Xlvi INTRODUCTION. 



Southward and eastward of Lake Erie dwelt a kindred 

 people, the Eries, or Nation of the Cat. Little besides 

 their existence is known of them. They seem to have 

 occupied Southwestern New York, as far east as the 

 Genesee, the frontier of the Senecas, and in habits and 

 language to have resembled the Hurons.^ Tiiej were 

 noted warriors, fought with poisoned arrows, and were 

 long a terror to the neighboring Iroquois. ^ 



On the Lower Susquehanna dwelt the formidable tribe 

 called by the French Andastes. Little is known of them, 

 beyond their general resemblance to their kindred, in lan- 

 guage, habits, and character. Fierce and resolute war- 

 riors, they long made head against the Iroquois of New 

 York, and were vanquished at last more by disease than 

 by the tomahawk.^ 



In Central New York, stretching east and west from 

 the Hudson to the Genesee, lay that redoubted people 



slanders : that they were a people who lived on snakes and venom ; that 

 they were furnished with tails ; and that French women, though having 

 but one breast, bore six children at a birth. The missionary nearly lost 

 his life in consequence, the Neutrals conceiving the idea that he would 

 infect their country with a pestilence. — La Roche Dallion, in Le Clerc, 

 I. 346. 



1 Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, 46. 



2 Le Mercier, Relation, 1654, 10. — " Nous les appellons la Nation Chat, 

 k cause qu'il y a dans leur pais vne quantite prodigieuse de Chats sau- 

 uages." — Ibid. — The Iroquois are said to have given the same name, 

 Jegosasa, Cat Nation, to the Neutrals. — Morgan, League of the Iroquois, 41. 



Synonymes: Eries, Erigas, Eriehronon, Riguehronon. The Jesuits 

 never had a mission among them, though they seem to have been visited 

 by Champlain's adventurous interpreter, fitienne Brule, in the summer 

 of 1615. — They are probably the Carantoiians of Champlain. 



3 Gallatin erroneously places the Andastes on the Alleghany, Bancroft 

 and others adopting the error. The research of Mr. Shea has shown 

 their identity with the Susquehannocks of the English, and the Minquas of 

 the Dutch. — See Hist. Mag., II. 294. 



Synonymes: Andastes, Andastracronnons, Andastaeronnons, Andasta- 

 guez, Antastoui (French), Susquehannocks (English), Mengwe, Minquas 

 (Dutch), Conestogas, Conessetagoes (English). 



