1650-62] THE ANDASTES. 441 



such impetuous fury that the Eries were thrown 

 into a panic. Those escaped who could ; but the 

 butchery was frightful, and from that day the Eries 

 as a nation were no more. The victors paid dear 

 for their conquest. Their losses were so heavy that 

 they were forced to remain for two months in the 

 Erie country, to bury their dead and nurse theu' 

 wounded.^ 



One enemy of their own race remained, — the 

 Andastes. This nation appears to have been inferior 

 in numbers to either the Hurons, the Neutrals, or 

 the Eries ; but they cost theu' assailants more trouble 

 than all these united. The Mohawks seem at first 

 to have borne the brunt of the Andaste war; and, 

 between the years 1650 and 1660, they were so 

 roughly handled by these stubborn adversaries, that 

 they were reduced from the height of audacious 

 insolence to the depths of dejection.^ The remain- 



1 De Quen, Relation, 1656, 31. The Iroquois, it seems, afterwards 

 made other expeditions, to finish their work. At least, they told Chau- 

 monot and Dablon, in the autumn of this year, that they meant to do so 

 in the following spring. 



It seems, that, before attacking the great fort of the Eries, the Iroquois 

 had made a promise to worship the new God of the French, if He would 

 give them the victory. This promise, and the success which followed, 

 proved of great advantage to the mission. 



Various traditions are extant among the modern remnant of the Iro- 

 quois concerning the war with the Eries. They agree in httle beyond 

 the fact of the existence and destruction of that people. Indeed, Indian 

 traditions are very rarely of any value as historical evidence. One ol 

 tliese stories, told me some years ago by a very intelligent Iroquois of the 

 Cayuga Nation, is a striking illustration of Iroquois ferocity. It repre- 

 sents, that, the night after the great battle, the forest was hghted up with 

 more than a thousand fires, at each of which an Erie was burning alive. 

 It differs from the historical accounts in making the Eries the aggressors. 



2 Relation, 1660, 6 (anonymous). 



The Mohawks also suffered great reverses about this time at the 

 hands of their Algonquin neighbors, the Mohicans. 



