ASIATIC TRIBES OF NORTH AMERICA. 183 
embracing many tribes comparatively unknown to fame, occupied the 
more northern, and the Iroquois or Five Nations, the southern part 
of the area. In the latter confederacy, said to be from three to five 
centuries old, were included the Mohawks, whose real name, according 
to Dr. Oronhyatekha, himself a distinguished Mohawk, is Kanyen- 
kehaka, “the, flint people,” the Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas and 
Senecas. The Tuscaroras, migrating northward, united with them 
at a comparatively recent period to form the Six Nations, now found 
on the Bay of Quinte and on the Grand River. An Iroquois tribe 
originally inhabited the site of Montreal, and were known as the 
Hochelagas ; and another still exists at Caughnawaga on the opposite 
side of the St. Lawrence. The Caughnawagas, St. Regis Indians and 
other scattered tribes, are generally known by the generic name 
Iroquois. A body of Hurons or Wyandots still exists in the 
neighbourhood of Quebec, where, in the days of warfare between 
them and the Iroquois, they sought French protection. Of the great 
nation that once occupied the extensive Lake Huron country, scattered 
fragments only remain. Some, with their ancient foes and relatives, 
the Iroquois, are found in the Western States, but the most important 
band is that found at Amherstburg on the Detroit River, whos¢ 
history has been written in a somewhat rambling but amusing 
fashion by one of their number, Peter Dooyentate Clarke. — 
A peculiarity of the Wyandot-Iroquois dialects is the absence of 
labials, w being the nearest approach to the sound of these letters. 
In this they differ not only from the Algonquin tongues but from 
their related forms of speech, the Choctaw-Cherokee. The Mohawk 
makes a free use of the letter 7, which in many cases possesses a 
certain virile force. This is sometimes replaced by / in Oneida, and 
in Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca, by a breathint. Thus boy is 
raxha in Mohawk, lawha in Oneida, haksaah in Onondaga. The 
Tuscarora forms though differing from those of the five nations, 
agree with the Mohawk in presenting a recurrence of the harsh r, 
so little known to Algonquin speech. As far as I am able to judge, 
the affinities of the Wyandot proper or Huron are with the Tusca- 
rora, which, from its resemblance to the Cherokee, I am disposed to 
regard as the oldest and purest form of the Wyandot-Iroquois lan- 
guage. The resemblance that exists between many words of the 
Tuscarora and Cherokee has been noted in the Mithridates, and is 
capable of large illustration. For instance, arrow is kanah in Tus- 
13 
° 
