THE IROQUOIS. xlvii 



who have lent their name to the tribal family of the Iro- 

 quois, and stamped it indelibly on the early pages of 

 American history. Among all the barbarous nations 

 of the continent, the Iroquois of New York stand para- 

 mount. Elements which among other tribes were crude, 

 confused, and embryotic, were among them systematized 

 and concreted into an established polity. The Iroquois 

 was the Indian of Indians. A thorough savage, yet a 

 finished and developed savage, he is perhaps an example 

 of the highest elevation which man can reach without 

 emerging from his primitive condition of the hunter. A 

 geographical position, commanding on one hand the port- 

 al of the Great Lakes, and on the other the sources of 

 the streams flowing both to the Atlantic and the Missis- 

 sippi, gave the ambitious and aggressive confederates ad- 

 vantages which they perfectly understood, and by which 

 they profited to the utmost. Patient and politic as they 

 were ferocious, they were not only conquerors of their 

 own race, but the powerful allies and the dreaded foes of 

 the French and English colonies, flattered and caressed 

 by both, yet too sagacious to give themselves without 

 reserve to either. Their organization and their liistory 

 evince their intrinsic superiority. Even their traditionary 

 lore, amid its wild puerilities, shows at times the stamp 

 of an energy and force in striking contrast with the flimsy 

 creations of Algonquin fancy. Tliat the Iroquois, left 

 under their institutions to work out their destiny undis- 

 turbed, would ever have developed a civilization of their 

 own, I do not believe. These institutions, however, are 

 sufficiently characteristic and curious, and we shall soon 

 have occasion to observe them.^ 



1 The name Iroquois is French. Charlevoix says : " II a et6 forme du 

 terme Hiro, ou Hero, qui signifie J'ai dit, et par lequel ces sauvages 

 finissent tons leur discours, comme les Latins faisoient autrefois par leur 



