We pass over Cusick' s account of the origin of the Great Island which we call North America, the fabulous rise of the Indian Confederacy, six centuries before the Christian era, as he says, and other portions of the curious recital, and come down to the period of the allotment of homes to the tribes. The Senecas were directed to settle on a knoll south of Canandaigua lake, near the present village of Naples. Indeed, some traditions hold that they sprang from this knoll, hence their name, Nun'-do-wah'-o, which, in their tongue, signifies the Great Hill People.

An agent of the Superior Power was sent to instruct them in the duties of life ; seeds were given, with directions for their use, and dogs, to aid in taking game. Villages sprang up, and prosperity abounded, but the Divine agent having returned to the heavens, monsters of singular forms invaded the country from time to time, and devoured many persons.


The monsters of the Indian were no borrowed prodigies, but the creation of his own untutored imagination, or natural beings invested by his fancy with supernatural attributes. The Flying-Head, a strange creature which, their legends say, invaded the homes of the Iroquois after night-fall to devour the inmates, until the villagers were compelled to build huts so fashioned as to exclude it, has no prototype. This bodiless hobgoblin, whose features were those of a man, with head, mane, and two hairy legs like the lion's, appears to have had a dread of fire, for its disappearance is ascribed to that cause. An old woman, parching acorns in her lodge one night, was visited by a Flying-Head. But on observing the burning fruit which the squaw appeared to be eating, the Head sunk into the earth, and with it vanished a legion of its fellows, to the great relief of the Indians, who held them in deadly fear.(9)

A great lake serpent traversed the trails from Genesee river to Canandaigua lake, stopping intercourse, and compelling the villages to fortify against it. Later came "Stonish Giants," a cannibal race from beyond the Mississippi, who derived their name from the practice of rolling in the earth until their bodies became encrusted with sand and gravel, which rendered them impenetrable to arrows. Warriors gathered to drive them away, but they overran the country of the Senecas and others, and destroyed the people of several towns. The Holder of the Heavens now returned. By a stratagem he induced the giants to enter a deep hollow, and as they there lay sleeping, he hurled down upon them a mass of rocks which crushed to death all save one, who sought asylum in the regions of the north. A snake of great size, having a human head, soon after appeared in the principal pathway leading eastward from the sulphur springs at Avon. This too was destroyed by a band of braves, selected for their prowess, after a conflict, in which was exhibited, if we credit tradition, something more than mortal valor.


A thousand years before the arrival of Columbus, the' Senecas were at war with the Kah-kwas. Battle succeeded battle, and the Senecas were at length repulsed with severe loss. Tidings of their disaster soon reached the great Atotarho,(10) a war chief highly venerated by the league, whose seat was at Onondaga, and he sent an army to their relief. Thus strengthened, they assumed the offensive and drove the enemy into their forts, which, at the end of a long siege, were surrendered, the principal chief put to death. The remnant of the tribe became incorporated with that of the conquerors. The latter now established their dominion in the country of the Kah-kwas, and for a time, in that remote age, the Senecas held the southern shores of lake Ontario westward to Oak Orchard creek.

Grave discords appear to have occurred in the league about this period, incited by Atotarho, whose power is symbolized by a body covered with black snakes, and whose dishes and spoons were of the skulls of enemies. His claim to a first rank among native dignitaries, was in the end admitted by the several nations, and the title borne by him still remains hereditary in the Onondagas.

Two centuries later, a certain youth living near the original seat of the Seneca council-fire, while in the bushes one day, caught a two-headed snake, which he carried to his mother' s hut. It was quite small, very beautiful, and appeared to be harmless. lie fed it on bird's flesh, but its growth was so rapid that the hunters had soon to unite in supplying its ever-increasing appetite. Their supplies however were unequal to satisfy its voracious cravings, and it took to roaming through the forest and down into the lake, in quest of food. At length it went to the hill-top and there became inspired with ill-will toward its early friend, now a warrior. In dismay the young man removed to a distant village, and thus escaped the fate that was soon to befall his tribesmen. Game grew scarce before the serpent, and not only dreading evil from its wicked disposition but fearing lest its enormous appetite would reduce the tribe to starvation, the wise men resolved, in council, to put the monster to death. The hour of daylight one morning, was fixed upon for the work. But just as day was breaking, so runs the legend, the serpent descended with. great noise to the fort wherein the villagers took refuge at night, in security from a race of giants with whom they were at war.

