The place of holding the council that formed the confederacy has also been the subject of some dispute, but it is pretty certain that it was near the northern end of either Seneca or Cayuga Lake, and that it took place in that year previous to 1540 in which occurred an eclipse of the sun in the month when the corn receives its last tilling.
Professor Lewis Swift, of the Warner Observatory, Rochester, kindly furnished the following table of dates:
| Annular Eclipse | October 11, 1520 |
| Annular Eclipse | May 8, 1491 |
| Total Eclipse | July 29, 1478 |
| Total Eclipse | June 28, 1451 |
| Annular Eclipse | April 26, 1427 |
The first given, October, 1520, is out of the question, as the corn would have been harvested at that time of year.
The second, May, 1491, would have been too early in the season to comply with the conditions of the wampum record, for the corn would hardly have made its appearance above the ground as early as the 8th of May.
The third, the last of July, 1478, will not answer the account given, for the ears of the maize would have been forming at that time and the plant would have passed its period of tillage.
The fourth date, June 28, 1451, must, therefore, have been the one upon which the confederation took place, as at that time of the year the corn in Central New York Is about ready for its final tilling.
Upon the authority of these two chiefs it is not difficult to believe that this date is historically correct and that the incident related in the legend was the occasion upon which this wonderful union of republics was formed. Considered as a government formed by a savage people, the confederation of the Iroquois certainly was a wonderful union. Had it not been broken and destroyed by the whites after a series of wars extending over two centuries and culminating in the great village-burning expedition of Sullivan in 1779, this confederacy would have made rapid progress in civilization.
Among the Five Nations alone can be found the Indian of the novelist and poet. The Iroquois stand out and above all other aboriginal inhabitants in their intelligence, their oratory, their friendship and their character. Had they been treated with fairness; had they not been made the subjects of the most cruel wrongs and deceptions; had they not been driven to retaliation and finally to relentless slaughter, the pages of our histories would doubtless have recorded of this people achievements of which any nation might be proud.
A Legend of the River, Page 47.—This story was told of the Genesee River and Falls, and is occasionally heard among the older Senecas at the present time. It is said that one family of the Senecas were very much opposed to signing the treaty that surrendered the territory surrounding the scene of this legend. They claimed to be descendants of Tonadahwa and her brave rescuer, and believed that the spirits of their dead ancestors often visited the scene of their adventure and upon this spot plighted anew their troth. There is little doubt that this story, in the main, is true, and that a young Indian and a maiden, whom he was trying to rescue from a warrior of another tribe, were almost miraculously preserved alive after being carried over the Genesee Falls in a canoe. This legend has been put forth in various ways, one of which was that the Indians living near Niagara Falls were accustomed to sacrifice annually to the spirit of the Falls by sending the fairest maiden of the tribe over the precipice in a white birch canoe, decked with fruits and flowers. Frequently male relatives or lovers are said to have accompanied or followed victims who were set apart for this sacrifice. If this is so it must have been a practice of some other tribe than those composing the Iroquois, for the Iroquoian tribes did not practice customs which called for the sacrifice of human life, unless the sacrifice was self-imposed.