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Show MOONEY] IROQUOIAN MIGRATIONS 189 Ontario, Canada. \ Iroquois, or Five Nations, New York. It will be noted that the Eastern and Middle dialects are about the same, excepting for the change of I to r, and the entire absence of the labial m from the Eastern dialect, while the Western differs considerably from the others, particularly in the greater frequency of the liquid I and the softening of the guttural g, the changes tending to render it the most musical of all the Cherokee dialects. It is also the standard literary dialect Iji addition to these three principal dialects there are some peculiar forms and expressions in use by a few individuals which indicate the former existence of one or more other dialects now too far extinct to be reconstructed. As in most other tribes, the ceremonial forms used by the priesthood are so filled with archaic and figurative expressions as to be almost unintelligible to the laity. ( 4) IROQUOIAN TRIBES AND MIGRATIONS ( p. 17): The Iroquoian stock, taking its name from the celebrated Iroquois confederacy, consisted formerly of from fifteen to twenty tribes, speaking nearly as many different dialects, and including, among others, the following: Wyandot, or Huron. Tionontati, or Tobacco nation. Attiwan/ daron, or Neutral nation, j Tohotaenrat Wenrorono. Mohawk. Oneida. Onondaga, j Cayuga. Seneca. Erie. Northern Ohio, etc. Conestoga, or Susquehanna. Southern Pennsylvania and Maryland. Nottoway. i „ , , T. . . Meherrin?./ s° uthern Virginia. Tuscarora. Eastern North Carolina. Cherokee. Western Carolina, etc. Tradition and history alike point to the St. Lawrence region as the early home of this stock. Upon this point all authorities concur. Says Hale, in his paper on Indian Migrations ( p. 4): " The constant tradition of the Iroquois represents their ancestors as emigrants from the region north of the Great lakes, where they dwelt in early times with their Huron brethren. This tradition is recorded with much particularity by Cadwallader Colden, surveyor- general of New York, who in the early part of the last century composed his well known ' History of the Five Nations.* It is told in a somewhat different form by David Cusick, the Tuscarora historian, in his ' Sketches of Ancient History of the Six Nations,* and it is repeated by Mr. L. H. Morgan in his now classical work, ' The League of the Iroquois,* for which he procured his information chiefly among the Senecas. Finally, as we learn from the narrative of the Wyandot Indian, Peter Clarke, in his book entitled ' Origin and Traditional History of the Wyandotte,* the belief of the Hurons accords in this respect with that of the Iroquois. Both point alike to the country immediately north of the St. Lawrence, and especially to that portion of it lying east of Lake Ontario, as the early home of the Huron- Iroquois nations.** Nothing is known of the traditions of the Coneetoga or the Nottoway, but the tradition of the Tuscarora, as given by Cusick and other authorities, makes them a direct offshoot from the northern Iroquois, with whom they afterward reunited. The traditions of the Cherokee also, as we have seen, bring them from the north, thus completing the cycle. " The striking fact has become evident that the course of migration of the Huron- Cherokee family has been from the northeast to the southwest- that is, from eastern Canada, on the Lower St. Lawrence, to the mountains of northern Alabama."- Hale, Indian Migrations, p. 11. The retirement of the northern Iroquoian tribes from the St. Lawrence region was |