616 



IROQUOIAN FAMILY 



[b. a. e. 



shore of Gasp6 basin people of the Iro- 

 quoian stock, whom in the following year 

 he again encountered in their home on 

 the site of the city of Quebec, Canada. 

 He found both banks of the St Lawrence 

 above Quebec, as far as the site of Mon- 

 treal, occupied by people of this family. 

 He visited the villages Hagonchenda, 

 Hochelaga, Hochelayi, Stadacona, and 

 Tutonaguy. This was the first known 

 hal)itat of an Iroquoian people. Cham- 

 plain found these territories entirely de- 

 serted 70 years later, and Lescarbot found 

 people roving over this area speaking an 

 entirely different language from that re- 

 corded by Cartier. He believed that this 

 change of languages was due to "a de- 

 struction of people," l)ecause, he writes, 

 "some years ago the Iroquois assembled 

 themselves to the number of 8,000 men 

 and destroyed all their enemies, whom 

 they surprised in their enclosures." The 

 new language which he recorded was Al- 

 gonquian, spoken by bands that passed 

 over this region on warlike forays. 



The early occupants of the St Lawrence 

 were probably the Arendahronon and To- 

 hontaenrat, tribes of the Hurons. Their 

 lands bordered on those of the Iroquois, 

 whose territory extended westward to 

 that of the Neutrals, neighbors of the 

 Tionontati and western Huron tribes 

 to the N. and the Erie to the s. and w. 

 The Conestoga occupied the middle and 

 lower basin of the Susquehanna, s. of the 

 Iroquois. The n. Iroquoian area, which 

 Algonquian tribes surrounded on nearly 

 every side, therefore embraced nearly the 

 entire valley of the St Lawrence, the 

 basins of L. Ontario and L. Erie, the s. e. 

 shores of L. Huron and Georgian bay, 

 all of the present New York state except 

 the lower Hudson valley, all of central 

 Pennsylvania, and the shores of Chesa- 

 peake bay in Maryland as far as Choptank 

 and Patuxent rs. In the S. the Cherokee 

 area, surrounded by Algonquian tribes on 

 the N. , Siouan on the e. , and Muskhogean 

 and Uchean tribes on the s. and w., em- 

 braced the valleys of the Tennessee and 

 upper Savannah rs. and the mountainous 

 parts of Virginia, the Carolinas, and Ala- 

 bama. Separated from the Cherokee by 

 the territory of the eastern Siouan tribes 

 was the area occupied by the Tuscarora 

 in R. North Carolina and by the Meherrin 

 and Nottoway n. of them in s. e. Virginia. 



The northern Iroquoian tribes, espe- 

 cially the Five Nations so called, were sec- 

 ond to no other Indian people n. of Mex- 

 ico in political organization, statecraft, 

 and military prowess. Their leaders were 

 astute diplomats, as the wily French 

 and English statesmen with whom they 

 treated soon discovered. In war they 

 practised ferocious cruelty toward their 

 prisoners, burning even their unadopted 



women and infant prisoners; but, far from 

 being a race of rude and savage warriors, 

 they were a kindly and affectionate peo- 

 ple, full of keen sympathy for kin and 

 friends in distress, kind and deferential 

 to their women, exceedingly fond of their 

 children, anxiously striving for peace and 

 good will among men, and profoundly 

 imbued with a just reverence for the con- 

 stitution of their commonwealth and for 

 its founders. Their wars were waged 

 primarily to secure and perpetuate their 

 political life and independence. The 

 fundamental principles of their confed- 

 eration, persistently maintained for cen- 

 turies by force of arms and by compacts 

 with other peoples, were based primarily 

 on blood relationship, and they shaped 

 and directed their foreign and internal 

 polity in consonance with these princi pies. 

 The underlying motive for the institution 

 of the Iroquois league was to secure uni- 

 versal peace and welfare {ne'^ skhYno"') 

 among men by the recognition and en- 

 forcement of the forms of civil govern- 

 ment {ne'^ gd'l^lndio) through the direc- 

 tion and regulation of personal and public 

 conduct and thought in accordance with 

 beneficent customs and council degrees; 

 by the stopping of bloodshed in the 

 bloodfeud through the tender of the pre- 

 scribed price for the killing of a cotribes- 

 man; by abstaining from eating human 

 flesh; and, lastly, through the mainte- 

 nance and necessary exercise of power 

 (ne'^ gd'shdsdo»'^sd ), not only military 

 but also magic power believed to be em- 

 bodied in the forms of their ceremonial 

 activities. The tender by the homicide 

 and his family for the murder or killing 

 by accident of a cotribesman was twenty 

 strings of wampum — ten for the dead j er- 

 son, and ten for the forfeited life of the 

 homicide. 



The religious activities of these tribes 

 expressed themselves in the worship of 

 all environing elements and bodies and 

 many creatures of a teeming fancy, which, 

 directly or remotely affecting their wel- 

 fare, were regarded as man-beings or an- 

 thropic personages endowed with life, 

 volition, and peculiar individual orenda, 

 or magic power. In the practice of this 

 religion, ethics or morals, as such, far 

 from having a primary had only a second- 

 ary, if any, consideration. The status 

 and personal relations of the personages 

 of their pantheon were fixed and regu- 

 lated by rules and customs similar to those 

 in vogue in the social and political organ- 

 ization of the people, and there was, 

 therefore, among at least the principal 

 gods, a kinship system patterned on that 

 of the people themselves. 



The mental superiority of the Hurons 

 (q. v.) over their Algonquian neighbors 

 is frequently mentioned by the early 



