Section II., 1899. [ 199 ] Teans--. P. S. C. 



II. Hochelagans and Mohawks ; A Link in Iroquois Hisionj. 



Ey W. D. LiGHTiiALL, M.A., F.E.S.L. 



(Presented by John Reade and read I\Iay 20, 1899.) 



The exact origin and tirst history of the race whose energy so stunted 

 the growth of early Canada and made the cause of France in America 

 impossible, have long been wrapped in mystery. In the days of the first 

 white settlements the Iroquois are found leagued as the Five Nations in 

 their familiar territory from the Mohawk Eiver westward. Whence they 

 came thither has always been a disputed question. The early Jesuits 

 agreed that they were an ofl[-shoot of the Huron race whose strongholds 

 were thickly sown on the eastern shore of Lake Huron, but the Jesuits 

 were not clear as to their course of migration from that region, it being 

 merely remarked that they had once possessed some settlements on the 

 St. Lawrence below Montreal, with the apparent inference that they had 

 arrived at these by way of Lake Champlain. Later writers have drawn 

 the same inference from the mention made to Cartier by the Hochelagans 

 of certain enemies from the south whose name and direction had a like- 

 ness to later froquois conditions. Charlevoix was persuaded by persons 

 who he considered had sufficiently studied the subject that their seats 

 before they left for the country of the Five Nations were about Montreal. 

 The late Horatio Hale' put the more recently current and widely accepted 

 form of this view as follows : " The clear and positive traditions of all 

 the surviving tribes, Hurons, Iroquois and Tuscaroras, point to the Lower 

 St. Lawrence as the earliest known abode of their stock. Here the first 

 explorer, Cartier, found Indians of this stock atHochelagaand Stadacona, 

 now the sites of Montreal and Quebec. Centuries before his time, accord- 

 ing to the native tradition, the ancestors of the Huron-Iroquois family 

 had dwelt in this locality, or still further east and nearer to the river's 

 mouth. As the numbers increased, dissensions arose. The hive swarmed 

 and band after band moved off to the west and south." 



" Their first station on the south side of the lakes was at the mouth 

 of the Oswego River.- Advancing to the southeast, the emigrants struck 

 the River Hudson" and thence the ocean. "Most of them returned to the 

 Mohawk River, where the Huron speech was altered to Mohawk. In 

 Iroquois tradition and in the constitution of their League the Canienga 

 (Mohawk) nation ranks as ' eldest brother ' of the family. A comparison 

 of the dialects proves this tradition to be well founded. The Canienga 

 language ajjproaches nearest to the Huron, and is undoubtedly the 



1 " Iroquois Book of Rites," p. 10. 



2 Ibid., p. 13. 



Sec. II., 1899. 14 



