OF THE HUMAN FAMILY. I53 



the sole enemies remaining on their hands."' About the year 1G7G, the Siiscjuc- 

 hannocks made their submission to the Scnecas.^ 



Last were the Nottoways of Virginia, an inconsiderable band, who, with several 

 Algonkin nations, occupied a part of the area between the Potomac and Roanoke 

 Rivers. They are mentioned in treaties between the Colonial Governors of Vir- 

 ginia and the Iroquois as late as 1721.^ The foregoing are the only branches of 

 the Iroquois stock of which any knowledge has been preserved. The last three 

 named are now extinct, or rather have been dispersed and incorporated with other 

 nations. Above Montreal on the St. Lawrence, there is a small band called the " Two 

 Mountain Iroquois," who were colonists chiefly from the Mohawks and Oneidas. 



In addition to what has been stated of the probable immediate blood connection 

 of the Eries and Neutral nation with each other and with the Scnecas, there is 

 some evidence that the Hurons and Senecas were subdivisions of one original nation. 

 It is contained in their systems of relationship, both of which agree with each 

 other in the only particular in which the Seneca form differs from that of the other 

 Iroquois nations, except the Tuscarora ; and, therefore, tends to show that the 

 Seneca and Hurons were one nation after the Mohawks and Onondagas had become 

 distinct from the Senecas. If this be so, the original Iroquois stock before their 

 occupation of New York, and whilst they resided north of the St. Lawrence and 

 the Lakes, consisted of but four subdivisions, the Hurons or Senecas, the Tuscaro- 

 ras, the Onondagas, and the Mohawks ; or, in short, Senecas and Mohawks. 



At the formation of the league the Iroquois called themselves Ho-de-no-sau-nee, 

 " The People of the Long House," which term, notwithstanding its inconvenient 

 length, will furnish a proper name for this branch of the Ganowanian family.* 

 They symbolized their political structure by the figui-e of a " Long House," and 

 were always partial to this name, which was, in fact, their only designation for 

 themselves as one people." They were Village Indians to a very considerable 

 extent, although not exclusively such. In this respect they were in advance of 

 most of the northern Indian nations. In the drama of colonization the influence of 

 this Indian confederacy was conspicuously felt, and cast upon the side of the 

 English colonists. It is made clear by the retrospect that France must ascribe, in 

 no small degree, to the Iroquois, the overthrow of her great plans of empire in 

 North America. 



' Journal of Fronteuac's Voyage to Lake Ontario, Col. Ills., N. Y., ix, 110. 



" lb., ix. 227, Note 2. ^ lb , v. 673. 



■* The primitive bark bouse of the Iroquois was usually from forty to sixty feet in length, by about 

 fifteen to eighteen in width, comparted at equal distances, but with a common hall through the 

 centre, and with a door at each end of the hall, which were the only entrances. There were from 

 six to ten fire pits in each house, located in the centre of the hall, and so as to give a fire to each 

 compartment. There were two families to each fire, one upon each side of the hall. A house with 

 ten fires would thus accommodate twenty families. In ancient times these houses were clustered 

 together and surrounded with a stockade. The size of the village was estimated by the number of 

 houses, (eighty to one hundred and fifty forming the largest of their villages) ; and also by the num- 

 ber of fires. The idea revealed in this communal house of the Iroquois runs through all the architec- 

 ture of the Indian family. 



* League of the Iroquois, p. 51. 

 20 December, 1869. 



