ASIATIC TRIBES OP NORTH AMERICA. 183 



embracing many tribes comparatively unknown to fame, occupied the 

 more northern, and the Iroquois or Five Nations, the southern part 

 of the area. In the latter confederacy, said to be from three to five 

 centuries old, were included the Mohawks, whose real name, according 

 to Dr. Oronhyatekha, himself a distinguished Mohawk, is Kanyen- 

 kehaka, " the flint people," the Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas and 

 Senecas. The Tuscaroras, migrating northward, united with them 

 at a comparatively recent period to form the Six Nations, now found 

 on the Bay of Quinte and on the Grand River. An Iroquois tribe 

 originally inhabited the site of Montreal, and were known as the 

 Hochelagas ; and another still exists at Caughnawaga on the opposite 

 side of the St. Lawrence. The Caughnawagas, St. Regis Indians and 

 other scattered tribes, are generally known by the generic name 

 Iroquois. A body of Hurons or Wyandots still exists in the 

 neighbourhood of Quebec, where, in the days of warfai-e between 

 them and the Iroquois, they sought French protection. Of the great 

 nation that once occupied the extensive Lake Huron country, scattei'ed 

 fragments only remain. Some, with their ancient foes and relatives, 

 the Iroquois, are found in the Western States, but the most important 

 band is that found at Amherstburg on the Detroit River, whose 

 history has been written in a somewhat rambling but amusing 

 fashion by one of their number, Peter Dooyentate Clarke. 



A peculiarity of the Wyandot-Iroquois dialects is the absence of 

 labials, w being the nearest approach to the sound of these letters. 

 In this they differ not only from the Algonquin tongues but from 

 their related forms of speech, the Choctaw-Cherokee. The Mohawk 

 makes a free use of the letter r, which in many cases possesses a 

 certain virile force. This is sometimes replaced by Z in Oneida, and 

 in Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca, by a breathing. Thus boy is 

 raxha in Mohawk, laxha in Oneida, hahsaah in Onondaga. The 

 Tuscarora forms though differing from those of the five nations, 

 agree with the Mohawk in presenting a recurrence of the harsh r, 

 so little known to Algonquin speech. As far as I am able to judge, 

 the affinities of the Wyandot proper or Huron are with the Tusca- 

 rora, which, from its resemblance to the Cherokee, I am disposed to 

 regard as the oldest and purest form of the Wyandot-Iroquois lan- 

 guage. The resemblance that exists between many words of the 

 . Tuscarora and Cherokee has been noted in the Mithridates, and is 

 capable of large illustration. For instance, arrow is hanah in Tus- 

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