172 



Arendt Van Curler. 



* While on this subject of titles, let us note further the term "Onon- 

 tio " used by the Iriquois before the time of Van Curler, and down to 

 the conquest of Canada by Wolfe, and familiar to all readers of Colonial 

 documents or Indian eloquence. On this word Cuoq remarks : " This 

 name [Onontio] was given for the first time to the successor of Cham- 

 plain to the government of Canada. Charles Ilault, De Montmagny, 

 Chevalier do Malte. We have seen the origin of the title of Kora 

 given to the kings and queens of England, and to the English govern- 

 ors of Canada, This title is, if we may so speak, of purely Iriquoise 

 creation, since it is no other than that of the Hollandish governor 

 Corlter, pronounced by a savage. But it is otherwise with the title 

 Onontio, first conferred upon the chevalier of Montmagny. They 

 translated his name, and to this the missionaries must have lent their 

 assistance, without which the savages could not even have suspected 

 the meaning of Montmagny, the great mountain. It is noteworthy 

 that in rendering the name of the French governor by Onontio, they 

 have given only a free translation- the Iriquois word meaning liter- 

 ally 'the beautiful mountain/ and not the great mountain. From 

 the chevalier of Montmagny the title of Onontio passed to his suc- 

 cessors until the title of the conquest (1760). For the kings of France 

 they add the adjective kowa [the great]/' 



I have been particular thus in summoning testimony to the worth of 

 \ an Curler citing from the aborigines, the first historic occupiers of the 

 soil, because they stood between the rival nations contesting for the pos- 

 session of this continent, and largely by their attitude decided its occu- 

 pancy. And the one man who, more than any other, secured and 

 maintained for the Dutch and the English the friendship of the Five 

 Nations of the Iriquois, the most nearly civilized Indians, and who 

 were advanced above all others in political knowledge, against the 

 French and the Algonquin Indians, north of the St. Lawrence, was 

 Aivndt Van Curler. Bancroft, Parkman, Iligginson, Hildreth, O'Cal- 



