456 IROQUOIAN COSMOLOGY [eth. ann. 43 



to form with the Onondaga a single people. The Mohawk and the 

 Seneca were also interested in this affair on their own account. 

 Finally these Hurons were virtually forced to acquiesce in these per- 

 sistent demands of the Iroquois tribes. 



The Onondaga in 1686 were at war with the Cherermons (Shawnee?). 

 But in 1688 French influence was very strong among the Onondaga, 

 and the Onondaga were regarded as the chief among the Iroquois 

 tribes. The Onondaga, with the Mohawk, the Oneida, the Cayuga, 

 and the Seneca, in 1682 entered into a treaty of peace with the com- 

 missioners from the Colony of Maryland, who contracted not only 

 for the white settlers but also for the Piscataway Indians. 



Early in 1647 a troop of Huron warriors defeated a band of Onon- 

 daga which was approaching the Huron country, the Onondaga chief 

 being killed and a number of the warriors taken prisoners. Annen- 

 raes, a man of character and authority among the Onondaga, was 

 among the latter. He learned in the following spring that those 

 Hurons who had been disappointed because he had not been burned 

 at the stake intended to kill him. To some of his Huron friends he 

 related what he had heard, and that he had resolved to escape to his 

 own country. The leading Huron chiefs, all their council having 

 heard of his resolution and of the reason for making it, concluded to 

 aid him in his resolve, trusting that he would render them some 

 valuable service in return. So, giving him some valuable presents 

 and sufficient provisions, they sent him off secretly by night. Hav- 

 ing crossed Lake Ontario, he unexpectedly came upon 300 Onondaga 

 who were engaged in making canoes to cross the lake in order to 

 revenge his death, as they believed that he had been killed by the 

 Hurons, and who awaited the arrival of 800 Seneca and Cayuga 

 reenforcements. These countrymen regarded Annenraes as one 

 arisen from the dead. With great astuteness he succeeded in per- 

 suading the 300 Onondaga to give up all thought of war for that of 

 peace, whereupon these Onondaga, without awaiting longer the 

 expected reenforcements, returned to Onondaga, where a tribal 

 council was held. After due deliberation it was their resolve to 

 send an embassy with suitable presents to the Hurons for the purpose 

 of undertaking negotiations for peace. 



One of the chiefs of this embassy, and its spokesman, was by birth 

 a Huron, named vSoiones, who after his adoption among the Iroquois 

 had become so naturalized that it was said of him that "No Iroquois 

 had done more massacres in these (Huron) countries, nor blows 

 more wicked than he." Now Annenraes was accompanied by three 

 adopted Hurons who had not long been captives at Onondaga. The 

 embassy, ha\ang arrived at St. Ignace July 9, 1647, found the Hurons 

 divided as to the expediency of accepting the Onondaga proposals, 

 and so their tribe, the Hurons, justly fearing the duplicity of the 



