CAKADA, A TYPICAL EACE OF AMEliiOAN ABOEIOINES. 105 



that remote century when confederated Iroquois and Algonkius swept in triumphant 

 fury through, the wasted valley of the Ohio, and repeated there what Goth and Hun 

 did for Europe, in Eome's decline and fall. The long-settled and semi-civilized Mound- 

 Builders, or Alligéwi, as we are learning to call them, fled before the furious onset, leav- 

 ing the great river-valley a desolate waste. The barrier of an old-settled and well- 

 organized community, which, probably for centuries, had kept America's northern bar- 

 barians in check, was removed ; and the fierce Huron-Iroquois stock ranged at will over 

 the eastern regions of the continent, far southward of the North Carolina river-valleys, 

 where the Nottoways and Tuscaroras found a new home. As to the Nottoways, they 

 appear to have passed out of all rememberauce as an Iroquois tribe ; yet it is suggestive 

 of a long-forgothen chapter of Indian history, that the name is still in use among the 

 northern Algonkins as the designation of the whole Iroquois stock. The Nottawa-saga 

 is, doubtless, a memorial of their presence on the Greorgian Bay ; and the Notaway 

 [Nuhduhiue) Eiver which falls into Hudson Bay at James Bay, is so named in memory of 

 Huron-Iroquois wanderers into that Algonkin region. 



Some portion of the ancient Huron stock tarried on the banks of the St. Lawrence, in 

 what is known to us now as the traditional cradle-land of those Canadian aborigines. 

 Others found their way down the Hudson, or selected new homes for themselves on the 

 rivers and lakes that lay to the west, till they reached the shores of Lake Erie ; and all that 

 is now the populous region of Western New York was in occupation of the Iroquois race. 

 Feuds broke out between them and the parent stock in the valley of the St. Lawrence. 

 They meted out to them the same destruction as to strangers ; and the survivors, aban- 

 doning their ancient home, fl.ed westward in search of settlements beyond their 

 reach. The Greorgian Bay lay remote from the territory of the Iroquois, but the nations 

 of the Wyandot stock spread beyond it, tintil the Niagara peninsula and the fertile regions 

 between Lake Huron and Lake Erie were occupied by them, and the Niagara river alone 

 kept apart what were now hostile tribes. But wherever we are able to apply the test of 

 linguistic evidence their affinities are placed beyond dispute. On the other hand, the 

 multiplication of dialects, and their development into separate languages, are no less 

 apparent, and in many ways help to throw light on the history of the race. 



The old Huron mother-tongue still partially preserves the labials which have disap- 

 peared from all the Iroquois languages. The Mohawk approaches nearest to this, and 

 appears to be the main stem from whence the other languages of the Six Nations have 

 branched off. But the diversities in speech of the various members of the confederacy 

 leave no room to doubt the prolonged isolation of the several tribes, or " nations," before 

 they were induced to recognize the claims of consanguinity, and to baud together for their 

 common interest. Some of the diversities of tongue, specially noteworthy, have already 

 been pointed out, such, as the r sound which predominates in the Mohawk, while the / 

 takes its place in the Oneida. In the Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca, they are no longer 

 heard. The last of these reduces the primary forms to the narrowest range ; but beyond, 

 to the westward, the old Eries dwelt, speaking it may be presumed, a modified Seneca 

 dialect, but of which unfortunately no record survives. As to the Tixscaroras and the 

 Nottoways, if we knew nothing of their history, their languages would suffice to tell that 

 they had been longest and most widely separated from the parent stock. 



Sec. II., 1884. 14. 



