1672-75.] THE ANDASTES SUBDUED. 443 



The Andaste war became a war of inroads and 

 skirmishes, under which the weaker party gradu- 

 ally wasted away, though it sometimes won laurels 

 at the expense of its adversary. Thus, in 1672, a 

 party of twenty Senecas and forty Cayugas went 

 against the Andastes. They were at a considerable 

 distance the one from the other, the Cayugas being 

 in advance, when the Senecas were set upon by 

 about sixty young Andastes, of the class known as 

 " Burnt-Knives," or " Soft-Metals," because as yet 

 they had taken no scalps. Indeed, they are de- 

 scribed as mere boys, fifteen or sixteen years old. 

 They killed one of the Senecas, captured another, 

 and put the rest to flight ; after which, flushed with 

 their victory, they attacked the Cayugas with the 

 utmost fury, and routed them completely, killing 

 eight of them, and wounding twice that number, 

 who, as is reported by the Jesuit then in the Cayuga 

 towns, came home half dead with gashes of knives 

 and hatchets.^ "May God preserve the Andastes," 

 exclaims the Father, " and prosper their arms, that 

 the Iroquois may be humbled, and we and our 

 missions left in peace! " " None but they," he else- 

 where adds, " can curb the pride of the Iroquois." 

 The only strength of the Andastes, however, was 

 in their courage : for at this time they were reduced 

 tc three hundred fighting men ; and about the year 

 1675 they were finally overborne by the Senecas.^ 

 Yet they were not wholly destroyed ; for a remnant 



1 Dablon, Relation, 1672, 24. 



'^ Etat Present des Missions, in Relations Ine'dites, II. 44. Relation^ 

 1676, 2. This is one of the Relatims printed by Mr. Lenox. 



