ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 95 



river westward to and beyond Niagara River resided a nation 

 known to history as the Attiwondaronk, or Neuter Nation, 

 who were not defeated and dispersed by the Five Nations 

 until 1651, more than forty years subsequent to Smith's ob- 

 servations. To reach the country of the latter from Chesa- 

 peake Bay the Susquehanna River would have been the 

 most natural course to pursue. The Massawomekes return- 

 ing home pursued 'a northwest direction beyond the moun- 

 tains which would have been an unnatural and inconvenient 

 route to reach the country of the Five Nations. It is as- 

 sumed, then, that the Massawomekes occupied the south 

 and southwest shore of Lake Erie and controlled the country 

 from there to the Alleghany mountains. 



2d. During the first half of the seventeenth century there 

 existed on the south shore of Lake Erie in the identical ter- 

 ritory above assigned to the Massawomekes, a nation of 

 Indians known-as the " Eries," " Rique," or " Chats." The 

 Jesuits visited them as early as 1626, and were unsuccessful 

 in attempting to establish missions among them. They 

 were overthrown and dispersed by the Five Nations about 

 1655, and no subsequent mention is made of them as a 

 nation. 



3d. Colden in his history of the Five Nations relates that 

 shortly prior to the French settlement of Canada, the Five 

 Nations had been driven by the Andirondacks, from the 

 neighborhood of Montreal to the banks of the lakes on 

 which they subsequently lived. There they turned their 

 arms against the " Satanas" who lived to the west of them 

 on the banks of the lakes, and in a few years subdued and 

 drove them from the country. This relation is doubtless 

 borrowed from the narrative of Nicholas Perot, who lived 

 among the Indians for more than thirty years subsequent 

 to 1665. These " Satanas " are mentioned by Colden as 

 synonymous with the " Shaonons," or, as Perot calls them, 

 " Chaoua nons." 



Here, then, we have in the earliest history of the country 

 the names of three tribes who by the accounts of different 



