148 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



affect their conclusions. Nor did plain history. Little was said 

 of what Champlain, Charlevoix, Perrot, the Jesuits and others 

 wrote, nor were Albert Gallatin's sober conclusions mentioned. 

 Tradition and the varying accounts of Indian chiefs were trusted 

 by both. Some Indians mentioned by Hale now deduct a cen- 

 tury and a half, carrying the date of the league to near 1600. 

 From similar Oneida statements, the Rev. Samuel Kirkland made 

 this 1608. Heckewelder quoted from a manuscript volume of 

 Pyrlaeus, the Moravian missionary, an account of the formation 

 of the league which he had from a Mohawk chief : " The alliance 

 or confederacy of the Five Nations was established, as near as 

 can be conjectured, one age (or the length of a man's life) before 

 the white people (the Dutch) came into the country." The 

 words in parentheses are Heckewelder's, and the question may 

 well be raised whether he was right. Shakspere gives seven ages 

 to one man's life. Did the age of Pyrlaeus mean one man's life, 

 or the generation of about 30 years ? What coming of the whites 

 was meant? Was it that of Hudson, whom they may not have 

 seen ? or that of Champlain, whom they had reason to remember ? 

 or that of the Dutch, to trade or settle? The initial date is 

 slightly confused. Some have assumed this as 1609, deducted 

 70 years for a man's life, and dated the confederacy in 1539, which 

 is much too early. If a generation of 30 years be allowed, we 

 would have 1579, which approximates the true date of the 

 Mohawk exodus. 



But if we are to quote Pyrlaeus at all, let us hear more, a thing 

 seldom done. After noting the rank of the Mohawks and Onei- 

 das, he proceeds to say : '' The Senecas, who were the last who 

 at that time had consented to the alliance, were called the young- 

 est son ; but the Tuscaroras, who joined the confederacy prob- 

 ably a hundred years afterwards, assumed that name, and the 

 Senecas ranked before them, as being the next youngest son, or 

 as we would say, the youngest son but one." Now the Tusca- 

 roras were admitted about 1714, making the Seneca alliance about 

 1614 and harmonizing with Champlain's distinction of the Sen- 

 ecas from the Iroquois. Their union seems earlier than the date 

 which Pyrlaeus here gives. 



