Onondaga

“ He goes like the wind, he never tires, night and day are the same to him, he's so light of foot that he could pass through a band of his own comrades and they would never know he was there, and yet his own ears are so keen that he can hear the leaves falling a hundred yards away. The path from here to the vale of Onondaga may be lined on either side with the French and the hostile tribes, standing as thick as trees in the forest, but he will flit between them as safely and easily as you and I would ride along a highroad into Philadelphia. ”

“ The Oneida has seen no maiden he would take to his wigwam till he beheld Genetaska, the Peace Queen."
Then said the Onondaga: "The home of the Onondaga is desolate since the plague robbed it of the loved ones. He is a great chief and has power in his tribe, for he was never defeated on the chase or in the contest. But the Peacemaker has made his heart weak, and he can never be strong again unless she will come to his wigwam." ”

“ But a few years ago the Onondaga’s were an indolent, drunken people, and desirous of moving to the westward, but as they have in a good degree embraced the counsel of Friends, become industrious, and availed themselves of their local advantages, and tasted the sweets of their labour from the produce of the soil, a radical change has been effected among them. ”

“ Later the tribe divided, some of them migrating to the Catholic Iroquois settlements in Canada. About 500 Onondagas still live on a reservation south of Syracuse.
Although situated in a favorable trading location at the foot of the valley of Onondaga Creek where the latter joins Onondaga Lake, no settlement was made here until several years after the close of the War of Independence. The first white settler was Ephraim Webster, who built a trading post near the mouth of the creek in 1786. The village grew slowly. ”

“ Now, Tayoga, what do you think has become of that demon, Tandakora?"
The Onondaga looked at the walls of foliage on either side of the stream before answering.
"One cannot tell," he said in his precise language of the schools. "The mind of the Ojibway is a fitful thing, but always it is wild and lawless. He longs, night and day, for scalps, and he covets ours most. It is because we have defeated the attempts he has made already." ”

“ The springs from which the water flows is near the shore of the Onondaga Lake, about a mile from the village of Syracuse. I was informed that the average price of salt here is one shilling, York, per bushel, or seven shillings, York, per barrel. It is from these works that Upper Canada is principally supplied with the necessary article. Saw a few of the Onondaga Indians, who live not many miles from this village. They appeared to be dissipated people, as all Indians are who reside near the white settlements, and have access to the firewater. ”

“ This is one of the greatest curiosities of the early history of Onondaga county, and my great desire is that it should be preserved for the Onondaga Historical Society. Efforts are being made by some of our citizens to secure this in the county where it belongs, and not suffer it to bear the fate of other archeological specimens found in this region. ”

“ But a small part of the nation have remained around the seat of their ancient council-fire ... near Oneida Castle, in the county of Oneida." The Onondagas "still retain their beautiful and secluded valley of Onondaga, with sufficient territory for their comfortable maintenance. About 150 Onondagas now reside with the Senecas; another party are established on Grand River, in Canada, and a few have removed to the west. ... In the brief space of twelve years after the first house of the white man was erected in Cayuga county (1789) the whole nation [of the Cayugas] was uprooted and gone. ”

“ It tells the Onondagas that the Great Mountain is a kind father, that he loves them like his own children, and will punish the man who wrongs them, let him be white or red. It tells the Onondagas that the white captain, who has robbed a hundred Onondaga lodges of their bravest hunters, shall be struck by the strong arm of the Great Mountain, shall be blown to pieces by the Voice that thunders from the great water where the seal are found to the farthest village of the Five Nations. And the chiefs hear the Voice; they listen with ears that are always open to the counsel of Onontio. ”

“ The country, as we approached Onondaga Hollow, we found had been longer [Pg 129] settled than nearer the Oneida village, because the last cession of the Oneidas on the west, and immediately contiguous to their present reservation, was made but six or eight years ago, whereas the country to the westward of that had begun to be settled some time before. ”

