Hochelagans and Mohawks by W. D. Lighthall
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W. D. Lighthall >> Hochelagans and Mohawks
Charlevoix, _Histoire de la Nouvelle France_, end of Bk. V., after
describing the first mass at Ville Marie, in 1642, says: "The evening of
the same day M. de Maisonneuve desired to visit the Mountain which gave
the island its name, and two old Indians who accompanied him thither,
having led him to the top, told him they were of the tribe who had
formerly inhabited this country." "We were," they added, "_very
numerous_ and all the hills (_collines_) which you see to the south and
east, were peopled. The Hurons drove thence our ancestors, of whom a
part took refuge among the Abenakis, _others withdrew into the Iroquois
cantons_, a few remained with our conquerors." They promised Maisonneuve
to do all they could to bring back their people, "but apparently could
not succeed in reassembling the fragments of this dispersed tribe,
which doubtless is that of the Iroquois of which I have spoken in my
_Journal_."
A proof that this people of Iroquet were not originally Algonquins is
that by their own testimony they had cultivated the ground, one of them
actually took up a handful of the soil and called attention to its
goodness; and they also directly connected themselves in a positive
manner with the Hochelagans by the dates and circumstances indicated
in their remarks as above interpreted. The use of the term "Algonquin"
concerning them is very ambiguous and as they were merged among
Algonquin tribes they were no doubt accustomed to use that language.
Their Huron-Iroquois name, the fact that they were put forward to
interpret to the Iroquois in Champlain's first excursion; and that a
portion of them had joined the Iroquois, another portion the Hurons, and
the rest remained a little band by themselves, seem to add convincingly
to the proof that they were not true Algonquins. Their two names
"Onontchataronons" and "Iroquet" are Iroquois. The ending "Onons" (Onwe)
means "men" and is not properly part of the name. Charlevoix thought
them Hurons, from their name. They were a very small band and, while
mentioned several times in the Jesuit Relations, had disappeared by the
end of the seventeenth century from active history. It was doubtless
impossible for a remnant so placed to maintain themselves against the
great Iroquois war parties.
A minor question to suggest itself is whether there is any connection
between the names "Iroquet" and "Iroquois". Were they originally forms
of the same word? Or were they two related names of divisions of a
people? Certainly two closely related peoples have these closely similar
names. They were as clearly used as names of distinct tribes however,
in the seventeenth century. The derivation of "Iroquois" given by
Charlevoix from "hiro"--"I have spoken" does not seem at all likely;
but the analogy of the first syllables of the names Er-ie, Hur-ons,
Hir-oquois, Ir-oquet and Cherokee may have something in it.
The Iroquets or Hochelagans attributed their great disaster,--the
destruction of their towns and dispossession of their island,--to the
Hurons, but Charlevoix[9] records an Algonquin victory over them which
seems to have preceded, and contributed to, that event, though the
lateness of Charlevoix renders the story not so reliable in detail as
the personal recollections of the Iroquets above given: His story[10]
given "on the authority of those most versed in the old history of the
country", proceeds as follows: "Some Algonquins were at war with the
Onontcharonnons better known under the name of Tribe of Iroquet, and
whose former residence was, it is said, in the Island of Montreal. The
name they bear proclaims, they were of Huron speech; nevertheless it
is claimed that it was the Hurons who drove them from their ancient
country, and who in part destroyed them. However that may be, they were
at the time I speak of, at war with the Algonquins, who, to finish
this war at one stroke, thought of a stratagem, which succeeded". This
stratagem was an ambush placed on both sides of the River Becancour
near Three Rivers, with some pretended fishermen out in canoes as
decoys. The Iroquets attacked and pursued the fishermen, but in the
moment of victory, a hail of arrows issued from the bushes along both
shores. Their canoes being pierced, and the majority wounded, they all
perished. "The tribe of Iroquet never recovered from this disaster; and
none to day remain. The quantity of corpses in the water and on the
banks of the river so infected it, that it retains the name of Riviere
Puante"; (Stinking River).
Charlevoix[11] gives, as well supported, the story of the origin of the
war between the Iroquois and Algonquins. "The Iroquois had made with
them a sort of alliance very useful to both." They gave grain for
game and armed aid, and thus both lived long on good terms. At last a
disagreement rose in a joint party of 12 young hunters, on account of
the Iroquois succeeding while the Algonquins failed in the chase. The
Algonquins, therefore, maliciously tomahawked the Iroquois in their
sleep. Thence arose the war.
In 1608, according to Ferland[12] based evidently upon the statement of
Champlain, the remnant of the Hochelagans left in Canada occupied the
triangle above Montreal now bounded by Vandreuil, Kingston and Ottawa.
This perhaps indicates it as the upper part of their former territory.
Sanson's map places them at about the same part of the Ottawa in the
middle of the seventeenth century and identifies them with La Petite
Nation, giving them as "Onontcharonons ou La Petite Nation". That
remnant accompanied Champlain against the Iroquois, being of course
under the influence of their masters the Hurons and Algonquins.
Doubtless their blood is presently represented among the Huron and
Algonquin mission Indians of Oka, Lorette, Petite Nation, etc., and
perhaps among those of Caughnawaga and to some extent, greater or less,
among the Six Nations proper.
From the foregoing outline of their history, it does not appear as
if the Hochelagans were exactly the Mohawks proper. It seems more
likely that by 1560, settlements, at first mere fishing-parties, then
fishing-villages, and later more developed strongholds with agriculture,
had already been made on Lake Champlain by independent offshoots of the
Hochelagan communities, of perhaps some generations standing, and not
unlikely by arrangement with the Algonquins of the Lake similar to the
understanding on the river St. Lawrence, as peace and travel appear to
have existed there. The bonds of confederacy between village and village
were always shifting and loose among these races until the Great League.
