them and the Tuscarora would demand a still longer time. Their
traditions all affirm--what we should be prepared to believe--that this
period was one of perpetual troubles. The tribes were constantly at war,
either among themselves, or with the neighboring nations of their own
and other stocks, Hurons, Andastes, Algonkins, Tuteloes, and even with
the distant Cherokees.

There are reasons for believing that attempts were made during this
period to combine the tribes, or some of them, in a federal
alliance. But if such connections were formed, they proved only
temporary leagues, which were dissolved when the dangers that had called
them into being had passed away. A leader of peculiar qualities, aided
by favoring circumstances, was able at last to bring about a more
permanent union. There is no exact chronology by which the date of this
important event can be ascertained; but the weight of evidence fixes it
at about the middle of the fifteenth century. [Footnote: The evidence on
this point is given in the Appendix, note C. It should be mentioned that
some portion of the following narrative formed part of a paper entitled
"A Lawgiver of the Stone Age," which was read at the Cincinnati meeting
of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in August,
1882, and was published in the Proceedings of the meeting. The
particulars comprised in it were drawn chiefly from notes gathered
during many visits to the Reserve of the Six Nations, on the Grand
River, in Ontario, supplemented by information obtained in two visits to
the Onondaga Reservation, in the State of New York, near Syracuse. My
informants were the most experienced councillors, and especially the
"wampum-keepers," the official annalists of their people. Their names,
and some account of them, will be given in a subsequent chapter. It
should be mentioned that while the histories received at the two
localities were generally in close accord, thus furnishing a strong