When by the events of the Revolutionary war the original confederacy was
broken up, the larger portion of the people followed Brant to
Canada. The refugees comprised nearly the whole of the Caniengas, and
the greater part of the Onondagas and Cayugas, with many members of the
other nations. In Canada their first proceeding was to reestablish, as
far as possible, their ancient league, with all its laws and
ceremonies. The Onondagas had brought with them most of their wampum
records, and the Caniengas jealously preserved the memories of the
federation, in whose formation they had borne a leading part. The
history of the league continued to be the topic of their orators
whenever a new chief was installed into office. Thus the remembrance of
the facts has been preserved among them with much clearness and
precision, and with little admixture of mythological elements. With the
fragments of the tribes which remained on the southern side of the Great
Lakes the case was very different. A feeble pretense was made, for a
time, of keeping up the semblance of the old confederacy; but except
among the Senecas, who, of all the Five Nations, had had least to do
with the formation of the league, the ancient families which had
furnished the members of their senate, and were the conservators of
their history, had mostly fled to Canada or the West. The result was
that among the interminable stories with which the common people beguile
their winter nights, the traditions of Atotarho and Hiawatha became
intermingled with the legends of their mythology. An accidental
similarity, in the Onondaga dialect, between the name of Hiawatha and
that of one of their ancient divinities, led to a confusion between the
two, which has misled some investigators. This deity bears, in the
sonorous Canienga tongue, the name of Taronhiawagon, meaning "the Holder
of the Heavens." The Jesuit missionaries style him "the great god of the
Iroquois." Among the Onondagas of the present day, the name is abridged
to Taonhiawagi, or Tahiawagi. The confusion between this name and that