All these tribes were descendants and divisions of a single band of the original Huron-Iroquois family. The period when this separation occurred cannot now be ascertained, nor can it be determined when this band migrated from the north, where it had dwelt along the north shore of the River St. Lawrence. Tradition informs us that, having ascended the St. Lawrence to Lake Ontario and coasted its eastern shore to the mouth of the Oswego River, they entered through this channel to the central parts of New York. Their first settlements, they believe, were located on the Seneca River, where for a time they dwelt together. At a subsequent day they divided into bands and spread abroad to found new villages. One, crossing over to the Mohawk, established itself below Utica and afterwards became the Mohawk nation. This village, situated on the south side of the Mohawk River in Herkimer County, is supposed to have been the oldest settlement of that nation. For some years the Oneidas and Onondagas were one nation, but one part of it, having become established east of the Oneida Lake, in time became independent, while the other, planting itself in the Onondaga Valley and on the hills adjacent, became a separate nation. In like manner the Cayugas and Senecas were many years united and resided on the Seneca River, but one band of them, having located themselves on the east bank of the Cayuga Lake, grew in time into a distinct nation, while the residue, penetrating into the interior of Western New York, finally settled at the head of Canandaigua Lake, and there formed the nucleus of the Seneca nation.

It has been the universal law that primitive man separated into bands in his migrations and wanderings. The Iroquois is a good example of this. The division of the original offshoot into five tribes did not take place until after the adoption of the totemic principle. This original stock or group was divided into eight totems or clans or gens, and each of these totems had representation in each of the five tribes. Thus in each nation there were eight clans, which were arranged in two divisions, as follows:

All the institutions of the Iroquois have regard to the divisions of the people into clans. Originally, with reference to marriage, the Wolf, Bear, Beaver and Turtle clans, being brothers to one another and the women their sisters, were not allowed to intermarry. The four opposite clans, being also brothers to one another and the women their sisters, were not permitted to intermarry. Either of the first four clans could intermarry with either of the last four, the relation between them being that of cousins. And it is a strange circumstance that at the general councils of the league the tribes were divided into two classes which were arranged on opposite sides of the great council fire. On the one side stood the Mohawks, Onondagas and Senecas, as nations, brothers to one. another and fathers to the other nations. On the other side were the Oneidas, Cayugas, and at a subsequent day, the Tuscaroras, who, in like manner, were brother tribes or nations, but children of the first three.

This division of the Iroquois into eight clans or gens became the means of effecting the most perfect union of separate nations ever devised. In effect, the Wolf clan was divided into five parts (six parts after the admission of the Tuscarora) and one-fifth of it placed in each of the five tribes composing the league. The remaining clans were subject to the same divisions and distribution. Between those of the same name—or,

in other words, between the separate parts of each clan—there existed a tie of brotherhood, which linked the tribes of the league together with indissoluble bonds. The Mohawk of the Wolf clan recognized the Seneca of the Wolf clan as his brother, and theoretically they were bound together by ties of consanguinity, the belief being that they were descended from a common mother.

Before the formation of the league of the Hodenosaunee there had been no unity of action between the Iroquois after their development into nations in their new home. In fact it is probable that there had been war, and it is said that the Onondagas had conquered the Cayugas and the Senecas. But of this there is only dim tradition.

The founder of the league was a man of superior mind. He was a statesman. He saw that as fragments and separate tribes of a common people their interests were the same, if only petty jealousies could be overcome and very minor local advantages relinquished. It required many years to accomplish the confederation. This savage statesman is known by different names, one of which is Hi-a-wat-ha. This is the Hiawatha of Longfellow-an Iroquoian hero for an Algonquin story. Our poet had not made a careful study of the American Indians evidently. The historic seat of this remarkable people was a commanding military position-a strategic point. It commanded the entrance to the Great Lakes and the commencement of that great artery of travel and Indian commerce, the River St. Lawrence. It was at the head of the Hudson and the country of the Senecas reached down to the headwaters of the Ohio, which all Iroquoian tribes considered the main stream of the Mississippi. These tribes dominated the Ohio Valley from the day of the formation of their wonderful league. These great waterways enabled the Iroquois to easily reach the Algonquin peoples to the east, the Hurons to the north, Siouans to the northwest, and the Algonquins again on the west and southwest. They were entirely surrounded by other Indian tribes. These and the older portions of their own stock they attacked without fear and destroyed without mercy. They were the terror of all who knew them. The Mohawk, in their prowlings through dark forests, ranged to the shores of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and by the year 1600 had made conquest of all New England. The blood-curdling war-cry of the Senecas carried consternation to the dwellers at the westernmost extremity of Lake Superior.

The ferocity of the Iroquois is almost beyond belief or comprehension. Nation after nation, as populous and as brave as themselves, was attacked with indescribable fury and destroyed. The destruction of the Hurons was completed in 1649, that of the Neutral Nation in 1650-51, and that of the Eries in 1655. The annihilation of the Andastes was delayed a little and was not completely consummated until 1672.

