X.] THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 389 



Problems of a different order are presented by the Algon- 

 quians' great rivals, the Iroquoians, whose social 



HP ! & 



and political organization has been made the subject i roq uoians. 

 of profound studies by several eminent American 

 and European ethnologists. Noted at all times for their proud 

 bearing, warlike spirit, and highly developed military system, they 

 have been called the " Romans of the New World," and despite 

 their limited numbers and long-standing inter-tribal feuds, such 

 was their superiority over the surrounding populations that a 

 great Iroquoian empire might have been established between the 

 Atlantic and the Mississippi had the advent of the Whites been 

 delayed a few generations longer. In the Laurentian region, 

 probably their cradle 1 , they formed originally two hostile sections, 

 the Huron-Erics ( Wyandots} and the Iroquois', that is, the histo- 

 rical "Five Nations" -Mohawks, Oneidas, Cayugas, Onondagoes, 

 and Senecas who became the "Six Nations" when joined by 

 the kindred Tuscaroras from North Carolina in 1712. After the 

 destruction or dispersion of the Eries by the Iroquois in 1656, 

 all the Wyandots disappear from history, and survive now only in 

 the names of the two great lakes Huron and Erie, so called from 

 these aborigines. 



In the south the chief member of the family are the Cherokis, 

 whose connection with the Iroquois, first suggested by Barton 

 (1798), has now been placed beyond doubt by Horatio Hale and 

 Gatschet. Much interest attaches also to this southern branch, 

 for the Cherokis, although they have made no name in history, 

 are recognised as amongst the most intelligent of all the North 

 American Indians. It was a Cheroki, Segwoya, better known 

 as George Guest, who in 1824 performed the re- Thg 

 markable intellectual feat of analysing the sounds Cheroki 



r , . . . . ,. Script. 



or his intricate polysynthetic tongue, and providing 



"A tradition of the Iroquois points to the St Lawrence region as the early 

 home of the Iroquoian tribes, whence they gradually moved down to the south- 

 west along the shores of the Great Lakes " (Powell, Indian Linguistic Families, 



P- 77)- 



' Iroquois, for which strained etymologies have been proposed, was the 

 common French name of the famous league known to the English as that of 

 the "Five," later "Six Nations," while they called themselves " Ongivehomve" 

 or "Superior Men." 



