along the centre of New York, in the following order: Mohawks, Oneidas,
Onondagas, Cayugas, Senecas. There was discord among them; wars followed,
and they lived in mutual fear, each ensconced in its palisaded villages.
At length, says tradition, a celestial being, incarnate on earth,
counselled them to compose their strife and unite in a league of defence
and aggression. Another personage, wholly mortal, yet wonderfully
endowed, a renowned warrior and a mighty magician, stands, with his hair
of writhing snakes, grotesquely conspicuous through the dim light of
tradition at this birth of Iroquois nationality. This was Atotarho,
a chief of the Onondagas; and from this honored source has sprung a long
line of chieftains, heirs not to the blood alone, but to the name of
their great predecessor. A few years since, there lived in Onondaga
Hollow a handsome Indian boy on whom the dwindled remnant of the nation
looked with pride as their destined Atotarho. With earthly and celestial
aid the league was consummated, and through all the land the forests
trembled at the name of the Iroquois.

The Iroquois people was divided into eight clans. When the original
stock was sundered into five parts, each of these clans was also sundered
into five parts; and as, by the principle already indicated, the clans
were intimately mingled in every village, hamlet, and cabin, each one of
the five nations had its portion of each of the eight clans. [ 1 ]
When the league was formed, these separate portions readily resumed their
ancient tie of fraternity. Thus, of the Turtle clan, all the members
became brothers again, nominal members of one family, whether Mohawks,
Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, or Senecas; and so, too, of the remaining
clans. All the Iroquois, irrespective of nationality, were therefore
divided into eight families, each tracing its descent to a common mother,
and each designated by its distinctive emblem or totem. This connection
of clan or family was exceedingly strong, and by it the five nations of