Page:Archæologia Americana—volume 2, 1836.djvu/105

 SECT. II.] ALGONKIN-LENAPE AND IROQUOIS NATIONS. 69 during the last war. They are now much dispersed; the greater part have removed west of the Mississippi, and the number of these is estimated at about one thousand five hun- dred souls. We have not so copious a vocabulary of their language as might have been expected. That which is appended has been chiefly extracted from that taken by Mr. Johnston, the Indian Agent. The other words have been supplied from Mr. Jefferson's mutilated manuscript vocabulary, from the Mithridates, General Parsons, Smith Barton, &ic. IROQUOIS TRIBES. The northern Iroquois tribes consisted of two distinct divisions ; the eastern, forming the confederation, known by the name of Five Nations, whose original territory did not extend westwardly farther than the western boundary of Pennsylvania ; and the western, consisting, as far as can be ascertained, of four nations : the Wyandots, or Hurons, and the Attiouandarons, or Neutral Nation, north ; the Erigas and the Andastes or Guandastogues (Guyandots), south of Lake Erie. When Champlain arrived in Canada, the Five Nations were engaged in a deadly war with all the Algonkin tribes within their reach. It is remarkable, that the Wyandots, another Iroquois nation, were the head and principal support of the Algonkin confederacy. The extent of their influence and of the consideration in which they were held, may be found in the fact, that even the Delawares, who claimed to be the elder branch of the Lenape Nation and called themselves the grandfathers of their kindred tribes, recognised the superiority of the Wyandots, whom to this day they call their uncles. And though reduced to a very small number, the right of the Wyandots, derived either from ancient sovereignty, or from the incorporation of the remnants of the three extinct tribes, to the country between Lake Erie and the Ohio, from the Alleghany river to the great Miami, has never been disputed by any other than the Five Nations. Their real name, Yendots, was w 7 ell known to the French, who gave them the nickname of Hurons. They were called