Notes on the Iroquois / or, Contributions to the Statistics, Aboriginal History, Antiquities and General Ethnology of Western New-York

by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

Eries.

By Father Le Moyne’s letter of 1653, [vide Relacions,] the war with the nation of the Cat or Eries was then newly broke out. He thanks the Onondagas, Senecas, Cayugas and Oneidas, for their union in this war.

On the 9th August, 1653, we heard a dismal shout, among the Iroquois, caused by the news, that three of their men had been killed by the Eries.

He condoles with the Seneca nation, on the capture of their great chief, Au-ren-cra-os, by the Eries.

He exhorts them to strengthen their “defences” or forts, to paint their warriors for battle, to be united in council.

He required them never to lay in ambush for the Algonquin or Huron nations, who might be on their way to visit the French.

We learn, from this, that the Eries or Cat nation, were not of the Wyandot or Huron, nor of the Algonquin nations. It would seem that these Eries were not friends of the French, and that by exciting them to this new war, they were shielding their friends, the Algons and Hurons, from the Iroquois club and scalping knife. That they were the same people called the “Neuter Nation,” who occupied the banks of the Niagara, there is but little reason to believe. The Senecas called them Gawgwa or Kah-Kwah.

Cusick states that the Senecas fought against a people, west of the Genesee river, called Squakihaw, i. e. Kah-Kwah, whom they beat, and after a long siege took their principal fort, and put their chief to death. Those who recovered were made vassals and adopted into the tribe.

He states that the banks of the Niagara river were possessed by the Twa-kenkahor, or Missasages, who, in time, gave it up to the Iroquois peaceably. Were not these latter the Neuter Nation?

To discuss the question of the war with the Eries, it is necessary to advert to the geographical position of the parties. The Senecas, in 1653, as appears by French authorities, lived in the area between the Seneca lake and the Genesee river. The original stock of the Five Nations appears to have entered the area of western New-York in its central portions; and, at all events, they extended west of the Genesee, after the Erie war, and possessed the land conquered from the latter.