liv INTRODUCTION. 



statements of observers, old and new, the character of 

 their singular organization becomes sufficiently clear.^ 



Both reason and tradition point to the conclusion, that 

 the Iroquois formed originally one undivided people. 

 Sundered, like countless other tribes, by dissension, 

 caprice, or the necessities of the hunter life, they sepa- 

 rated into five distinct nations, cantoned from east to 

 west along the centre of New York, in the following- 

 order : Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, Senecas. 

 There was discord among them ; wars followed, and they 

 lived in mutual fear, each ensconced in its palisaded 

 villages. At length, says tradition, a celestial being, in- 

 carnate on earth, counselled them to compose their strife 

 and unite in a league of defence and aggression. An- 

 other personage, wholly mortal, yet wonderfully endowed, 

 a renowned warrior and a mighty magician, stands, with 

 his hair of writhing snakes, grotesquely conspicuous 

 through the dim light of tradition at this birth of Iro- 

 quois nationality. This was Atotarho, a chief of the 

 Onondagas ; and from this honored source has sprung a 



1 Among modern students of Iroquois institutions, a place far in ad- 

 vance of all others is due to Lewis H. Morgan, himself an Iroquois by 

 adoption, and intimate with the race from boyhood. His work, The 

 League of the Iroquois, is a production of most thorough and able research, 

 conducted under peculiar advantages, and with the aid of an efficient co- 

 laborer, Hasanoanda (Ely S. Parker), an educated and highly intelligent 

 Iroquois of the Seneca nation. Though often differing widely from Mr. 

 Morgan's conclusions, I cannot bear a too emphatic testimony to the 

 value of his researches. The Notes on the Iroquois of Mr. H. R. School- 

 craft also contain some interesting facts ; but here, as in all Mr. School- 

 craft's productions, the reader must scrupulously reserve his right of 

 private judgment. None of the old writers are so satisfactory as Lafitau. 

 His work, Mceurs des Sauvages Amei'iquains compare'es aux Moeurs des Pre- 

 miers Temps, relates chiefly to the Iroquois and Hurons : the basis for his 

 account of the former being his own observations and those of Father 

 Julien Garnier, who was a missionary among them more than sixty 

 years, from his novitiate to his death. 



