The Iroquois were a people far more conspicuous in history, and their
institutions are not yet extinct. In early and recent times, they have
been closely studied, and no little light has been cast upon a subject as
difficult and obscure as it is curious. By comparing the statements of
observers, old and new, the character of their singular organization
becomes sufficiently clear.

[ Among modern students of Iroquois institutions, a place far in advance
of all others is due to Lewis H. Morgan, himself an Iroquois by adoption,
and intimate with the race from boyhood. His work, The League of the
Iroquois, is a production of most thorough and able research, conducted
under peculiar advantages, and with the aid of an efficient co-laborer,
Hasanoanda (Ely S. Parker), an educated and highly intelligent Iroquois
of the Seneca nation. Though often differing widely from Mr. Morgan's
conclusions, I cannot bear a too emphatic testimony to the value of his
researches. The Notes on the Iroquois of Mr. H. R. Schoolcraft also
contain some interesting facts; but here, as in all Mr. Schoolcraft's
productions, the reader must scrupulously reserve his right of private
judgment. None of the old writers are so satisfactory as Lafitau.
His work, Moeurs des Sauvages Ameriquains comparees aux Moeurs des Premiers
Temps, relates chiefly to the Iroquois and Hurons: the basis for his
account of the former being his own observations and those of Father
Julien Garnier, who was a missionary among them more than sixty years,
from his novitiate to his death. ]

Both reason and tradition point to the conclusion, that the Iroquois
formed originally one undivided people. Sundered, like countless other
tribes, by dissension, caprice, or the necessities of the hunter life,
they separated into five distinct nations, cantoned from east to west