12 INDIAN TRIBES. [Chap. I. 



honor of the Indian character that they could 

 exert so great an authority where there was 

 nothing to enforce it but the w^eight of moral 

 power.^ 



The origin of the Iroquois is lost in hopeless 

 obscurity. That they came from tlie west; that 

 they came from the north ; that they sprang from 

 the soil of New York, are the testimonies of three 

 conflicting traditions, all equally worthless as aids 

 to historic inquiry.^ It is at the era of their con- 

 federacy — the event to which the five tribes owed 

 all their greatness and power, and to which we 

 need assign no remoter date than that of a century 

 before the first arrival of the Dutch in New York 

 — that faint rays of light begin to pierce the 

 gloom, and the chaotic traditions of the earlier 

 epoch mould themselves into forms more palpable 

 and distinct. 



Taounyawatha, the God of the Waters — such is 

 the belief of the Iroquois — descended to the earth 



1 An account of the political institutions of the Iroquois will be found 

 in Mr. Moi-gan's series of letters, published in the American Review for 

 1847. Valuable information may also be obtained from Schoolcraft's Notes 

 on the Iroquois. 



Mr. Morgan is of opinion that these institutions were the result of " a 

 protracted effort of legislation." An examination of the customs prevail- 

 ing among other Indian tribes makes it probable that the elements of the 

 Iroquois poUty existed among them from an indefinite antiquity ; and the 

 legislation of which Mr. Morgan speaks could only involve the arrange- 

 ment and adjustment of already existing materials. 



Since the above chapter was written, Mr. Morgan has published an 

 elaborate and very able work on the institutions of the Iroquois. It forms 

 an invaluable addition to this department of knowledge. 



2 Recorded by Heckewelder, Golden, and Schoolcraft. That the Iro- 

 quois had long dwelt on the spot where they were first discovered by the 

 whites, is rendered probable by several circumstances. See Mr. Squier's 

 work on the Aboriginal Monuments of New York, 



