l60 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Divided. There are other interpretations, all referring to a 

 division, mostly of words. Albert Ciisick thought the best ren- 

 dering, A Heart divided into Two Hearts, equivalent to our 

 E pluribus unum, and perhaps referring to their peculiar union. 

 The national boundary east was the top of the hills east of Scho- 

 harie creek ; on the west it is said to have been at Little Falls. 

 Northward they claimed to the rock Rogeo on Lake Champlain. 

 Thence to the St Lawrence they asserted a joint ownership with 

 their near relatives, the Oneidas. Their villages continually 

 varied in number, changing from one side of the river to the other. 



The Oneidas w^ere closely akin to the Mohawks, and their 

 language is much the same. Both used the letter L freely, that 

 being of rare occurrence in the other nations, and their use as 

 interpreters, with the Mohawks, has left a distinct impress on the 

 Indian terminology of New York. Their early seat w^as prob- 

 ably in the St LawTence valley, with forts north and south of 

 Ogdensburg. They seem to have shared in the Mohawk exodus, 

 and to have sought secluded and strong situations, as both Mo- 

 hawks and Onondagas did. All three were for a time more 

 exposed to hostile incursions than the Cayugas and Senecas, for 

 the Neutral nation lay between the latter and the Hurons, and the 

 Algonquins were far away. For this reason the early Oneidas 

 never dwelt in the lowlands about Oneida lake and farther east, 

 and no traces of them are found there. They sought the hills. 



One early village east of Chittenango creek and Cazenovia lake 

 seems theirs, but the earliest identified with their name was a 

 mile southeast of Perryville, at a remarkable stone now destroyed, 

 but long venerated by the Indians. It was a dark crystalline 

 rock, quite erect and reaching about 7 feet above ground. Their 

 name refers to this, being People of the Stone, or more exactly 

 the Upright Stone. In 161 5 they were at Nichols' pond in Fenner. 

 a few miles away. That village also included a large boulder, 

 and similar representative stones were selected as their villages 

 moved northward. 'Jlie Rev. Samuel Kirkland, an excellent 

 authority, mentioned one in Westmoreland. The Oneida stone 

 of 1796 was a somewhat cylindric boulder, weighing over 100 



