xlviii INTEODUCTION. 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ORGANIZATION. 



In Indian social organization, a problem at once suggests 

 itself. In these communities, comparatively populous, 

 how could spirits so fierce, and in many respects so un- 

 governed, live together in peace, without law and without 

 enforced authority ? Yet there were towns where sav- 

 ages lived together in thousands with a harmony which 

 civilization might envy. This was in good measure due 

 to peculiarities of Indian character and habits. This 

 intractable race were, in certain external respects, the 

 most pliant and complaisant of mankind. The early mis- 

 sionaries were charmed by the docile acquiescence with 

 which their dogmas were received ; but they soon discov- 

 ered that their facile auditors neither believed nor under- 

 stood that to which they had so promptly assented They 

 assented from a kind of courtesy, which, while it vexed 

 the priests, tended greatly to keep the Indians in mutual 



Dixi; et de Kou€, qui est un cri tantot de tristesse, lorsqu'on le prononce 

 en trainant, et tantot de joye, quand on le prononce plus court." — Hist, 

 de la N. F., I. 271. — Their true name is Hodenosaiinee, or People of the 

 Long House, because their confederacy of five distinct nations, ranged in 

 a line along Central New York, was likened to one of the long bark 

 houses already described, with five fires and five families. The name Ag- 

 onnonsionni, or Aquanuscioni, ascribed to them by Lafitau and Charlevoix, 

 who translated it " House-Makers," Faiseurs de Cahannes, may be a conver- 

 sion of the true name with an erroneous rendering. The following are the 

 true names of the five nations severally, with their French and English 

 synonymes. For other synonymes, see " History of the Conspiracy of 

 Pontiac," 8, note. 



English. French. 



Ganeagaono, Mohawk, Agnier. 



Onayotekaono, Oneida, Onneyut. 



Onundagaono, Onondaga, Onnontague. 



Gweugwehono, Cayuga, Goyogouin. 



Nundawaono, Seneca, Tsonnontouans. 



The Iroquois termination in ono — or onon, as the French write it — 

 simply means people. 



