12 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



took the alarm and gradually withdrew their New York towns to 

 a safer position west of Niagara river. At one time they may have 

 had a considerable population on the east side. The names of some 

 of these villages have survived. On the map illustrating the travels 

 of Marquette and Joliet we have here " Ka Kouagoga, nation 

 detruite.'* Creuxius's map of 1660 places Pagus Ondiasacus and P. 

 Ondieronii just east of Niagara river and P. Ondataius west of the 

 Genesee. Eighteen Mile creek has its Seneca name from the Kah 

 Kwahs who were of the Iroquoian family also. This seems the 

 southern boundary of the Neutrals. 



Another nation of the same family occupied the southern line of 

 New York, along the Susquehanna and its larger branches. On 

 very early maps they appear as the Gachoi or Gachoos: close 

 to them were the Capitanasses. Their Iroquois foes gave them 

 scant room in New York but they were in close alliance with others 

 of the family in Pennsylvania. 



The Five Nations were the Iroquois proper, forming a con- 

 federacy a little before 1600 A. D. Their western line was then 

 the Genesee river but in a man's lifetime their conquests reached the 

 Mississippi. The Sonnontouan or Seneca territory lay east of the 

 Genesee river and reached the high land between Cayuga and 

 Seneca lakes. Originally it extended but little south of the more 

 western group of lakes. They were comparatively early occupants. 

 It is not unlikely that their territory may have included the 

 Genesee valley at that time, but they had no villages then west of 

 the river, which was practically their boundary Hne until the 

 Neutrals withdrew. 



The Cayugas, who had several names when first known, had 

 Owasco lake on their east side. By right of conquest they at last 

 reached the Susquehanna. 



The early Onondaga boundary on the east was Chittenango 

 creek, and one of their earliest towns was little over a mile west of 

 Cazenovia lake. Following the creek the line crossed Oneida lake 

 and passed through Oswego and Jefferson counties, in the last of 

 which they claim origin. 



