BUFFALO SOCIETY OF NATURAL SCIENCES 275 



The Tahonta, enrat mentioned was a clan of the Hurons 

 located at Scanonaenrat, (1). Teoto nidiaton was the Nentral 

 village in which the Jesuits had located the mission of St. 

 Guilliaume. 



' 'The Iroquois have not waged so pittiless a war against us 

 for a year as we had feared. They turned against the Neutral 

 Xation whither they sent the bulk of their forces. They met 

 with success, and captured two villages on the frontier, in one 

 of which there were over 1600 men. The first was taken toward 

 the end of Autumn; the second at the beginning of Spring. 

 Great was the carnage especially among the old people and the 

 children who would not have been able to follow the Iroquois to 

 the country. The number of captives was exceedingly large 

 especially of young women whom they reserve, in order to keep 

 up the population of their own villages. This loss was very 

 great and entailed the complete ruin and desolation of the Neutral 

 Xation; the inhabitants of their other villages, which were more 

 distant from the enemy, took fright; abandoned their homes, 

 their property and their country, and condemned themselves to 

 voluntary exile, to escape still further from the fury and cruelty 

 of the conquerors. Famine pursues the poor fugitives every- 

 where, and compels them to scatter through the woods and over 

 the more remote lakes and rivers, to find some relief from the 

 misery that keeps pace with them and causes them to die", (2). 



Although Father Ragueneau spoke so despairingly of the 

 plight of the Neutrals, their spirit was not all broken by the 

 reverses of that year. The next year, 1652, they allied them- 

 selves with the Andastes, an Iroquoian people who lived south 

 of the Iroquois on the Susquehanna River. They were a warlike 

 nation and were foes of the Iroquois. With their aid the Neu- 

 trals carried the war into the Seneca country. ' ' Aasate an Algon- 

 kin brought back the following news: 1st, that the Neutrals had 

 made an alliance with those of Andastoe, against the Iroquois. 

 2nd, that the Sonnontwe'ronnons, going to war against the 

 Neutrals, had been defeated, so that the women had been con- 

 strained to leave Sonnontwan, and take refuge at Onionen", (3). 



Of the other events of the year 1653 we know only that the 

 Mohawks, who were at war with the French at that time wished 



i. Note 35, Jes. Rel. 1651, Burrows edition. 



2. Father Ragueneau, Jes. Rel. 1650-51, Vol. 36, P. 177, Burrows ed. 



3. Journal of the P. P. Jesuits, 1652, Vol. 37, P. 97, Burrows ed. 



[2] 



