458 IROQUOIAN COSMOLOGY |eth. ann. 43 



who had remained with tlie Hurons as a hostage, suddenly disap- 

 peared. Naturally the Hurons suspected that he had stealthily 

 fled away, but a few days after his disappearance his corpse was dis- 

 covered in the forest lying on a bed of fir branches, where he had, 

 from chagrin, taken his own life by cutting his throat. In order to 

 exonerate themselves the Hurons notified his companion, who ex- 

 plained that the cause of Skanawati's despair was the shame he felt 

 at the contempt for the sacredness of his person shown by the Seneca 

 and the Mohawk in going to the Huron country and slaughtering 

 the Huron people while his own life was in pledge for the keeping of 

 the faith of his people. Of such men was the great Federal Council 

 of the Iroquois composed. 



The Onondaga and the Cayuga and the Oneida had good reason 

 for fearing the Cones toga, for the Jesuit Relation for 1647-48 relates 

 that in a single village of the latter people there were at that date 

 1,300 men capable of bearing arms, indicating a population of more 

 than 4,500 for this village alone. Through two trusted messengers 

 the Conestoga chiefs at that time informed the Hurons that if they 

 failed in ability to defend themselves they should send them word by 

 an embassy. The Huron Federal Council greedily seized this 

 opportunity of obtaining aid by sending on this mission four Christian 

 Indians and fourso-called "infidels," headed by one Charles Ondaaion- 

 diont. This mission reached Conestoga early in June, 1647. This 

 Huron delegation conveyed to their Conestoga friends the gloomy 

 information that they themselves had come from a land of ghosts 

 (souls), where war and the fear of their enemies had spread destruc- 

 tion everywhere, where the fields were covered with blood and the 

 lodges were filled with corpses, and that they themselves had re- 

 maining only enough life to enable them to come imploring their 

 friends to save their country, which was rapidly drawing toward its 

 end. This moving and laconic address moved the Conestoga to send 

 an embassy to urge upon the Iroquois the advantage of making a 

 lasting peace with their Huron enemies. Jean Baptiste, a Huron 

 ambassador mentioned above, being at Onondaga at the end of the 

 summer, learned that this embassy of the Conestoga had reached the 

 Iroquois country, for he had even seen some of the Conestoga presents. 

 The object of the Conestoga was to establish a firm peace between 

 the Hurons on the one hand and the Onondaga, the Oneida, the 

 Cayuga, and, if possible, the Seneca, on the other, and to renew the 

 war against the Mohawk, should they still refuse to become parties 

 to it. It thus appears that the Conestoga did not fear the Mohawk. 

 It is learned from the Jesuit Relation for 1660 that about the year 

 1600 the Algonquian tribes had greatly humbled the Mohawk, and 

 that after the Mohawk had regained somewhat their former standing 

 the Conestoga, in a war lasting more than 10 years, had very nearly 



