SIXTH REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR I909 215 



great hill ' and the terminal syllables ' o-no ' convey the idea of 

 'people.' This was the name of their oldest village, situated upon 

 a hill at the head of Canandaigua lake near Naples where, accord- 

 ing to the Seneca legend, they sprang out of the ground." On the 

 map accompanying the book, the site of the village of Nun-da-wa'-o 

 is located precisely on that part of the Naples flats where evidences 

 of the former existence of an Indian village are now found in 

 greatest profusion. 



Though flints are occasionally found on the hillsides, and very 

 rarely a pestle, nothing to indicate an Indian village has yet been 

 discovered in the region about the head of Canandaigua lake except 

 in the valleys. 



The late Miss Jane Mills, who during many years collected ma- 

 terial for a history of Naples, getting much of her data from 

 descendants of the pioneer settlers, says in her unpublished manu- 

 script: "they (the first comers) arrived at the village of Nun-da- 

 wa'-o." 



French's Gazetteer of New York, page 407, note, says : " Naples 

 was called by the Indians Nun-da-wa-o." 



There is not much room for doubt that the village on the fiats 

 was the traditional Nun-da-wa-o, but it was not unusual for Indian 

 villages to have two or more names, and we find that the pioneers 

 and their descendants have preserved another name for this one. 

 This valley was in the central part of the Phelps and Gorham 

 Purchase of 1787, the Indian title to^ which was extinguished in 

 1788. In 1789 the present township of Naples was sold to a com- 

 pany of Massachusetts men and surveyed by a party of six men 

 from that state. So far as can be ascertained these were the first 

 white men, except Pouchot, who arrived at this Indian village. 



In an address before the Naples Lyceum in 183 1 the speaker, 

 whose name is not known but who claimed to have derived his 

 information from one of these surveyors, said : " They entered 

 the inlet that flows through this valley and came on shore at the 

 old Indian landing 2 miles below the village of Naples. Here 

 they found an Indian settlement which in the dialect of the natives 

 was called Ki-an-da-ga, said to mean ' between the hills.' There 

 resided here at this time 30 to 40 families embracing about 100 

 souls and from the contiguity of ancient fortifications 1 it may be 

 presumed that these natives had been lords of the soil from time 

 immemorial." 



1 Nothing more is known of fortifications here. 



