Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 7.djvu/633

 HURON

567

HURON

cumstances, and pieced together by one of themselves: "About the middle of the 17th century, the Wyan- dots, on the Island of St. Joseph, were suddenly attacked by a large party of Senecas with their allies and massacred [by] them to a fearful extent. It was at this time, probably, that a Catholic priest named Daniels, a missionary among the Wyandots, was slain by the relentless savages. During this massacre, a portion of the Wyandots fled from the island to Michilimackinac. From there a portion of the refu- gees journeyed westward to parts unknown, the balance returned to River Swaba." This meagre, confused, and inaccurate account seems to be all that has been handed down in the oral traditions of the

eventually were forced to withdraw, not being backed by the rest of the Neutrals against the Senecas in their efforts to resist the encroachments of the latter. Huronia proper occupied but a portion of Simcoe County, or, to be more precise, the present townships of Tiny, Tay, Flos, Medonte, Orillia, and Oro, a very restricted territory, and roughly speaking comprised between 44° 20' and 44° 53' north latitude, and, from east to west, between 79° 20' and 80° 10' longitude west of Greenwich. The villages of the Petun, or Tobacco, Nation were scattered over the Counties of Grey and Bruce; but the shore line of their country was at all times chosen as a camping-ground by bands of erratic Algonquins, a friendly race who were often-

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HURONIA

REFERENCE Indian Villages. in llallon, shown thus: • Ti^iilthfa Modern Villages. In Qotblo, ebown tbuaiHWAvERLEY

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1 L' 3 J & 7 8 10 11 12 13 14 15

Wyandots in the West concerning the laying waste of their country two centuries and a half ago, and of the events, all-important for them at least, which preceded and accompanied their own final dispersion. As these occurrences were fully chronicled at the time they took place, the student of Indian history may, by comparison, draw his own conclusions as to the accu- racy of Dooyentate's summary, and at the same time determine what credence is to be given to Indian traditions of other events, all certainly of minor imjiortance.

With the opening years of the seventeenth century reliable Huron history begins, and the geographical position of their country becomes known when French traders and missionaries, at that epoch, penetrate the wilderness for the first time as far as what was then terrned "the Freshwater Sea". The region then in- habited by the three great groups, the Hurons proper, the Petuns, and the Neutrals, lay entirely within the confines of the present Province of Ontario, in the Dominion of Canada, with the exception of three or four Neutral villages which stood as outposts beyond the Niagara River in New York State, but which

times welcomed even to the Petun villages of the interior. After the year 139, owing to defeats and losses sustained at the hands of the Assistaeronnons, or Fire Nation, the Petuns withdrew towards the east and concentrated their clans almost entirely within the confines of the Blue Hills in Grey County, overlapping, however, parts of Nottawasaga and Mul- mur townships in Simcoe. As for the Neutral Nation, its territory extended from the Niagara River on the east, to the present international boundary at the Lake and River St. Clair on the west, while the shores of Lake Erie formed the southern frontier. To the north, no one of the Neutral Villages occupied a site much beyond an imaginary line drawn from the modern town of Oakville, Halton County, to Hills- boro, Lambton County.

These geographical notions are not of recent acqui- sition ; they have nearly all l^een in the possession of authors who have dealt seriously with Huron history. But what is wholly new is the systematic reconstruc- tion of the maps of Huronia proper and of a small portion of the Petun country, an achievement which may be further perfected, but which, as it stands,