220 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



In their turn the Mohawks became the invaders, but were 

 unsuccessful, though aided by other Iroquois. On account of 

 their present loss, a condolence was held with them, which has 

 been confused with the Dead Feast of the Hurons, to which it 

 bore no likeness. Father Pierron was present and interrupted the 

 ceremony, which he did not understand. The result was that 

 he induced the Mohawks to renounce the worship of Agreskoue'. 

 A similar renunciation of the old worship was soon made at 

 Onondaga, but was never very thorough. From that time till 

 the preaching of the new religion about 1800, the religious belief 

 of the Iroquois was of a very hazy kind. Through all their 

 earlier history their faith in dreams was unlimited. 



The mission of St Francis Xavier a la Prairie de la Magdeliene 

 was founded near Montreal in 1669, as a refuge for the Christian 

 Iroquois desirous of escaping the temptations of their old homes. 

 This was done by Catharine Gandiaktena, born in the Erie town 

 of Gentaieton, but carried to Oneida and married there. She 

 went to La Prairie with 12 others, and this led to the removal 

 of many Christian Iroquois to Canada. Other Canadian mission 

 towns followed, attracting people from their old homes and seri- 

 ously diminishing their strength. The chiefs were alarmed and 

 indignant. The Jesuits boasted that they had thus secured 200 

 brave Iroquois soldiers for the French, and still had eight chapels 

 in New York in 1674. To conduct these properly, they arranged' 

 a uniform scheme of missions in 1669. 



Fremin and Garnier went to Onondaga Aug. 26, 1669, and that 

 day La Salle landed at Irondequoit bay, led there by Seneca 

 reports of a great river flowing southward from them. Dollier 

 and Gallinee went to the mission with him, remaining quite a 

 time, and visited and described the burning spring as well as the 

 town. In September they stopped a while at the Iroquois village 

 of Tinawatawa, near the extreme western end of Lake Ontario 

 That year Indian murders led to a close union between all th( 

 River Indians and the Iroquois. 



In 1670 the Senecas captured 100 women and children near th' 

 Ottawas, and exposed Iroquois cabins were attacked in turn 