While engaged in exterminating the tribes of their own blood, the Iroquois were also making conquest of the tribes of the Algonquin family. The Delawares were reduced to vassalage and made to put on petticoats and become women-a figure used to show their complete subjection. The Illinois, the Miamis and other tribes to the southwest were conquered and placed under the yoke of the masters of the league.

The Iroquois made complete conquest of the Ohio Valley as far south as the Tennessee River. Only Indian tradition lived to tell of the bloody horror of it. To show the reader how the Iroquois made war and what this conquest was, some examples will be given. In 1680 La Salle was descending the Illinois River. The Iroquois had sent a party to make war on the Illinois Indians. La Salle found that "The silence of death now reigned along the river, whose lonely borders, wrapped in deep forests, seemed lifeless as the grave. As they drew near the mouth of the stream they saw a meadow on their right and on its farthest verge

several human figures, erect, yet motionless. They landed and cautiously examined the place. The long grass was trampled down, and all around were strewn the relics of the hideous orgies which formed the ordinary sequel of an Iroquois victory. The figures they had seen were the halfconsumed bodies of women, still bound to the stakes where they had been tortured. Other sights there were too revolting for record."

Here is another scene enacted at a village of the Illinois. It was also in 1680: "Meanwhile a hideous scene was enacted at the ruined village of the Illinois. Their savage foes, balked of a living prey, wreaked their fury on the dead. They dug up the graves; they threw down the scaffolds. Some of the bodies they burned; some they threw to the dogs; some, it is affirmed, they ate. Placing the skulls on stakes as trophies, they turned to pursue the Illinois."

An event had occurred immediately before those here recorded:4 "They embarked again and soon approached the great town of the Illinois. The buffalo were far behind, and once more the canoes glided on their way through a voiceless solitude. No hunters were seen; no saluting whoop greeted their ears. They passed the cliff afterwards called the Rock of St. Louis, where La Salle had ordered Tonty to build his stronghold, but, as he scanned its lofty top, he saw no palisades, no cabins, no sign of human hand and still its primeval crest of forests overhung the gliding river. Now the meadow opened before them where the great town had stood. They gazed, astonished and confounded; all was desolation. The town had vanished and the meadow was black with fire. They plied their paddles, hastened to the spot, landed, and, as they looked around, their cheeks grew white and the blood was frozen in their veins.

"Before them lay a plain once swarming with wild human life and covered with Indian dwellings, now a waste of devastation and death. strewn with heaps of ashes and bristling with the charred poles and stakes which had formed the framework of the lodges. At the points of most of them were stuck human skulls, half picked by birds of prey. Near at hand was the burial-ground of the village. The travellers sickened with horror as they entered its revolting precincts. Wolves in multitudes fled at their approach, while clouds of crows or buzzards, rising from the hideous repast, wheeled above their heads or settled on the naked branches of the neighboring forest. Every grave had been rifled and the bodies flung down from the scaffolds, where, after the Illinois custom, many of them had been placed. The field was strewn with broken bones and torn and mangled corpses. A hyena warfare had been waged against the dead. La Salle knew the handiwork of the Iroquois. The threatened blow had fallen, and the wolfish hordes of the five cantons had fleshed their rabid fangs in a new victim.4a

"Not far distant the conquerors had made a rude fort of trunks, boughs and roots of trees laid together to form a circular enclosure, and this, too, was garnished with skulls, stuck on the broken branches and protruding sticks. The caches, or subterranean storehouses of the villages, had been broken open and the contents scattered. The corn fields were laid waste and much of the corn thrown into heaps and half burned.

La Salle and the Discovery of the West, 191 et seq.

4a The above may seem exaggerated; but it accords perfectly with what is well established concerning the ferocious character of the Iroquois, and the nature of their warfare. Many other tribes have frequently made war upon the dead. I have myself known an instance in which five corpses of Sioux Indians, placed in trees, after the practice of the Western bands of that people, were thrown down and kicked into fragments by a war party of the Crows, who then held the muzzles of their guns against the skulls, and blew them to pieces. This happened near the head of the Platte, in the summer of 1846. Yet the Crows are much less ferocious than were the Iroquois in La Salle's time.

As La Salle surveyed this scene of havoc, one thought engrossed him: where were Tonty and his men? He searched the Iroquois fort; there were abundant traces of its savage occupants and, among them, a few fragments of French clothing. He examined the skulls, but the hair, portions of which clung to nearly all of them, was in every case that of an Indian. Evening came on before he had finished the search. The sun set, and the wilderness sank to its savage rest. Night and silence brooded over the waste, where, far as the raven could wing his flight, stretched the dark domain of solitude and horror."

