460 IROQUOIAN COSMOLOGY {eth. ans. 43 



Council. In refusing to confirm an opinion tlie Onondaga must show 

 that it is in conflict with established custom or with public policy; 

 when two or more conflicting opinions are rejected by the Onondaga 

 they may suggest to the two phratries a course by which they may 

 be able to reach a common opinion; but the Onondaga may confirm 

 either of two differing opmions submitted to them. Each Federal 

 chief has the right to discuss and argue the question before the 

 Council, either for or against its adoption by the Comicil, in a speech 

 or speeches addressed to the entire body of counsellors and to the 

 public. 



With the exception of two important bodies or kindreds of the 

 Seneca, the Onondaga were the last of the five tribes originally 

 forming the League of the Iroquois to accept fully the principles of 

 the universal peace proposed by Dekanawida and Hiawatha. 



The site of the former chief town of the Onondaga, with the name 

 Onondaga, was shifted at different times from place to place in central 

 New York. Within its limits formerly lay the unquenched brands 

 of the Great Council Fire of the League of the Iroquois. During the 

 war of the American Revolution General Washington found it neces- 

 sary to send a punitive army under General Sullivan to chastise the 

 Iroquois tribes for their cruel and bloody work in pursuance of their 

 close alliance with Great Britain. The chastisement was so ruthless, 

 and so thoroughly demonstrated by the total destruction of more than 

 40 Iroquois villages and the growing crops surrounding them, that 

 the integrity of the League was disrupted and the scattered remnants 

 forced to seek shelter in Canada and elsewhere under the protection 

 of the British Government. Finally, on the Grand River in Ontario, 

 Canada, the brands of the Great Council Fire of the League were 

 rekindled by the allied portions of all the tribes of the Six Nations; 

 and here that fire is stilP burning. The portions of the tribes which 

 elected to remain in New York relighted a fire at Onondaga and sought 

 to reestablish the ancient form of their government there in order to 

 formulate united action on questions affecting their common interests; 

 but this attempt was only partly successful, since the seat of govern- 

 ment had forever departed. The establishment at Onondaga of the 

 seat of Federal power by the founders of the League of the Iroquois 

 made Onondaga not only one of the most important and widely 

 known towns of the Iroquois tribes but also of North America north 

 of Mexico. At the zenith of the power of the Iroquois it was the 

 capital of a government whose dominion extended from the Hudson 

 River on the east to the Falls of the Ohio and Lake Michigan on 

 the west, and from the Ottawa River and Lake Simcoe on the north 

 to the Potomac River on the south and the Ohio on the southwest. 



See note on p. 608. 



