290 
that united with them at different periods for protection against the 
League of the Ii’oquois. The real name of the confederacy was 
Wendat (“Islanders” or “Dwellers on a Peninsula”), whence the term 
Wyandot subsequently applied to the mixed remnants of both the 
Hurons and the Tobacco people; and the strongest tribe was the 
Bear, which contained about half the population. When Champlain 
visited the country in 1(315 the Hurons occupied eighteen villages, 
all situated within a few miles of one another; but the number varied 
at different dates, for no settlement lasted longer than from twelve 
Apptoximate distribution of the Iroquoian tribes in 1525 A.D. Based partly on map 
in Beauchamp, W. M.: “A History of the New York Iroquois”; N.Y. State Museum, 
Bull. 78. The boundaries between the Huron, Tobacco, and Neutral nations, and 
what tribe or tribes controlled the north shore of the St. Lawrence river, are not 
known. 
to twenty years on account of the depletion of the fuel supply and 
the exhaustion of the unfertilized soil. Only eight of the eighteen 
villages were fortified with palisades and ramparts; to these the 
inhabitants of the remainder fled for refuge in times of danger, if 
indeed they did not scatter to the woods like sheep. Owing to the 
size of the dwellings, each of which housed from eight to twenty-four 
families, with an average of five or six persons to a family, a village 
seldom contained more than twenty or thirty dwellings, irregularly 
arranged at short intervals from each other to avoid complete destruc- 
