uance of the wise
counsel which Hayowentha, or Hiawatha,[46] according to the legend,
whispered into the ears of the Onondaga sachem, Daganoweda. This union
of their resources combined, with their native bravery and cunning, and
their occupation of the most commanding military position in eastern
North America, to render them invincible among red men. They
exterminated their old enemies the Adirondacks, and pushed the Mohegans
over the mountains from the Hudson river to the Connecticut. When they
first encountered white men in 1609 their name had become a terror in
New England, insomuch that as soon as a single Mohawk was caught sight
of by the Indians in that country, they would raise the cry from hill to
hill, "A Mohawk! a Mohawk!" and forthwith would flee like sheep before
wolves, never dreaming of resistance.[47]

[Footnote 45: Morgan, _Ancient Society_, p. 125.]

[Footnote 46: Whether there was ever such a person as Hiawatha
is, to say the least, doubtful. As a traditional culture-hero
his attributes are those of Ioskeha, Michabo, Quetzalcoatl,
Viracocha, and all that class of sky-gods to which I shall
again have occasion to refer. See Brinton's _Myths of the New
World_, p. 172. When the Indian speaks of Hiawatha whispering
advice to Daganoweda, his meaning is probably the same as that
of the ancient Greek when he attributed the wisdom of some
mortal hero to whispered advice from Zeus or his messenger
Hermes. Longfellow's famous poem is based upon Schoolcraft's
book entitled _The Hiawatha Legends_, which is really a
misnomer, for the book consists chiefly of Ojibwa stories about
Manabozho, son of the West Wind. There was really no such
legend of Hiawatha as that which the poet has immortalized. See
Hale, _The Iroquois Book of Rites_, pp. 36, 180-183.]

[Footnote 47: Cadwallader Colden, _History of the Five
Nations_, New York, 1727.]

After the Five Nations had been supplied with firearms by the Dutch
their power increased with portentous rapidity.[48] At first they sought
to persuade their neighbours of kindred blood and speech, the Eries and
others, to join their confederacy; and failing in this they went to war
and exterminated them.[49] Then they overthrew one Algonquin tribe after
another until in 1690 their career was checked by the French. By that