THE ARCHEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF NEW YORK 273 



of wildcats, two or three times as large as our tame cats, but having a 

 beautiful and precious fur). They tell us that an Iroquois town has already 

 been set on fire and destroyed at the first attack; that this nation pursued 

 one of their armies which w-as returning victorious from the shores of Lake 

 Huron, fell upon the rear guard of 80 picked men and entirely cut it to 

 pieces ; that one of their most distinguished chiefs, Annenraes, has been taken 

 prisoner; in a word that the Iroquois are inflamed, and are arming to 

 repulse the enemy, and are, therefore, obliged to seek peace with us. 



This Cat Nation is very populous. Some Hurons, who have scattered 

 everywhere since the destruction of their country, have joined them, and 

 excited this W'ar, w-hich alarms the Iroquois. It is said that they have 2000 

 men, good warriors, though without firearms. But they fight like the French, 

 enduring courageously the first discharge of the Iroquois who have firearms, 

 and then pouring down upon them a hail of poisoned arrows, which they 

 can shoot off six or eight times before the others can reload their muskets. 



Sagard, who went to the Huron country as a missionary in 1623, 

 in his interesting Hisfoire du Canada, 1636, has also some notes 

 bearing on the Eries. 



Relation of the Erie to other Iroquoian tribes. The Erie 

 belonged to the Huron-Iroquois linguistic stock, as is patent from a 

 review of the records. William M. Beauchamp, the distinguished 

 authority on New York archeolog}', suggests that the Erie were 

 tlie parent stock of the Huron-Iroquois family and further suggests 

 that the Seneca were derived from them, possibly within historic 

 times. There seems to be some good base in history for this opinion 

 and the argument can not be better stated than in Doctor Beau- 

 champ's own words, quoted from his address on The Origin and 

 Early Life of the Nezv York Iroquois, delivered before the Oneida 

 Historical Society in 1886 : 



The Senecas had a conspicuous place in the Iroquois league, though the 

 last to enter it, forming the west door, as the Mohawks were the east. On 

 the Dutch maps of 1614 and 1616, the Mohawks and the Senecas are alone 

 designated, and for 50 years more the Dutch hardly mentioned any but these. 

 That they were kindred to the Eries is conceded. In 1615 Champlain spoke 

 of the Iroquois and the Entouhonoronons, whom some have thought the 

 Senecas. In the explanation of his map it is said that " The Iroquois and 

 the Antouhonorons make war together against other nations except the 

 Neutral nation." They had fifteen strong villages, too many for the Senecas, 

 unless the Eries were included. That the Senecas differed from the other 

 Iroquois in religious observances, totems and clans, habits of life and other 

 things is very clear. A marked distinction appears in their language and 

 they were not very l)rotherly to the rest. Long after the League w^as formed 

 they were sometimes at swords points with the Mohawks, and the French 

 Mohawks did not hesitate to go against the Senecas, when they refused to 

 fight against the other nations. 