So great had became the monster's size that, after encircling the fortification, its head and tail are said to have met at the gate- way, and its huge jaws lay distended at the very entrance, thus cutting off all exit. The inmates were paralyzed with fear, and did nothing for several days. Finally, driven by hunger, and sickened by the fetid odor exhaled from the serpent' s body, they made efforts to climb over it, but all, save a young warrior and his sister, were devoured in the attempt. The young warrior, following the directions given in a dream, succeeded in piercing the serpent's vitals at a particular spot in the huge body, with a golden arrow delivered to him in a cloud. In its death-throes the monster plunged down the acclivity, uprooting trees by its weight, and disappeared beneath the waters of the lake, its course thitherward being marked by a trail of human heads disgorged at each bound, and, for generations afterwards, Indians say, the beach about the spot was whitened with skeletons of its victims, The Seneca council-tire was now removed to a spot near Geneva, and afterwards to a mountain ridge west of the Genesee, not unlikely to Squakie Hill, as thought by some.

Four centuries before the advent of Columbus, the Hurons began hostilities against the Five Nations. From these, as from all other contests with western tribes, the Senecas mainly suffered. In one most sanguinary conflict the enemy were repulsed, but at a great sacrifice of lives to the Senecas, and runners were hurried out along the Genesee for reinforcements. A brief delay followed, when the fighting was resumed, the enemy being now routed and driven from the field. Though successful in the end, this war forms a bloody epoch in the traditions of the Senecas.

Notwithstanding their ill fortune, the Kah-kwas appear to have regained power ; for, fifty years later, they once more held the country between the Genesee and the Niagara rivers, and were governed by a female chief named Ya'-go-wa'-ne-a, whose seat of power was at Kienuka, a town situated on a slope of the mountain ridge near the present site of Lewiston. In her keeping was the symbolic house of peace. She received chiefs of other tribes, formed treaties, and made alliances. The fiercest strife was hushed in her presence, and warriors, whose nations were at feud, were bound to stay their quarrel while under her roof. Tradition concedes to her much wisdom, and relates how she long enjoyed peculiar influence, which, however, in a moment of passion, she forfeited. Two Senecas had been received at her castle, and while there smoking the pipe of peace, were, in flagrant contempt of comity permitted to be murdered for an alleged outrage upon a subject of hers in a distant village.

The rash act was followed by instant orders to her warriors to cross the Genesee and fall at once upon the Seneca villages, overpowering, if possible, the new-made enemy before they became fully aware of her perfidy.


While these measures were being hastened, a woman of the Kah-kwas, friendly to the Senecas, secretly made her way with the information to the war-chief of the latter nation at Canandaigua, who received it in great surprise. As no time was left him for procuring aid from the outlying bands of his own tribe, much less from allies, he drew fifteen hundred warriors from the nearest towns, placed them in two divisions under different chiefs, and set out to meet the Kah-kwas. Halting near the fort at Gah-nyuh-sas,  (Conesus,) the women, children and old men who had followed with supplies, were allowed to come up, and left here, for safety.

