriors was carefully made out at 2,150, giving, on the preceding mode of computation, a population of 10,750, and this was the strength of the confederacy reported by an agent of the Governor of Virginia, who had been specially despatched to the conference for the purpose of obtaining this fact. Either, then, in the subsequent estimates of 1756, ’60, and ’64, the population had been underrated, or there had, on the assumption of the truth of the above enumeration, which is moderate, been a decline in the population of 3,000 souls in a period of eighty-seven years. That there was a constant tendency to decline, and that the cantons were aware of this, and made efforts to keep it up, by the policy of their conquests, is apparent, and has before been indicated.

During the American revolution, which broke out but eleven years after the expedition and estimate of Bouquet, when he had put the Iroquois at 1,550 fighting men, it is estimated that the British government had in their interest and service 1,580 warriors of this confederacy. The highest number noticed of the friendly Oneidas and a few others, who sided with us in that contest, is 230 warriors, raising the number of armed men engaged in the war, to 1,810, and the gross population in 1776 to 9,050 souls. This estimate, which appears to have been carefully made, from authentic documents, is the utmost that could well be claimed. It was made at the era when danger prompted the pen of either party in the war to exhibit the military strength of this confederacy, in its utmost power; and we may rest here, as a safe point of comparison, or, at least, we cannot admit a higher population.

By the census returns herewith submitted, the aggregate population of the three full, and four fragmentary cantons, namely, the Oneidas and Cayugas, &c. still residing within the State, are denoted to be as follows, namely:

By a statement submitted to Congress, on the 3d of December, 1844,9 the number of Oneidas, settled in Wisconsin, is put at 722; the number of Senecas, who have removed from Ohio into the Indian territory west of the Mississippi, at 125, and the number of mixed Senecas and Shawnees, at the same general location, at 211. Deducting one-half of the latter, for Shawnees, and there is to be added to the preceding census, in order to show the natural increase of the Iroquois, 953 souls. The number of the St. Regis tribe, who are based, as a tribe, on the Praying Indians of Colden,—a band of Catholic Mohawks originally located at Caughnawaga is shewn by the present year’s census to be 360. There are, at the village of Cornplanter, within the bounds of Pennsylvania, as numbered by me, the present year, 51 Senecas. Supposing that the Mohawks and Cayugas who fled to Canada at and after the revolutionary war, and who are now settled at Brantford on Grand river, Canada West, have merely held their own, in point of numbers, and deducting the number of Cayugas, namely, 144, found among the Senecas of Cattaraugus, and herewith separately returned, and taking Dalton’s estimate of the Mohawks and Cayugas in 1776, namely, 300 warriors for each tribe, there is to be added, to the census, to accomplish the same comparative view, two thousand eight hundred and fifty souls. From this estimate, there must be deducted, for a manifest error, in the original estimates of Dalton, in putting the Cayugas on the same footing of strength with the Mohawks, not less than 150 warriors or 750 souls, leaving the Canadian Iroquois at 2,106—say 2,000 souls.

Adding these items to the returns of the present census, and the rather extraordinary result will appear, that there is now existing in the United States and Canada a population of 6,942 Iroquois, that is to say, but 2,108 less than the estimated number, and that number placed as high as it well could be, at the era of the revolution in 1776. Of this number, 4,836 inhabit the United States, and 3,843 the State of New-York. I cannot, however, submit this result without expressing the opinion, that the Iroquois population has been lower, between the era of the revolutionary war and the present time, than the census now denotes; and that for some years past, and since they have been well lodged and clothed and subsisted by their own labor, and been exempted from the diseases and casualties incident to savage life, and the empire of the forest, their population has recovered and IS NOW ON THE INCREASE.

I have thus brought to a close, so far as relates to their population and industrial efforts, the inquiry committed to me respecting this nation. It would perhaps have gratified statistical curiosity and philosophical theory, to have exhibited fuller data on the subject of their longevity and vital statistics generally, but it may be considered in the light of an achievement to have accomplished thus much. The general result indicates five, with a large fraction, as the average number of the Iroquois family. Throughout each canton, the number of females predominates over the males. This is a fact which has been long known to hold good with respect to wandering, predatory and warlike tribes, but was not anticipated among peaceful, agricultural communities. But few years, however, have supervened since they dropped the hatchet and took hold of the plough; and in this time, it is apparent that the proportion of males to females has approached nearer to an equilibrium. The effects on vitality of agricultural labor and a cessation from war, are likewise favorable, so far as we can judge, compared with the known results among the sparse, ill fed, warring and errating hunters of the western forests and prairies. The average number of the Iroquois family is not higher than the common average of the hunter state. The number of children borne by each female is a considerable fraction over four. Of a population of 312 Tuscaroras, five have reached to and passed the age of 80, or over 1¾ per cent. Among the Senecas and Cayugas of Cattaraugus, the per centage is 1½, with a smaller fraction, 12 persons in 808 having passed that limit. Local causes have diminished this to one per cent nearly on the Buffalo reservation. On the contrary, it is found to be increased in the valley of the Alleghany to full two per cent. The ruling chief of that tribe, Ten won ny ahs, of Teonegono, commonly called Blacksnake, is now in his ninety-sixth year, and is active and hale, and capable of performing journies to the annual assemblies of his people at Buffalo.