To their Lake Champlain cousins the Hochelagans would naturally fly for
refuge in the day of defeat, for there was no other direction suitable
for their retreat. The Hurons and Algonquins carried on the war against
the fused peoples, down into Lake Champlain. When, after more than
fifty years of the struggle, Champlain goes down to that Lake in 1609,
he finds there the clearings from which they have been driven, and
marks their cabins on his map of the southeast shore. This testimony
is confirmed by that of archaeology showing their movement at the same
period into the Mohawk Valley. Doubtless their grandchildren among the
Iroquois, like their grandchildren among the Algonquins, remembered
perfectly well the fact of their Huron and Algonquin wrongs, and led
many a war party back to scenes known to them through tradition, and
which it was their ambition to recover. It seems then to be the fact
that the Mohawks proper, or some of their villages, while perhaps not
exactly Hochelagans, were part of the kindred peoples recently sprung
from and dominated by them and were driven out at the same time. The
two peoples--Mohawks and Iroquets--had no great time before, if not at
the time of Cartier's arrival--been one race living together in the St.
Lawrence valley: In the territory just west of the Mohawk valley, they
found the "Senecas" as the Onondagas, Cayugas and Senecas together were
at first called, and soon, through the genius of the Mohawk Hiawatha,
they formed with them the famous League, in the face of the common
enemy. By that time the Oneidas had become separated from the Mohawks.
These indications place the date of the League very near 1600. The
studies of Dr. Kellogg of Plattsburgh on the New York side of Lake
Champlain and of others on the Vermont shore, who have discovered
several Mohawk sites on that side of the lake may be expected to supply
a link of much interest on the whole question, from the comparison of
pottery and pipes. On the whole the Hochelagan facts throw much light
both forward on the history of the Iroquois and backwards on that of the
Huron stock. Interpreted as above, they afford a meagre but connected
story through a period hitherto lost in darkness, and perhaps a ray by
which further links may still be discovered through continued
archaeological investigation.
NOTE. Like the numbers of the Hochelagan race, the question
how long they had been in the St. Lawrence valley must be
problematical. Sir William Dawson describes the site of Hochelaga
as indicating a residence of several generations. Their own
statements regarding the Huron country--that they "had never
been there", and that they gathered their knowledge of it
from the Ottawa Algonquins, permits some deductions. If the
Hochelagans--including their old men--had never been westward among
their kindred, it is plain that the migration must have taken place
more than the period of an old man's life previous--that is to say
more than say eighty years. If to this we add that the old men
appear not even to have derived such knowledge as they possessed
from their parents but from strangers, then the average full
life of aged parents should be added, or say sixty years more,
making a total of at least one hundred and forty years since the
immigration. Something might, it is true, be allowed for a sojourn
at intermediate points: and the scantiness of the remarks is also
to be remembered. But there remains to account for the considerable
population which had grown up in the land from apparently one
centre. If the original intruders were four hundred, for example,
then in doubling every twenty years, they would number 12,800
in a century. But this rate is higher than their state of
"Middle-Barbarism" is likely to have permitted and a hundred and
fifty years would seem to be as fast as they could be expected to
attain the population they possessed in Cartier's time.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] "Iroquois Book of Rites," p. 10.
[2] _Ibid._, p. 13.
[3] The latter I conjecture not to be the real name of the place but
that the Stadacona people had referred to Hochelay as "Agojuda" or
wicked. The chief of Hochelay on one occasion warned Cartier of plots at
Stadacona, and there appears to have been some antagonism between the
places. The Hochelay people seem to have been Hochelagans proper not
Stadacona Hochelagans. Hochelay-aga could mean "people of Hochelay."
[4] Relation of 1642.
[5] Similar armour, though highly elaborated, is to be seen in the suits
of Japanese warriors, made of cords and lacquered wood woven together.
[6] Relation of 1642, p. 36.
[7] Two of the Huron nations settled in Canada West about 1400; another
about 1590; the fourth in 1610. See Relations,--W.M. Beauchamp.
[8] Dr. Kellogg, whose collection is very large and his studies
valuable, writes me as follows: "In 1886 Mr. Frey sent me a little box
of Indian pottery from his vicinity (the Mohawk Valley). It contained
chiefly edge pieces of jars, whose ornamentation outside near the top
was in _lines_, and nearly every one of these pieces also had the _deep
finger nail indentation_. I spread these out on a board. Many had also
the small circle ornamentation, made perhaps by the end of a hollow
bone. This pottery I have always called Iroquois. At two sites near
Plattsburg this type prevails. But otherwise whenever we have found this
type we have looked on it curiously. It is _not_ the type prevailing
here. The type here has ornamentations consisting of dots and dotted
lines, dots in lines, scallop stamps, etc. These dots on a single jar
are hundreds and perhaps thousands in number. Even in Vermont the
Iroquois type is abundant. This confirms what Champlain's Indian friends
told him about the country around the mountains in the east (i.e. in
Vermont) being occupied by their enemies.... The pottery here indicates
a much closer relation with that at Hochelaga than with that at Palatine
Bridge (Mohawk Valley, N.Y.)."
[9] Journal, Vol. I., pp. 162-4.
[10] Journal Historique d'un Voyage a L'Am., Lettre VI.
[11] Journal, end of Letter XII.
[12] Hist. du Canada, Vol. I., p. 92.