130 



ONONDAGA 



[B. A. B. 



and Eel clans have each two federal 

 chiefships, while the Deer clan has three. 

 The reason for thia marked difference in 

 the quotas of chiefships for the several 

 clans is not definitely known, but it may 

 be due to the adoption of groups of per- 

 sons who already possessed chiefship 

 titles. In federal ceremonial and social 

 assemblies the Onondaga by rightof mem- 

 bership therein take their places with the 

 tribal phratry of the "Three Brothers," 

 of which the Mohawk and the Seneca are 

 the other two members; but in federal 

 councils — those in which sit the federal 

 representatives of all the five (latterly 

 six) Iroquois tribes — the Onondaga tribe 

 itself constitutes a tribal phratry, while 

 the Mohawk and the Seneca together 

 form a second, and the Oneida and the 



OTOGDAIENDO, ONONDAGA CHIEF AND FIRE-KEEPER 



Cayuga originally, and latterly the Tus- 

 carora, a thinl tribal phratry. The fed- 

 eral council is organized on the basis of 

 these three tribal phratries. The func- 

 tions of the Onondaga phratry are in 

 many respects similar to those of a judge 

 holding court with a jury. The question 

 before the council is discussed respectively 

 by the Mohawk and Seneca tribes on 

 the one side, and then by the Oneida, 

 the Cayuga, and, latterly, the Tuscarora 

 tribes on the other, within their own 

 phratries. When these two phratries 

 have independently reached the same or 

 a differing opinion, it is then submitted to 

 the Onondaga phratry for confirmation or 

 rejection. The confirmation of a com- 

 mon opinion or of one of the two differing 

 opinions makes that the decree of the 

 council. In refusing to confirm an opin- 



ion the Onondaga must show that it is in 

 conflict with established custom or with 

 public policy; when two differing opin- 

 ions are rejected the Onondaga may sug- 

 gest to the two phratries a course by 

 which they may be able to reach a com- 

 mon opinion; but the Onondaga may 

 confirm one of two differing opinions 

 submitted to it. Each chieftain has the 

 right to discuss and argue the question 

 before the council either for or against its 

 adoption by the council, in a speech or 

 speeches addressed to the entire body of 

 councilors and to the public. 



Champlain related that in 1622 the 

 Montagnais, the Etchemin, and the Hu- 

 rons had been engaged for a long time in 

 seeking to bring about peace between 

 themselves and the Iroquois, but that up 

 to that time there was always some serious 

 oljstacle to the consummation of an agree- 

 ment on account of the fixed distrust 

 which each side had of the faith of the 

 other. Many times did they ask Cham- 

 plain himself to aid them in making a 

 firm and durable peace. They informed 

 him that they understood by making a 

 treaty that the interview of the ambas- 

 sadors must be amicable, the one side 

 accepting the words and faith of the 

 other not to harm or prevent them from 

 hunting throughout the country, and 

 they on their side agreeing to act in 

 like manner toward their enemies, in this 

 case the Iroquois, and that they had no 

 other agreements or compacts precedent 

 to the making of a firm peace. They 

 importuned Champlain many times to 

 give them his advice in this matter, 

 which they promised faithfully to follow. 

 They assured him that they were then 

 exhausted and weary of the wars which 

 they had waged against each other for 

 more than fifty years, and that, on account 

 of their burning desire for revenge for the 

 murder of their kin and friends, their an- 

 cestors liad never before thought of peace. 

 In this last statement is probably found 

 approximately the epoch of that historic 

 feud mentioned in the Jesuit Kelation for 

 1660 (chap. II ) and by Nicholas Perrot, 

 which made the Irocjuois tribes, on the 

 one hand, and the Algonkin on the 

 Ottawa and St Lawrence rs., on the 

 other, inveterate enemies, although this 

 may have been but a renewal and widen- 

 ing of a still earlier quarrel. In 1535 

 Cartier learned from the Iroquoian tribes 

 on the St Lawrence that they were con- 

 tinually tormented by enemies dwelling 

 to the southward, called Toudaniani 

 (probably identical with Tsonnontouan, 

 or Seneca, a name then meaning ' Upper 

 Iroquois'), who continually waged war 

 on them. 



In Sept. 1655 the Onondaga sent a 

 delegation of 18 persons to Quebec to 

 confer with Governor de Lauson and 