I should not have fulfilled the principal object in view, without directing some attention to the effects of the labors of past years in the introduction, into the Iroquois cantons, of education, letters and Christianity. So much of this branch of the inquiry as admits of arithmetical notice, will appear, either under the ordinary heads of the census, or the additional columns which have been prepared under the headings of “statistics of occupation and of morality.” The residue, comprising some remarks on the schools and churches, the present state of Iroquois society and manners, and the general condition and prospects of the cantons, will be included in the supplementary report and documents. I shall also defer to the same time, a particular notice of their annuities, and the extent of their ancient domain, and the periods of its cession to the State or general government.

In closing this report, it may be well to notice the fact that there are yet remaining in the State, some vestiges of the Algonquin race, who, under various distinctive names, occupied the southern portion of the State at the era of its discovery and colonization. As the language of the census act refers to such Indians only as live on the “reservations,” I have not felt it to be within the scope of my appointment to search out and visit these scattered individuals, although I should have been gratified to make this inquiry. It is believed that they are comprised by about twenty of the Shinecock tribe, who yet haunt the inlets and more desolate portions of Long island, and by a very few lingering members of the ancient Mohegans, who, under the soubriquet of Stockbridges, yet remain in Oneida county. The bulk of this people, so long the object of missionary care, migrated to the banks of Fox river and Winnebago lake, in Wisconsin, about 1822. They were followed to that portion of the west, about the same time, or soon after, by the small consolidated band of Nanticokes, Narragansetts, and other early coast tribes, who, in concentrating in the Oriskany valley, after the close of the revolutionary war, dropped their respective languages, learned the English, and assumed the name of Brothertons. Both these migrated tribes were in an advanced state of semi-civilization, and were good farmers and herdsmen at the era of their removal.

I am, sir,
With respect,
Your ob’t servant,
HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT,
Marshal under the 15th section of the census act.

Hon. Nathaniel S. Benton,
Secretary of State.

SUPPLEMENTARY REPORT.
Of Henry R. Schoolcraft to the Secretary of State.

ANTIQUITIES—HISTORY—ETHNOLOGY.

New-York, January 7th, 1846.

Sir:—I have now the honor to submit a supplementary report, embracing minutes and remarks on the aboriginal history, antiquities and general ethnology of Western New-York, made in accordance with an expression permitting the collection of such materials in your general instructions of the 26th of June last.

To these details I have prefixed some general considerations on the early period of the Iroquois history, the affinities of the several tribes, and the era and principles of their confederation; the antiquarian remains and general archæology of the western countries; the ancient state of Indian art; some traits of their traditions and religion; and a few connected topics which, it is hoped, will tend to render the report more acceptable and valuable.

I regret, indeed, that time has not permitted me to enter more fully on some of the topics introduced, and that of others, I have been obliged to cut them short or omit them altogether, including the subject of their languages, geographical terminology, and personal names, the latter of which is a very curious inquiry of itself. I confess it would have fallen in with my inclinations, as well as my conceptions of the true nature and extent of the inquiries confided to me, to have extended them to other parts of the State, and given a more complete view of our ethnology, had it been practicable to do so before the meeting of the Legislature.

I cannot, however, close this note without expressing the hope that the Legislature will authorize you to take further measures for completing the work. There are a large number of the class of antique, circular and elliptical works scattered over the western and southwestern part of the State, of an age anterior to the discovery, which it would be important to examine and describe. These chiefly lie west of Cayuga, and upon the sources of the Susquehanna. Interspersed amid this system of common ring-forts of the west there are some of a still earlier period, which exhibit squares and parallelograms, yet without any defensive work in the nature of bastions.

The area of early French occupancy, or attempt at colonization, within the State, extends east and west between the waters of the Cayuga and Oneida lakes, as general boundaries, having the county of Onondaga as its chief and central point. This area will comprehend the most striking part of the numerous remains of implements of art, and other antiquities of European origin, which have heretofore excited attention. How far these evidences extend north is not known. But any examination of either the aboriginal or foreign remains would be incomplete which did not extend also along the line of the St. Lawrence and the waters of Lake Champlain.