“ The Onondaga Creek, which is of a convenient size for a mill-stream, runs along the Hollow from south to north, as do all the other streams in this country. This creek passes near the celebrated Onondaga salt springs, which are situated about five or six miles northward from Tyler’s.... July 20th. Rose at half past two o’clock, and proceeded to Andrew’s, at Skaneateles, to breakfast, sixteen miles; a good tavern. The country [Pg 130] is still hilly, but very fertile. The soil is deep,—a mixture of loam and clay. The roads here must be very bad in wet weather. ”

“ The chiefs presently came forth from the Council House or, as it was more generally called, the Long House, and, despite the greatness of Thayendanegea, those of the Onondaga tribe, in virtue of their ancient and undisputed place as the political leaders and high priests of the Six Nations, led the way. Among the stately Onondaga chiefs were: Atotarho (The Entangled) , Skanawati (Beyond the River) , Tehatkahtons (Looking Both Ways) , Tehayatkwarayen (Red Wings) , and Hahiron (The Scattered) . ”

“ Indians often appeared in New York, but such Indians as the young Onondaga were rare anywhere. He rose half a head above the ordinary man, and he wore the costume of a chief of the mighty League of the Hondenosaunee, the feathers in his lofty headdress blowing back defiantly with the wind. He attracted universal, and at the same time respectful, attention.
They were preceded by a stout link boy who bore aloft a blazing torch, and as they walked toward the building in Nassau Street, owned by Rip Van Dam, in which the play was to be given, they overtook others who were upon the same errand. ”

“ Rising out of Onondaga Hollow is a long and very steep hill. The road is constructed on the southern side of a precipice, in such a manner that, as you approach the top of the hill, you have a tremendous gulf on your left hand, at the bottom of which you hear the murmur of a brook fretting among the rocks, as it is passing on toward the Onondaga Creek, which it joins in the Hollow. ”

“ Westmoreland, or Wyoming, was peculiarly exposed, lying upon the verge of the Indian country, and to the people of its lovely valley the conciliation of the Indians was a matter of vast importance. The council of Onondaga, the chief head of the Six Nations, made professions of peaceful intentions, but there was evident hypocrisy underlying the fair appearance of the surface, and occasional outrages upon the remote settlers had been committed without rebuke. ”

“ The Chevalier, Victor and the vicomte were given rooms in the citadel; D'Hérouville accepted the courtesy of the governor and became a resident of the château; father Chaumonot, Major du Puys, and his selected recruits, had already made off for Onondaga. A word from Father Chaumonot into the governor's ear promoted the Chevalier to a lieutenancy in lieu of Nicot's absence in Onondaga. Everything began very well.
Seldom a day went by without a skirmish with the Iroquois, who had grown impudent and fearless again. ”

“ The Noreuga arrived at Norfolk last night in a sinking condition in tow of the revenue cutter Onondaga and is preparing to dock. The Glenlui is expected later.
The Noreuga will be repaired at the Newport News ship yards, where its eleven passengers, including eight women, and its freight will be transferred to the steamship Mexicana. The passengers were brought to port on the Onondaga.
The man to whom credit is given is the wireless operator on the Noreuga who declined to tell his name and whose desire to avoid notoriety was respected by Captain Hansen. ”

“ In an act, passed April 1, 1796, supplementary to an "Act for the better support of Oneida, Onondaga and Cuyuga Indians . . ", it was ordered that from the proceeds of all sales of lands bought of the Indians the surveyor-general should pay £500 to the treasurer of Herkimer County and a like amount to the treasurer of Onondaga County; this money was ordered to be applied to "mending the highway commonly called the Great Genesee Road and the bridges thereon." [6]
A law of the year following, 1797, affords one of the interesting uses of the lottery in the development of American highways. ”

