448 CONCLUSION. [1701. 



leathern shirts fringed with scalp-locks, colored 

 blankets or robes of bison hide and beaver skin, 

 bristling crests of hair or long lank tresses, eagle 

 feathers or horns of beasts. Pre-eminent among 

 them all sat their valiant and terrible foes, the war- 

 riors of the confederacy. " Strange," exclaims La 

 Potherie, " that four or five thousand should make 

 a whole new world tremble. New England is but 

 too happy to gain their good graces ; New France 

 is often wasted by their wars, and our allies dread 

 them over an extent of more than fifteen hundred 

 leagues." It was more a marvel than he knew, for 

 he greatly overrates their number. 



Callieres opened the council with a speech, in 

 which he told the assembly that, since but few 

 tribes were represented at the treaty of the year 

 before, he had sent for them all to ratify it ; that 

 he now threw their hatchets and his own into a 

 pit so deep that nobody could find them ; that 

 henceforth they must live like brethren ; and, if 

 by chance one should strike another, the injured 

 brother must not revenge the blow, but come for 

 redress to him, Onontio, their common father. 

 Nicolas Perrot and the Jesuits who acted as inter- 

 preters repeated the speech in five different lan- 

 guages ; and, to confirm it, thirty-one wampum belts 

 were given to the thirty-one tribes present. Then 

 each tribe answered in turn. First came Hassaki, 

 chief of an Ottawa band known as Cut Tails. He 

 approached with a majestic air, his long robe of 

 beaver skin trailing on the grass behind him. Four 

 Iroquois captives followed, with eyes bent on the 