The valley of the Hudson, and the southern part of the State generally, although it has not been explored with this view, is known to have some antiquarian features worthy examination. And were there none others than the artificial shell mounds and beds on the sea coast and the fossil bones of the valley, so remarkable in themselves, these would alone be entitled to the highest interest in studying the ancient history of the races of man in this area.

Geological action subsequent to the period of the habitation of the globe, has not been examined with this view, but is believed to be important in denoting eras of former occupancy; it is known that various parts of the State have yielded, at considerable depths below the surface, many curious evidences of artificial remains, along with relics of the animal and vegetable kingdoms.

There is an apparent extension of the system of works which characterize the fort and mound period of the Ohio valley, reaching from the Alleghany waters in Chautauque and Cattaraugus, along the southern shore of Lake Erie, indefinitely eastward, which it would be interesting to trace.

One of the most reliable proofs of eras and races of men is found in the remains of art.

There are some striking coincidences in this respect between the antiquities of New-York and the Mississippi valley, which denote precisely the same state of arts and the same eras of occupancy. Such are the Minace Alleghanic which occurs alike in the Grave Creek mound and the simple places of sepulture in Onondaga, the Nabikoaguna Antique, which has been found at Upper Sandusky and at Onondaga; and the Medaëka Missouri, from the valley of the Sciota, in Ohio, and the Kasonda in New-York.

Accurate descriptions of the whole class of our antiquarian remains could not, if thoroughly executed, but throw much light on, and introduce precision in, periods of remote history in this State, and indeed the continent, which are now either involved in obscurity, or constitute themes of mere conjecture.

I. HISTORICAL AND ETHNOLOGICAL MINUTES.
MADE ON TAKING THE CENSUS OF THE IROQUOIS OF NEW-YORK, IN CONFORMITY WITH AN ACT OF THE LEGISLATURE, IN 1845.

[a.] A Sketch of the Iroquois Groupe of Aboriginal Tribes.

On the discovery of North America, the Iroquois tribes, were found seated chiefly in the wide and fertile territory of western and northern New-York, reaching west to the sources of the Ohio;10 north, to the banks of Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence; and east, to the site of Albany. They had as much nationality of character, then, as any of the populous tribes, who, in the 4th century wandered over central and western Europe. They were, in a high degree, warlike, handling the bow and arrow with the skill and dexterity of the ancient Thracians and Parthians. They were confederated in peace and war, and had begun to lay the foundations of a power, against which, the surrounding nations, in the Mississippi valley, and along the St. Lawrence, the Hudson, and the Delaware, could not stand. The French, when they effectually entered the St. Lawrence in 1608,11 courted their alliance on the north, and the Dutch did the same in 1609, on the Hudson. Virginia had been apprised of their power, at an early day, and the other English colonies, as they arrived, were soon made acquainted with the existence of this native confederacy in the north. By putting fire-arms into their hands, they doubled the aboriginal power, and became themselves, for more than a century, dependant on their caprice or friendship.

The word Iroquois, as we are told by Charlevoix, who is a competent and reliable witness on this point, is founded on an exclamation, or response, made by the sachems and warriors, on the delivery to them, of an address. This response, as heard among the Senecas, it appeared to me, might be written eoh; perhaps, the Mohawks, and other harsher dialects of this family, threw in an r, between the vowels. It is recorded in the term Iroquois, on French principles of annotation, with the substantive inflection in ois, which is characteristic of French lexicography. It is a term which has been long, and extensively used, both for the language and the history of this people; and is preferable, on enlarged considerations, to any other. The term Five Nations, used by Colden, and in popular use during the earlier period of the colony, ceased to be appropriate after the Tuscarora revolt in North Carolina, and the reunion of this tribe with the parent stock, subsequent to 1712. From that period they were called the Six Nations,12 and continued to acquire increased reputation as a confederacy, under this name, until the termination of the American Revolution in 1783, and the flight of the Mohawks and Cayugas to Canada, when this partial separation and breaking up of the confederacy, rendered it no longer applicable.

The term New-York Indians, applied to them in modern days, by the eminence in their position, is liable to be confounded, by the common reader, with the names of several tribes of the generic Algonquin family, who formerly occupied the southern part of the State, down to the Atlantic. Some of these tribes lived in the west, and owned and occupied lands, among the Iroquois, until within a few years. And, at any rate, it is too vague and imprecise a term to be employed in philology or history.

By the people themselves, however, neither the first nor the last of the foregoing terms appear ever to have been adopted, nor are they now used. They have no word to signify “New-York” in a sense more specific, than as the territory possessed by themselves—a claim which they were certainly justified in making, at the era of the discovery, when they are admitted, on all hands, to have carried their conquests to the sea.

