210 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



ambush j)lacod on both sides of the Eiver Béeancour near Three Kivors, 

 with some pretended tishermen out in canoes as decoys. The Iroquets 

 attacked and pursued tlio fishermen, but in the moment of victory, a hail 

 of arrows issued from the bushes along both shores. Their canoes being 

 pierced, and the majority wounded, they all peri.shed. "The tribe of 

 Iroquet never recovered from this disaster ; and none to daj' remain. The 

 quantity of corpses in the water and on the banks of the river so infected 

 it, that it retains the name of Rivière Puante " ; (Stinking River). 



Charlevoix' gives, as well supported, tlie story of the origin of the 

 war between the Iroquois and Algonquins. '' The Iroquois had made 

 with them a sort of alliance very useful to both." They gave grain for 

 game and armed aid, and thus both lived long on good terms. At last a 

 disagreement ro.se in a joint party of 12 young hunters, on account of the 

 Iroquois succeeding while the Algonquins failed in the chase. The Algon- 

 quins, therefore, maliciously tomahawked the Iroquois in their sleep. 

 Thence arose the war. 



In 1608, according to Ferland" based evidently upon the statement of 

 Champlain, the remnant of the Hochelagans left in Canada occupied the 

 triangle above Montreal now bounded b}' Yaudreuil, Kingston and Ottawa. 

 This perhaps indicates it as the upper part of their former territory. 

 Sanson's map places them at about the same part of the Ottawa in the 

 middle of the seventeenth century and identities them with La Petite 

 Nation. giving them as '• Onontcharonons ou La Petite Nation". That rem- 

 nant accompanied Champlain against the Iroquois, being of course under 

 the influence of their masters the Hurons and Algonquins. Doubtless 

 their blood is presently represented among the Huron and Algonquin 

 mi.ssion Indians of Oka, Lorotte, Petite Nation, etc., and perhaps among 

 tho.se of Caughnawaga and to some extent, greater or less, among the 

 Six Nations proper. 



From the foregoing outline of their history, it does not appear as if 

 the Hochelagans were exactly the Mohawks^proper. It seems more likely 

 that by 15G0, settlements, at tirst mere fishing-parties, then tishing-villages, 

 and later more developed strongholds with agriculture, had already beon 

 made on Lake Champlain by independent oti'shoots^of the Hochelagan 

 communities, of perhaps some generations standing, and not unlikely by 

 arrangement with the Algonquins of the Lake similar to the understanding 

 on the river St. Lawrence, as peace and travel appear to have existed 

 there. The bonds of confederacy between village and village were always 

 shifting and loose among these races until the Great League. To their 

 Lake Cham])lain cousins the Hochelagans would naturally fly for refuge 

 in the day of defeat, for there was no other direction suitalde for their 

 retreat. The Hurons and Algonquins carried on the war against the 



' Journal, end of Letter XIL 

 •^ HiHt. du Canada, Vol. L, p. 92. 



