1898-99.] THE OLDEST WRITTEN RECORDS OF THE LEAGUE OF THE IROQUOIS. 249 
name, and see in it the Aleutan title, as well as the Olut or Eluteat, of 
the islands that touch Alaska, and that designate the Koriaks of Asia, 
In classical speech, Kudashita or Odatshehte, was an ancient Lydian. 
In his day, according to the inscription, the head of the League was 
Dekanata. Now, Mr. Hale says that the first name on the roll of the 
League of the Iroquois was that of. the Canienga or Mohawk Tekari- 
hoken, that Hiawatha came second, and that the name of his great 
colleague Dekanawidah nowhere appears. ‘‘ He was a member of the 
first council; but he forbade his people to appoint a successor to him. 
‘Let the others have successors,’ he said, proudly, ‘ for others can advise 
you like them. But I am the founder of your league, and no one else 
can do what I have done.” Dekanawidah is not exactly the same as 
Dekanata, any more than Kudashita is the same as Odatshehte, but the 
collocation is remarkable. The Iroquois lengthened out names received 
by tradition. The old Hittite ancestor and deity, Zur-vune or Tsur- 
vune, became, in Iroquois speech, Tharonhia-wakon. In the same way 
the original Dekanata was made Dekanawidah. Who Dekanata was, I 
do not yet know from any other source, but that he was the real head of 
the League, and that Kudashita fought at his command, is evident. 
The defensive alliance entered into by Abraham and Isaac on the one 
hand, and Abimelech of Gerar on the other, had reference, as most alli- 
ances have, to warfare. - We read in Genesis x. 14, and 1 Chronicles 1. 
12, that Philistim or the Philistines came out of Casluhim, a branch of 
Mizraim or Egypt. Hitzig has abundantly proved that these Philis- 
tines were Pelasgi, the ancient stock of the Aryan race, and the Egyp- 
tian monuments, equally with the Bible, inform us that they came out 
of Egypt, but there is as yet no record of when they went into that 
country from their early settlement at Gerar in the Negeb. The men- 
tion in Genesis of Phichol, the chief captain of Abimelech’s army, along 
with Achudzath points to warfare, and the fact that the Philistines came 
some generations later out of Egypt, leads one to think that the land of 
the Pharaohs was the scene of their military operations. The present 
inhabitants of Gerar are the Azazimeh Arabs, who may have inherited 
the name, if nothing more, of the old Zuzim descended from Achuzam. 
At the time of Sarah’s death, the Zocharite branch of the Hittite family 
was in possession of Hebron, and, long before, the Amalekites of the 
same stock were as far south as Kadesh. A great Hittite movement, 
similar to the barbarian invasions in Europe in the fifth century, con- 
verged from many points towards the fertile Nile valley, and resulted 
some time before the captivity of Joseph, in the replacement of the old 
dynasty of the Hor-shesu or Sekenen-ras by the foreign one of the 