The term Ongwe Honwe, or a people surpassing all others, which Colden was informed they applied proudly to themselves, may be strictly true, if limited, as they did, to mean a people surpassing all other red men. This they believed, and this was the sense in which they boastfully applied it. But it was a term older than the discovery, and had no reference to European races. The word Honwe, as will appear by the vocabulary hereto appended, means man. By the prefixed term Ongwe, it is qualified according to various interpretations, to mean real, as contradistinguished from sham men, or cowards; it may also mean strong, wise, or expert men, and, by ellipsis, men excelling others in manliness. But it was in no other sense distinctive of them. It was the common term for the red race of this continent, which they would appear, by the phrase, to acknowledge as a unity, and is, the word as I found it, used at this day, as the equivalent for our term “Indian.”

Each tribe had, at some period of their progress, a distinctive appellation, as Onondaga, Oneida, &c. of which some traditionary matter will be stated, further on. When they came to confederate, and form a general council, they took the name of Konoshioni, (or as the French authors write it, Acquinoshioni), meaning literally, People of the Long House, and figuratively a United People, a term by which they still denominate themselves, when speaking in a national sense. This distinction, it is well to bear in mind, and not confound. This Long House, to employ their own figure, extended east and west from the present site of Albany to the foot of the great lakes, a distance, by modern admeasurement, of 325 miles, which is now traversed by railroad. An air palace, we may grant them, having beams and rafters, higher and longer than any pile of regal magnificence, yet reared by human hands.

Thus much may be said, with certainty, of the name of this celebrated family of red men, by which they are identified and distinguished from other stocks of the hunter tribes of North America. Where they originated, relatively to their position on this continent, the progress of ethnology does not, at this incipient period of that science, enable us to determine, nor is it proposed, save with the merest brevity, now to inquire. Veiling their own origin, if anciently known, in allegory, or designing by fancy to supply the utter want of early history, to the intent, perhaps, that they might put forth an undisputed title to the country they occupied, the relations of their old sages affirm that they originated in the territorial area of western New-York. Their tradition on this point, as put on record by the pen of one of their own people, (see extracts from Cusic’s historical and traditionary tract, hereto appended,) fixes the locality of their actual origin at an eminence near the falls of the Oswego river. To cut short the narration, they assert that their ancestors were called forth, from the bowels of a mountain, by Tarenyawagon, the Holder of the Heavens. It represents them as one people, who moved first towards the east, as far as the sea, and then fell back, partly on their own tracks, towards the west and southwest. So far, and so far only, the tale appears credible enough, and as there is no chronology established by it, although dates are freely introduced, and consequently nothing to contradict it, their track of migration and countermigration from the Oswego, may be deemed as probable.

The diversities of language, and the separation into tribes, are represented to have taken place, according to known principles of ethnological inference.

Ondiyaka, an Onondaga sage, and the ruling chief of the confederacy, who died on an official visit to the Oneidas in 1839, at the age of ninety, confirmed these general traditions of the Tuscarora scribe. He informed Le Fort, who was with him in that journey and at his death, that the Onondagas were created by Neo,13 in the country where they lived; that he made this island or continent, “Hawoneo,” for the red race, and meant it for them alone. He did not allude to or acknowledge any migration from other lands. This, Le Fort, himself an Onondaga, a chief, and an educated man, told me during the several interviews I had with him, the present year, at the Onondaga Castle.

Ondiyaka proceeded to say, as they walked over the ancient ruins in the valley of the Kasonda,14 that this was the spot where the Onondagas formerly lived, before they fixed themselves in the Onondaga valley, and before they had entered into confederation. In those days they were at enmity with each other; they raised the old forts to defend themselves. They wandered about a great deal. They frequently changed their places of residence. They lived in perpetual fear. They kept fighting, and moving their villages often. This reduced their numbers, and rendered their condition one of alarms and trials. Sometimes they abandoned a village, and all their gardens and clearings, because they had encountered much sickness, and believed the place to be doomed. They were always ready to hope for better luck in a new spot. At length they confederated, and then their fortifications were no longer necessary, and fell into decay. This, he believed, was the origin of these old ruins, which were not of foreign construction.15 Before the confederacy, they had been not only at war among themselves, but had been driven by other enemies.16 After it, they carried their wars out of their own country, and began to bring home prisoners. Their plan was to select for adoption from the prisoners, and captives, and fragments of tribes whom they conquered. These captives were equally divided among each of the tribes, were adopted and incorporated with them, and served to make good their losses. They used the term, We-Hait-Wat-Sha, in relation to these captives. This term means a body cut into parts and scattered around. In this manner, they figuratively scattered their prisoners, and sunk and destroyed their nationality, and built up their own.