Truthfully it may be said: "He-o-weh-go-gek"—once a home, now a memory.
[Notes to the Legends]
NOTES TO THE LEGENDS
The Confederation of the Iroquois, Page 23.—When the Europeans discovered North America they found that portion of the continent lying east of a line about as far west as the city of Cleveland, Ohio, and from the great lakes on the north to the Chesapeake Bay on the south, practically under the control of a confederacy of tribes, to which the French in after years applied the term Iroquois, and which the English called the Five Nations. This confederacy was composed of the Senecas, Mohawks, Onondagas, Oneidas and Cayugas. In the year 1712 the Tuscaroras, a tribe previously located in North Carolina, were defeated in a war with their white neighbors, and about one thousand eight hundred of them fled to what is now New York State, then the actual dwelling-place of most of the Iroquois, and were adopted into the confederacy. The new tribe did not possess the energy and courage of their associates, and for several years after their coming the men wore the tobacco pouches of the women, thus acknowledging upon all occasions that they were inferior to the other five nations comprising the union which had become their protectors. After the coming of the Tuscaroras the confederacy was known as the Six Nations of Indians—a designation which is often used at the present time in law in matters pertaining to the Indians of New York State.
The date of the formation of this confederacy has never been settled with any degree of certainty, and all attempts have ended in mere conjecture and speculation. The most authentic tradition heretofore published places the date about the year 1589, but there is no positive proof that this date is accurate. The legend of its formation here published is not only based upon what was considered reliable authority by Cornplanter, but has also the sanction of that other noted Seneca chief, Governor Blacksnake (the Nephew), who was contemporaneous with Cornplanter, and who was probably born about the year 1736 and died in 1859, at the supposed age of one hundred and twenty-three years. These chiefs both claimed to have seen a string of wampum in their early years that placed the formation of the confederacy at a time when there occurred a total eclipse of the sun—"a darkening of the Great Spirit's smiling face"—that took place when the corn was receiving its last tillage, long before events that could be reliably ascribed to the year 1540.
At this point it will be well to say that the Indians possessed strings of wampum which actually recorded historical events. They were made upon the skins of some animal and were formed of small pieces of bone, variously shaped and colored, small stones, and a variety of small shells, quills and sometimes the teeth or claws of animals. These were strung upon the tanned skin by piercing holes through them and tying them securely with sinews. Certain ones in the tribe were selected as keepers of the wampum and it was their duty to store all necessary facts in their memory and associate with them the successive lines and arrangement of the stones, shells, quills, etc., so that they could be readily called to mind. At general councils these records were brought before the people and solemnly expounded. As these people possessed remarkable memories, the meaning of the wampum string was accurately carried down from generation to generation.