44 SENECA FICTION, LEGENDS, AND MYTHS [eth. ann.32 



at the first federal council, to give representation to that part of the tribe which 

 had at first refused to join the League. Since the organization of the League 

 of the Iroquois, api)roximately in the third quarter of the 16th century, the 

 Huniber of Seneca clans, which are organized into two phratries for the per- 

 formance of both ceremonial and civil functions, have varied. The names of 

 the following nine have been recorded: Wolf, Uonnat'liaiioii'nl' ; Bear, Hodi- 

 djionni''gO' ; Reaver, Il(iilin("''(ir!ia' ; Turtle, Hadinia''deh' ; Hawk, Hadin'hwe""- 

 paiiu'; Sandpiper, llodi'nc'si'iu', sometimes also called Snipe, Plover, and 

 Killdee; Deer, Itadiniongtcaiiu' ; Doe, I[udino""deoga', sometimes Bonnoilt'- 

 gondjff" ; Heron, nodidaio''''ga'. In a list of clan names made in 183S by Oen. 

 Dearborn from information given him by Mr Cone, an interpreter of the Tona- 

 wanda band, the Heron clan is called the Swan clan with the native name 

 given above. Of these clans only five had an unequal representation in the 

 federal council of the League ; namely, the Sandpiper, three, the Turtle, two, 

 the Hawk, one, the Wolf. one. and the Bear, one. 



One of the earliest known references to the ethnic name Seneca is that on 

 the Original Carte Figurative, annexed to the Memorial presented to the States- 

 General of the Netherlands, Aug. 18, 1G16, on which it appears with the Dutch 

 plural as Sennecas. This map is remarkable also for the first known mention 

 of the ancient Erie, sometimes called Gahkwas or Kahkwah; on this map they 

 appear under the name last cited, Gachoi (ch = kh). and were placed on the n. 

 side of the w. branch of the Susquehanna. The name did not originally belong 

 to the Seneca, but to the Oneida, as the following lines will show. 



In the early part of December, 1G34, three Dutchmen made a journey (the 

 itinerary of which was duly recorded in a .lournal ') in the interests of the fur- 

 trade from Fort Orange, now Albany, N. Y., to the Mohawk and the " Sinne- 

 kens " to thwart French intrigue there. Strictly speaking, the latter name desig- 

 nated the Oneida, but at this time it was a general name, usually comprising the 

 Onondaga, the Cayuga, and the Seneca, in addition. At that period the Dutch 

 and the French commonly divided the Five Iroquois tribes into two identical 

 groups; to the first, the Dutch gave the name Maquas (Mohawk), and to the lat- 

 ter, Sinuekens (Seneca, the final -ens being the Dutch genitive plural), with the 

 connotation of the four tribes mentioned above. The French gave to the lat 

 ter group the general name " les Iroquois Superieurs ", " les Hiroquois d'eu 

 haut ", i. e. the Upper Iroquois, " les Hiroquois des pays plus hauts, nomm^s Son- 

 touaheronnous " (literally, 'the Iroquois of the upper country, called Soutoua- 

 heronnons'), the latter being only another form of "les Tsonnontouans " (the 

 Seneca) ; and to the first group the desigaations " les Iroquois inferieurs" (the 

 Lower Iroquois), and "les Hiroquois d'en has, nommSs Agnechronnons " (the 

 Mohawk; literally, 'the Iroquois from below, named Agnechronnons"). This 

 geographical rather than political division of the Iroquois tribes, first made by 

 Chaniplain and the early Dutch at Ft Orange, prevailed until about the third 

 quarter of the 17th century. Indeed, Governor Andros, two years after Green- 

 halgh's visit to the several tribes of the Iroquois in 1677, still wrote, " Ye 

 Oneidas deemed ye first nation of sineques." The Journal of the Dutchmen. 



' The manuscript of this .Toiirnal was discovcrod in Amsterdam in 1S05 by the late Gen. 

 James Grant Wilson, who published it In the Annual Report of the Americaji Historical 

 Association for the year IKSKI, under the caption " Arcnt Van Curler And His .Journal of 

 1634—35." But the Van Rensselaer Bowicr Manuscripts, edited by the learned Mr. A. J. 

 F. van I-aer, show that van Curler couhl not liavc made the journey, as he did not reach 

 Jlensselaerswyclt until 1637, then a youth of only eighteen. It seems probable that 

 Marmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert, the surgeon of the fort, was the author of the 

 Journal. , Consult the Introduction to this same Journal as published in " Narratives of 

 New Netherlsnd, 1600-1604," ed. by J Franklin Jameson, In Original Narratives of Early 

 American History (Charles Scribner's Sons, New Yorlc, 1909). 