“ God, is generally used reverently, with a syllable prefixed in the different Iroquois dialects, as Yawa-Neo, in the Tuscarora, Howai-Neo in the Seneca, Hawai-Neo, Onondaga, Lawai-Neo, Mohawk, &c.
29
Ondiyaka proceeded to say, as they walked over the ancient ruins in the valley of the Kasonda,14 that this was the spot where the Onondagas formerly lived, before they fixed themselves in the Onondaga valley, and before they had entered into confederation. In those days they were at enmity with each other; they raised the old forts to defend themselves. They wandered about a great deal. ”

“ The settlements in Southeastern Onondaga show a large and general intercourse with the whites; those in the northern part but very little, the only indications there being the Indian orchards, a few brass kettles at Jack's Rifts, and a few glass beads at Baldwinsville. Many sites have no signs of vessels of any kind. Potstone vessels occur in several localities, but seldom in connection with earthenware. Banner-stones, bird totems, and gorgets of striped slate occur in many places, some apparently recent. ”

“ THE COMING OF THE NAVAJOS Many fantastic accounts of the origin of man are found among the red tribes. The Onondagas say that the Indians are made from red earth and the white men from sea-foam. Flesh-making clay is seen in the precipitous bank in the ravine west of Onondaga Valley, where at night the fairies "little fellows" sport and slide. ”

“ The High School, on West Genesee street, has a delightful location on the banks of Onondaga Creek, and combines with its other advantages that of a public library. It has a free reading room, thrown open to the city at large, and a choice collection of many thousand volumes adorn its shelves. ”

“ But in the latter part of 1852, the order of “Good Templars” was organized in Onondaga County, and soon spread out over the adjacent counties. It admitted women to membership and to all offices on an entire equality with men. Mrs. Bloomer was greatly pleased with the idea, and when a lodge of the new order was established in the village she soon became an active member, took great interest in its work, and held various positions in the lodge. She believed that it furnished an opening for women’s work in the Temperance cause which should not be neglected. ”

“ Even western New York remained a wilderness: Buffalo was not laid out; Indian titles were not extinguished; Rochester did not exist; and the county of Onondaga numbered a population of less than eight thousand. In 1799 Utica contained fifty houses, mostly small and temporary. Albany was still a Dutch city, with some five thousand inhabitants; and the tide of immigration flowed slowly through it into the valley of the Mohawk, while another stream from Pennsylvania, following the Susquehanna, spread toward the Genesee country. ”

“ West of the Caniengas the Oneidas held the small river and lake which bear their name, the first in that series of beautiful lakes, united by interlacing streams, which seemed to prefigure in the features of nature the political constitution of the tribes who possessed them. West of the Oneidas, the imperious Onondagas, the central and, in some respects, the ruling nation of the League, possessed the two lakes of Onondaga and Skeneateles, together with the common outlet of this inland lake system, the Oswego River, to its issue into Lake Ontario. ”

“ A number of such fortifications and burial places have been discovered in Ridgeway, [16] on the southern shore of lake Ontraio. There is evidence enough that long bloody wars were waged among the inhabitants. * * * * * * From the known ferocity of the ancient Scandinavians, who with other Europeans of ancient times we suppose to be the authors of the vast works about the region of Onondaga, dreadful wars with infinite butcheries, must have crimsoned every hill and dale of this now happy country. ”

“ The fourteen Onondaga chiefs, Tododaho at their head and Tonessaah at his right, were gathered in the grove, and the warriors of the allied nations approached, headed by their chiefs, nine for the Mohawks, ten for the Oneidas, nine for the Cayugas, and eight for the Senecas, while the Tuscaroras, who were a new nation in the League, had none at all, but spoke through their friends, the Oneidas, within whose lands they had been allowed to settle. ”

“ On lot 9, west side of Onondaga outlet, are two village sites, on which occur celts, banner-stones, pestles, arrow-heads, scrapers, drills, stone pipes, plummets, gouges, together with a little pottery.
Fig. 7.
Another small hamlet was east of the present outlet, and a burial-place in a gravel-bank, now removed. In the woods a little north is a small mound.
38. There is a village site on the north side of Nine-Mile Creek, with arrows and pottery, and there are others still further north, with fine relics. ”