JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS, 45 
rison of 4,000 warriors, with a total population of 12,000. ‘The first 
breach of the Covenant was followed by a truce for nine years. 
Their history, rise, spread and power and final fall is involved 
in a degree of obscurity which is all the more stimulating from the 
few gleams of tradition given. ‘There is no doubt that the Institu- 
tion of the Pipe of Peace Council must have been subject to a very 
delicate exercise of authority, and which was also often fluctuating 
in its power, it was finally overthrown by some indiscreet act. The 
power to light this pacific fire is represented as having been held by 
a women, and after its final extinction in the area of western New 
York, it was equally clear that hereafter it began to flicker. It was 
finally put out in terrible bloodshed by the increasing and conquer- 
ing Five Nations. The fate of the Eries has excited deep interest, 
and they are still brought to mind by the noble lake and its noted 
outlet the Falls of Niagara, the lake which still bears their once dis- 
tinguished name, 
They possessed twelve large forts, which were similar to the 
cities of refuge of the children of Israel. The country was noted for 
its fertility, game of every kind abounded, and fruits of sunny France 
flourished in the open air. The Eries were regarded as the Pacifi- 
cators or Peace Councillors of the many tribes and confederacies 
which waged war so furiously one with another north, south, east and 
west of them. In the year 1626 they were ruled by Queen Yag-ow- 
anea, ‘‘ Mother of Nations.” 
She was called ‘‘ Gegosasa” by the French and Senecas. They 
spoke a dialect of the old Huron-Iroquois race, in morale and religious 
belief, that of living under a Theocracy, they also agreed with these 
Romans of the New world. ‘The Eries occupied geographically a 
significant position, their territory lay intermediate between all con- 
tending parties—red and white—the various Indian confederacies, as 
well as the rival European powers in the race for supremacy on the 
continent. ‘They had already from propinquity and from a certain 
community of habit, and in spite of their supposed perfectly estab- 
lished neutrality between the powers, been drawn into a secret 
friendship with the Mississagies who dwelt on the west and north of 
Lake Ontario. Totemic ties of consanguinity, as well as the sacred 
trust of Kindler of the Peace Fires of the continent, should have kept 
Gegosasa true to her guardianship and faithful to her vows of vir- 