At an earlier day than that in which the foregoing events transpired the Iroquois had been the scourge of the French. In 1641 this is said of them:

"The Confederates at this time were in a flush of unparalleled audacity. They despised white men as base poltroons and esteemed themselves warriors and heroes, destined to conquer all mankind. The fire-arms with which the Dutch had rashly supplied them, joined to their united councils, their courage and ferocity, gave them an advantage over the surrounding tribes which they fully understood. Their passion rose with their sense of power. They boasted that they would wipe the Hurons, the Algonquins and the French from the face of the earth.” 5

The following quotation is selected as giving a more extended account of the aggressions of the Iroquois and their manner of conducting their

wars:

6

"A band of Algonquins late in the autumn of 1641 set forth from Three Rivers on their winter hunt, and, fearful of the Iroquois, made their way far northward into the depths of the forests that border the Ottawa. Here they thought themselves safe, built their lodges and began to hunt the moose and beaver. But a large party of their enemies, with a persistent ferocity that is truly astonishing, had penetrated even here, found the traces of the snow-shoes, followed up their human prey, and hid at nightfall among the rocks and thickets around the encampment. At midnight their yells and the blows of their war-clubs awakened their sleeping victims. In a few minutes all were in their power. They bound the prisoners hand and foot, rekindled the fire, slung the kettles, cut the bodies of the slain to pieces, and boiled and devoured them before the eyes of the wretched survivors. 'In a word,' says the narrator, 'they ate men with as much appetite and more pleasure than hunters eat a boar or a stag.' 6a

"Meanwhile they amused themselves with bantering their prisoners. 'Uncle,' said one of them to an old Algonquin, 'you are a dead man. You are going to the land of souls. Tell them to take heart: they will have good company soon, for we are going to send all the rest of your nation to join them. This will be good news for them.' b

"This old man, who is described as no less malicious than his captors, and even more crafty, soon after escaped and brought tidings of the disaster to the French. In the following spring two women of the party also escaped, after suffering almost incredible hardships, reached Three Rivers, torn with briers, nearly naked, and in a deplorable state of bodily and mental exhaustion. One of them told her story to Father Buteux, who translated it into French, and gave it to Vimont to be printed in the Relation of 1642. Revolting as it is, it is necessary to recount it. Suffice it to say, that it is sustained by the whole body of contemporary evidence in regard to the practices of the Iroquois and some of the neighboring tribes.

"The conquerors feasted in the lodge till nearly daybreak, and then, after a short rest, began their march homeward with their prisoners. Among these were three women, of whom the narrator was one, who had each a child of a few weeks or months old. At the first halt, their captors took the infants from them, tied them to wooden spits, placed them to die slowly before a fire, and feasted on them before the eyes of the agonized mothers, whose shrieks, supplications, and frantic efforts to break the cords that bound them were met with mockery and laughter. 'They are not men, they are wolves!' sobbed the wretched woman, as she told what had befallen her to the pitying Jesuit. At the Fall of the Chaudiere, another of the women ended her woes by leaping into the cataract. When they approached the first Iroquois town, they were met, at the distance of several leagues, by a crowd of the inhabitants, and among them a troop of women, bringing food to regale the triumphant warriors. Here they halted, and passed the night in songs of victory, mingled with the dismal chant of the prisoners, who were forced to dance for their entertainment.

6c

"On the morrow, they entered the town, leading the captive Algonquins, fast bound, and surrounded by a crowd of men, women, and children, all singing at the top of their throats. The largest lodge was ready to receive them; and as they entered, the victims read their doom in the fires that blazed on the earthen floor, and in the aspect of the attendant savages, whom the Jesuit Father calls attendant demons, that waited their coming. The torture which ensued was but preliminary, designed to cause all possible suffering without touching life. It consisted in blows with sticks and cudgels, gashing their limbs with knives, cutting off their fingers with clam-shells, scorching them with firebrands, and other indescribable torments. The women were stripped naked, and forced to dance to the singing of the male prisoners, amid the applause and laughter of the crowd. They then gave them food, to strengthen them for further suffering.

"On the following morning, they were placed on a large scaffold in sight of the whole population. It was a gala-day. Some mounted the scaffold, and scorched them with torches and firebrands; while the children, standing beneath the bark platform, applied fire to the feet of the prisoners between the crevices. The Algonquin women were told to burn their husbands and companions; and one of them obeyed, vainly trying to appease her tormentors. The stoicism of one of the warriors enraged his captors beyond measure. 'Scream! why don't you scream?' they cried, thrusting their burning brands at his naked body. 'Look at me,' he answered; 'you cannot make me wince. If you were in my place, you would screech like babies.' At this they fell upon him with redoubled fury, till their knives and firebrands left in him no semblance of humanity. He was defiant to the last, and when death came to his relief, they tore out his heart and devoured it; then hacked him in pieces, and made their feast of triumph on his mangled limbs.d

"All the men and all the old women of the party were put to death in a similar manner, though but few displayed the same amazing fortitude. The younger women, of whom there were about thirty, after passing their ordeal of torture, were permitted to live; and, disfigured as they were,

60 Vimont, Relation, 1642, 46.

od The diabolical practices described above were not peculiar to the Iroquois. The Neutrals and other kindred tribes were no whit less cruel. It is a remark of Mr. Gallatin, and I think a just one, that the Indians west of the Mississippi are less ferocious than those east of it. The burning of prisoners is rare among the prairie tribes, but is not unknown. An Ogillallah chief, in whose lodge I lived for several weeks in 1846, described to me, with most expressive pantomime, how he had captured and burned a warrior of the Snake Tribe in a valley of the Medicine Bow mountains, near which we were then encamped.