504 



SENECA 



[B. A. E. 



nons" (the Mohawk; literally, 'the Iro- 

 quois from below, named Agnechron- 

 nons'). This geographical rather than 

 political division of tlie Iroquois tribes, 

 first made by Champlain and the early 

 Dutch at Ft Orange, prevailed until about 

 the third quarter of the 17th century. 

 Indeed, Governor Andros, two years 

 after Greenhalgh's visit to the several 

 tribes of the Iroquois in 1677, still wrote, 

 " Ye Oneidas deemed ye first nation 

 of sineques. " The Journal of Van Curler, 

 mentioned above, records the interesting 

 fact that during his visit to the tribes 

 he celebrated the New Year of 1635 at a 

 place called Enneinilteliage or Sinnekens. 

 The first of these names "was the Iro- 

 quois, and the second, the Mohegan, 

 name for the place, or, preferably, the Mo- 

 hegan translation of the Iroquois name. 

 The Dutch received their first knowledge 

 of the Iroquois tribes through the Mohe- 

 gan. The name Eniiei/utteliaye isevidently 

 written for Omniiite' agd' ^ ge\ ' at the place 

 of the people of the standing (projecting) 

 stone.' At that date this was the chief 

 town of the C)neida. ^'an Curler's Jour- 

 nal identifies the name Slimekerift with 

 this town, Avhich is presumptive evidence 

 that it is the Mohegan rendering of the 

 Iroquois local name f)ni'Ti'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'siiiiii, 'a stone, or rock', -ika 

 or -iga, denotive of 'jilace of, or 'abun- 

 dance 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 affix, like o- or v:a-, which 

 was not recorded by the Dutch writers, 

 the translation signifies, 'they are of the 

 place of the standing stone.' This deriva- 

 tion is confirmed by the Delaware name, 

 W'tassone, for the Oneida, which has a 

 similar derivation. The initial ir- rep- 

 resents approximately an o-sound, and is 

 the affix of verbs and nouns denotive of 

 the third person; the intercalary -t- is 

 merely euphonic, being employed to pre- 

 vent the coalescence of the two vowel 

 sounds; and it is evident that assone is 

 only another form of a'siiini, 'stone', 

 cited above. Hence it apjiears that the 

 Mohegan and Delaware names for the 

 Oneida are cognate in derivation and 

 identical in signification. Heckewelder 

 erroneously translated W'tassonehy 'stone 

 pipe makers.' 



Thus, the Iroquois Onmiute'd^gd', the 

 IVIohegan Sinnekens, and the Delaware 

 IV'tassone are synonymous and are ho- 

 mologous 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 

 naiwe 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 Euro- 

 peans. 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 

 Mexax^in'nl (the Maechachlinni oi Hecke- 

 welder), which signifies 'great moun- 

 tain ' ; this is, of course, a Delaware ren- 

 dering of the Iroquois ■ name for the 

 Seneca, DjiionondovdneiV^dku', or Djiio- 

 nofldotvdnhVron^no''^', 'People of the 

 Great Mountain.' This name appears 

 disguised as IVudawcun [Cartier, 1534-35), 

 Entouhonorons, Cliou(mtoi«(rodo7i=Chon- 

 ontonarunon (Champlain, 1615), Ouentou- 

 aroncns (Champlain, 1627), and Tsonon- 

 toiuin or Sonoiitouan (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 in- 

 dependent action appears never to have 

 been a serious and deliberate rupture of 

 the bonds uniting them with the federal 

 government of the League, thus vindi- 

 cating the wisdom and foresight of its 

 founders in permitting every tribe to re- 

 tain and exercise a large measure of auton- 

 omy in the structure of the federal gov- 

 ernment. It was sometimes apparently 

 imperative that one of the tribes should 

 enter into a treaty or other compact with 

 its enemies, while the others might still 

 maintain a hostile attitude toward the 

 alien contracting party. 



During 1622 theMontagnais, theAlgon- 

 kin, and the Hurons sought to conclude 

 peace with the Iroquois ( Yroquois = 

 Mohawk division?), because "they were 

 weary and fatigued with the wars which 

 th y had had for more than 50 years." 

 The armistice was concluded in 1624, but 

 was broken by the continued guerrilla 

 warfare of the Algonkin warriors; for this 

 reason the Seneca (" Ouentouoronons 

 d'autre nation, amis desdits Yrocois") 

 killed in the "village of the Yrocois " the 

 embassycomposedof a Frenchman, Pierre 

 Magnan, and three Algonquian ambassa- 

 dors. This resulted in the renewal of the 

 war. So in Sept. 1627, the Iroquois, in- 



