Ontario, Canada. 



Iroquow, or Five Nations, New York. 



MOONEY] IKO(jL'OlAN MIGKATIONS 189 



It will be noted that the Eastern and Middle dialect.? are about the same, except- 

 ing for the change of / to r, and the entire absence of the labial m from the Eastern 

 dialect, while the Western differs considerably from the othcre, particularly in the 

 greater frequency of the li([uid I and the softening of the guttural g, the changes tend- 

 ing to render it the most mu.'-ical of all the Cherokee dialects. It is also the stand- 

 ard literary dialect. In addition to these three principal dialects there are some 

 peculiar forms and expressions in use by a few individuals which indicate the former 

 existence of one or more other dialects now too far extinct to be reconstructed. As 

 in most other tribes, the ceremonial forms ii.sed by the priesthood are so filled with 

 archaic and figurative, expressions as to be almost unintelligible to the laity. 



(4) lROQroi.\x TRIBES .\Nn .MiGR.-vTioxs (p. 17): The Iroquoian stock, taking its 

 name from the celebrated Iro(|Uois confederacy, consisted formerly of from fifteen 

 to twenty tribes, speaking nearly as many different dialects, and iucludiug, among 

 others, the following: 



Wyandot, or Huron. 



Tionontati, or Tobacco nation. 



Attiwan'daron, or Neutral nation. 



Tohotaenrat. 



Wenrorono. 



Mohawk. 



Oneida. 



Onondaga. 



Cayuga. 



Seneca. 



Erie. Northern Ohio, etc. 



Conestoga, or Susquehanna. Southern Pennsylvania and Maryland. 



Nottowav. ■) ... 



Meherrin?./^o^''^'^™^"'*5"»"^- 



Tuscarora. Eastern North Carolina. 



Cherokee. Western Carolina, etc. 



Tradition and history alike p<jint to the St. Lawrence region as the early home 

 of this stock. Upon this point all authorities concur. Says Hale, in his paper on 

 Indian Migrations (p. 4): "The constant tradition of the Iroquois represents their 

 ancestors as emigrants from the region north of the Great lakes, where they dwelt in 

 early times with their Huron brethren. This tradition is recorded with much par- 

 ticularity by Cadwallader Colden, surveyor-general of New York, who in the early 

 part of the last century composed his well known ' History of the Five Nations.' It 

 is told in a somewhat different form by David Cusick, the Tuscamra historian, in his 

 'Sketches of Ancient History of the Six Nations,' and it is repeated by Mr. L. H. 

 Morgan in his now classical work, 'The League of the Iroquois,' for which he pro- 

 cured his information chiefly among the Senecas. Finally, as we learn from the 

 narrative of the Wyandot Indian, Peter Clarke, in his book entitled 'Origin and Tra- 

 ditional History of the Wyandotts,' the belief of the Hurons accords in this respect 

 with that of the Iroquois. Both point alike to the country immediately north of the 

 St.' Lawrence, and especially to that portion of it lying east of Lake Ontario, as the 

 early home of the Huroii-Ir<i(iuiiis nations." Nothing is known of the traditions of 

 the Conestoga or the Nottuway, but the tradition of the Tuscarora, as given by Cusick 

 and iitlH'r authorities, makes them a direct offshoot from the northern Iroquois, with 

 whom they afterward reunited. The traditions of the ('herokee also, as we liave 

 seen, bring them from the north, thus completing the cycle. "The striking fact has 

 become evident that the course of migration of the Huron-Cherokee family has been 

 from the northeast to the southwest — that is, from eastern Canada, on the Lower St. 

 Lawrence, to the nmuntains nf northern .Vlabama." — Hale, Indian Migrations, p. 11. 



The retirement of the northern Irotjuoian tribes from the St. Lawrence region was 



