as it may be rendered, the shield." He adds, "its origin is lost in
obscurity."] It also apparently means office; thus we have the
derivatives _garihont_, "to give some charge of duty to some one,"
and _atrihont_, "to be an officer, or captain." The name is in the
peculiar dual or rather duplicative form which is indicated by the
prefix _te_ and the affix _ken_ or _ke_. It may possibly,
therefore, mean "holding two offices," and would thus be specially
applicable to the great Canienga noble, who, unlike most of his order,
was both a civil ruler and a war-chief. But whether he gave his name to
his people, or received it from them, is uncertain. In other instances
the Council name of a nation appears to have been applied in the
singular number to the leading chief of the nation. Thus the head-chief
of the Onondagas was often known by the title of _Sakosennakehte_,
"the Name-carrier." [Footnote: "Il y avait en cette bande un Capitaine
qui porte'le nom le plus considerable de toute sa Nation,
Sagochiendagehte."--_Relation_ of 1654, p. 8. Elsewhere, as in the
_Relation_ for 1657, p. 17, this name is spelt Agochiendaguete.]

The name of the Oneida nation in the Council was
_Nihatirontakowa_--or, in the Onondaga dialect,
_Nihatientakona_--usually rendered the "Great-Tree
People,"--literally, "those of the great log." It is derived from
_karonta_, a fallen tree or piece of timber, with the suffix
_kowa_ or _kona_, great, added, and the verb-forming pronoun
prefixed. In the singular number it becomes _Niharontakowa_, which
would be understood to mean "He is an Oneida." The name, it is said, was
given to the nation because when Dekanawidah and Hiawatha first went to
meet its chief, they crossed the Oneida creek on a bridge composed of an
immense tree which had fallen or been laid across it, and noted that the
Council fire at which the treaty was concluded was kindled against