BtJLL. 30] 



MOHAWK 



92S 



In 1641 Ahatsistari, a noted Huron 

 chief, with only 50 companions, attacked 

 and defeated 300 IroqucjiB, largely Mo- 

 hawk, taking some prisoners. In the pre- 

 ceding summer he had attacked on L. 

 Ontario a number of large canoes manned 

 by Irocjuois, prolmbly chiefly Mohawk, 

 and defeated them, after sinking several 

 canoes and killinganund)erof their crews. 

 In 1W2, 11 Huron canoes were attacked 

 on Ottawa r. by jNIohawk and Oneida 

 warriors about 100 m. aljove Montreal. 

 In the same year the INIohawdi captured 

 Father Isaac Jogues, two French com- 

 panions, and some Huron allies. They 

 took the Frenchmen to their villages, 

 where they caused them to undergo the 

 most cruel tortures. Jogues, by the aid of 

 the Dutch, escaped in the following year; 

 but in 1646 he went to the Mohawk to 

 attempt to convert them and to confirm 

 the peace which had 1 )een made with them. 

 On May 16, 1646, Father Jogues went to 

 the Mohawk as an envoy and returned to 

 Three Rivers in July in good health. In 

 September he again started for the IMo- 

 hawk country to estal ilish a mission there; 

 but, owing to t lie prevalence of an epidem- 

 ic among the Mohawk, and to the failure 

 of their crops, they accused Father Jogues 

 of "having concealed certain charms in 

 a .small coffer, which he had left with his 

 host as a pledge of his return," which 

 caused them thus to be afflicted. So 

 upon his arrival in their village for the 

 third time, he and his companion, a 

 young Frenchman, were seized, stripped, 

 and threatened with death. Father 

 Jogues had been adopted by the Wolf 

 clan of the Mohawk, hence this clan, 

 with that of the Turtle, which with the 

 Wolf formed a phratry or brotherhood, 

 tried to save the lives of the Frenchmen. 

 But the Bear clan, which formed a phra- 

 try by itself, and being only cousins to 

 the others, of one of which Father Jogues 

 was a member, had determined on hi? 

 death as a sorcerer. On Oct. 17, 1646, 

 the unfortunates were told that they 

 would be killed, but not burned, the 

 next day. On the evening of the 18th 

 Father Jogues was invited to a supper in 

 a Bear lodge. Having accepted the in- 

 vitation, he went there, and while enter- 

 ing the lodge a man concealed behind 

 the door struck him down with an ax. 

 He was beheaded, his head elevated on the 

 palisade, and his body thrown into the 

 river. The next morning Jogues' com- 

 panion suffered a similar fate. Father 

 Jogues left an account of a Mohawk 

 sacrifice to the god Aireskoi (i. e., Are- 

 gwe>'s^ gmV , ' the Master or God of War' ) . 

 While speaking of the cruelties exercised 

 by the Mohawk toward their prisoners, 

 and specifically toward 8 women, he said: 

 "Oneof them (a thing not hithertodone) 



was burned all over her body, and after- 

 wards thrown into a huge pyre." And 

 that "at every burn which they caused, 

 by applying lighted torches to her body, 

 an old man, in a loud voice, exclaimed, 

 'Daimon, Aire.skoi, we offer thee this 

 victim, whom we burn for thee, that thou 

 mayest Ije filled with her flesh ami ren- 

 der us ever anew victorious over our ene- 

 mies.' Her body v.as cut up, sent to the 

 various villages, and devoured." Mega- 

 polensis ( 1644), a contemporary of Father 

 Jogues, says that when the Mohawk were 

 unfortunate in war they would kill, cut 

 up, and roast a bear, and then make an 

 offering of it to this war god with the ac- 

 companying prayer: "Oh, great and 

 mighty Aireskuoni, we know that we have 

 offended against thee, inasmuch as we 

 have not killed and eaten our captive 

 enemies — forgive us this. We promise 

 that we will kill and eat all the captives 

 we shall hereafter take as certainly as we 

 have killed and now eat this bear." He 

 adds: "Finally, they roa.st their prison- 

 ers dead before a slow fire for some days 

 and then eat them up. The conunon 

 people eat the arms, buttocks, and trunk, 

 but the chiefs eat the head and the 

 heart." 



The Jesuit Relation for 1646 says that, 

 properly speaking, the French had at 

 that time peace with only the Mohawk, 

 who were their near neighbors and who 

 gave them the most trouble, and that 

 the Mohegan (Mahingans or Mahinga- 

 nak), who liad had firm alliances with 

 the Algonkin allies of the French, were 

 then already conquered by the Mohawk, 

 with whom they formed a defensive 

 and offensive alliance; that during this 

 yearsomeSokoki ( AssokSekik ) murdered 

 some Algonkin, whereupon the latter de- 

 termined, under a misapprehension, to 

 massacre some INIohawk, who were then 

 among them and the French. But, for- 

 tunately, it was discovered from the tes- 

 timony of two wounded persons, who 

 had escajjcd, that the murderers spoke a 

 language quite different from that of the 

 Iroquois tongues, and suspicion was at 

 once removed from the Mohawk, who 

 then hunted freely in the immediate vi- 

 cinity of the Algonkin \. of the St Law- 

 rence, where these hitherto implacable 

 enemies frequently met on the best of 

 terms. At this time the Mohawk refused 

 Sokoki aml)assadors a new compact to 

 wage war on the Algonkin. 



The introduction of firearms l)y the 

 Dutch among the Mohawk, who were 

 among the first of their region to procure 

 them, marked an important era in their 

 history, for it enabled them and the cog- 

 nate Iro(|uoi9 tri])es to subjugate the Del- 

 awares and Munsee, and thus to begin a 

 career of conquest that carried their war 



