hewi'tt] introduction 45 



mentioned above, records the interesting fact that during their visit to the tribes 

 they celebrated the New Year of 1635 at a place called Eniwyuttchaga or Sinne- 

 kcnx. The first of these names was the Iroquois, and the second, the Mohegan, 

 name for the place, or, preferably, the Mohegan translation of the Iroquois name. 

 The Dutch received their first knowledge of the Iroquois tribes through the 

 Mohegan. Thejiame Enneyuttehufia is evidently written for Oneniute'aga''ge', 

 'at the place of the people of the standing (projecting) stone.' At that date 

 this was the chief town of the Oneida. The Dutch Journal identifies the name 

 Sinnekens with this town, which is presumptive evidence that it is the Mohegan 

 rendering of the Iroquois local name Oneii'iute', ' it is a standing or projecting 

 stone', employed as an ethnic appellative. The derivation of Sinnekens from 

 Mohegan appears to be as follows: a'sinni, 'a stone, or rock', -ika or -iga, de- 

 notive of ' place of ', or ' abundance of ', and the final -ens supplied by the 

 Dutch genitive plural ending, the whole Mohegan synthesis meaning ' place of 

 the standing stone ' ; and with a suitable pronominal afiix, like o- or ivd-, which 

 was not recorded by the Dutch writers, the translation signifies, ' they are of 

 the place of the standing stone.' This etymology is confirmed l)y the Delaware 

 name, W'tassone, for the Oneida, which has a similar derivation. The initial 

 to- represents approximately an o-sound. and is the affix of verbs and nouns 

 denotive of the third person ; the intercalary -t- is merely euphonic, being em- 

 ployed to prevent the coalescence of the two vowel sounds; and it is evident 

 that assone is only another form of a'sinni, 'stone', cited above. Hence it 

 appears that the Mohegan and Delaware names for the Oneida are cognate in 

 derivation and identical in signification. Heckewelder erroneously translated 

 W'tassone by ' stone pipe makers.' 



Thus, the Iroquois Oneniutc'ii'ga', the Mohegan Sinnekens, and the Delaware 

 W'tassone are synonymous and are homologous in derivation. But the Dutch, 

 followed by other Europeans, used the Mohegan term to designate a group of 

 four tribes, to only one of which, the Oneida, was it strictly applicable. The 

 name Sinnekens, or Sennecaas (Visscher's map, ca. 1660), became the tribal 

 name of the Seneca by a process of elimination which excluded from the group 

 and from the connotation of the general name the nearer tribes as each with 

 its own proper native name became known to the Europeans. Obviously, the 

 last remaining tribe of the group would finally acquire as its own the general 

 name of the group. The Delaware name for the Seneca was Mexaxtin'ni (the 

 Maechachtinni of Heckewelder), which signifies 'great mountain'; this is, of 

 course, a Delaware rendering of the Iroquois name for the Seneca, Djiionondo- 

 tcdnen''dkd', or Djiionondoiodnen'ronno'", 'People of the Great Mountain.' 

 This name appears disguised as Trudamani (Cartier, 1534-35), Entouhonorons, 

 Chouoniouaroiion^Chonontouaronon (Champlain, 1615), Oncntouarunons 

 (Champlain, 1627), and Tsonontouan or Sonontouan (Jes. Rel., passim). 



Previous to the defeat and despoliation of the Neuters in 1651 and the Erie in 

 1656, the Seneca occupied the territory drained by Genesee r., eastward to the 

 lands of the Cayuga along the line of the watershed between Seneca and Cayuga 

 lakes. 



The political history of the Seneca is largely that of the League of the 

 Iroquois, although owing to petty jealousies among the various tribes the 

 Seneca, like the others, sometimes acted independently in their dealings with 

 aliens. But their independent action appears never to have been a serious and 

 deliberate rupture qf the bonds uniting them with the federal government of 

 the League, thus vindicating the wisdom and foresight of its founders iu per- 

 mitting every tribe to retain and exercise a large measure of autonomy in the 

 structure of the federal goverument. It was sometimes apparently imperative 