The enemy had already crossed the river in large numbers, as runners, momently arriving, reported. The two divisions of the Senecas were accordingly moved forward and placed in ambush on either side of the pathway, while one of their number, disguised as a bear, was sent along the trail as a decoy. This the Kah-kwas soon met, but, suspecting nothing, chased
the  bear into the midst of the hidden braves. Like a whirlwind the Senecas now fell upon them, their terrific yells, the din of war clubs and clash of spears adding to the confusion. A wild scene ensued. The disorder of the Kah-kwas was temporary however, and the conflict quickly became one of varying fortunes, but the enemy's weight of numbers pushed the first division back upon the second, when the Senecas, inspired by the impending danger, were seized with a war frenzy, and at length drove the enemy from the field. The latter fled across the Genesee, leaving six hundred of their dead behind. The Seneca chief, declining to pursue, returned with his forces to Canandaigua, where he celebrated the victory with savage parade. Tradition fixes the place of this battle in the vicinity of Geneseo, and Schoolcraft, satisfied of the correctness of the location, calls it the Great Battle of Geneseo.

Before setting out to beat off the invaders, the Seneca chieftain had dispatched runners to the central fire at Onondaga, with an account of the situation, and the great battle-chief of the league, Shorihowane,was soon on the war-path with a large force for support of the Senecas. Though learning the issue of the conflict, he yet resolved farther to punish the Kahkwas by. capturing their principal fort and extinguishing their council-fire, f It is said that his united force numbered five thousand warriors. Flushed with recent victory, they marched rapidly toward the Genesee, crossed over and made for the fort, which they attacked with great energy. The enemy, fully prepared, delivered a cloud of arrows in return, one of which early in the siege struck the war-chief, whose death soon followed. The body enfolded in panther skins was carried across the Genesee, and there buried with befitting honors. The siege, meanwhile, was zealously pressed, and the queen at length yielded and sued for peace, when hostilities ceased, and the Kah-kwas were left in possession of their country.

Just prior to the arrival of Columbus, the shock of an earthquake was felt, and comets and other omens of the heavens were observed. The meaning of these occurrences was not then divined, but a prophet soon appeared, who foretold the coming of a strange race from beyond the great waters. He announced that the expected strangers designed driving the Indians
from their hunting-grounds and wresting away their homes, and he threatened the Great Spirit' s wrath upon any who should listen to the pale-faces. To add to these perturbations, another war broke out between the tribes west of the Genesee and the Five Nations, the weight of which, as usual, fell heavily upon the Senecas. Long and bloody conflicts ensued, and, while hostilities were yet in progress, the great event foretold by the prophet — that most pregnant fact of all Indian history, the arrival of Columbus — was heralded by the fleetest of foot along the myriad pathways of the continent. The imagination alone can picture the bewildering effect of the tidings. Wonder, awe, doubt and fear, each in turn, must have moved them, but though hushed for a moment by this event, the decisive struggle between the warring tribes went forward.

The cause of this contest was so slight that tradition says it originated in a breach of faith on the part of the Kah-kwas at a game of ball to which they had challenged the Senecas. Careful writers, however, deriving their data from other source's than tradition, place this war at a much later period, and allege that it grew out of matters connected with the settlement of Canada by the French, which produced quarrels in the great Indian family. In these the Wyandots adhered to the French side, and the Five Nations to that of the Dutch and English. The Algonquins made common cause with the French and their allies the Wyandots. The Kah-kwas had already formed an alliance with the Mississaugas, an Algonquin tribe residing west and north of lake Ontario. The Kah-kwas were related both to the "Wyandots and Five Nations. Their country lay between that of the Canadian and western tribes and that of the Iroquois ; hence, from choice not only, but from motives of prudence as well, they desired now to observe that policy of neutrality from practicing which, as a rule, they derived their designation of the Neutral Nation. The situation was one of extreme delicacy, and their state craft proved unequal to the occasion ; for, in attempting to please both belligerents, both became offended. The Iroquois, or, more properly, the Senecas, turned upon them in fury, but were met by a nation worthy their best courage. If we may credit tradition, the conflict lasted through twenty bloody moons, ending about the year 1651 in the decisive overthrow of the Kah-kwas, or, to give their Indian designation, the Attionandaronk, whose name, as a separate people, now disappears from the roll of tribes.

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