CHAPTER II. 



THE INDIANS WHO FORMERLY 



INHABITED OR VISITED THE 



SITE OF TORONTO. 



By 



ALEXANDER FRANCIS CHAMBERLAIN, 

 M.A., Ph.D., 



Professor of Anthropology, Clark University, 'Worcester, Mass., 

 Sometime Fellow in Modern Languages, University College, Toronto. 



THE region which is now occupied by the 

 capital of the Province of Ontario was familiar to 

 two of the great Indian peoples of northeastern North 

 America. The city's name, Toronto, although its 

 exact derivation has not yet been satisfactorily deter- 

 mined, comes from one of the dialects of the Iro- 

 quoian stock; and the natives who inhabited the 

 western end of Lake Ontario, at the close of the 

 eighteenth century, were the Algonkian Mississagas, 

 or Mississaugas, whose tribal appellation still sur- 

 vives in Mississauga Avenue, in what was formerly 

 the village of Parkdale, now a part of the city itself. 

 The name is likewise preserved in Old Fort Missis- 

 sauga, at the mouth of the Niagara River; Missis- 

 sauga River, in the District of Algoma ; and Missis- 

 sauga Strait, between Manitoulin and Cockburn 

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