A curious bone needle was dug up this year, in some excavations made in Fort Niagara, which is, clearly, of the age prior to the discovery.
Bones and relics must stand for the chronology of American antiquity.
America is the tomb of the red man. All the interest of its anti-Columbian history, arises from this fact.
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.