He knew that
according to the legend the league had been formed by Hiawatha,
an Onondaga. He was opposed in this plan by Tododaho, then head
chief of the Onondagas, but he went to the Mohawks and gained the
support of their great chief, Dekanawidah. With his aid the
league was formed, and the solemn agreement, never broken, was
made at the Onondaga Lake. Now they were a perfect little state,
with fifty chiefs, or, including the head chiefs, fifty-six.
Some of these details Henry was to learn later. He was also to
learn many of the words that the chiefs said through a source of
which he little dreamed at the present. Yet he divined much of
it from the meeting of the fiery Wyandots with the highly
developed and warlike power of the Six Nations.
Thayendanegea was talking now, and Timmendiquas, silent and
grave, was listening. The Mohawk approached his subject
indirectly through the trope, allegory, and simile that the
Indian loved. He talked of the unseen deities that ruled the
life of the Iroquois through mystic dreams. He spoke of the
trees, the rocks, and the animals, all of which to the Iroquois
had souls. He called on the name of the Great Spirit, which was
Aieroski before it became Manitou, the Great Spirit who, in the
Iroquois belief, had only the size of a dwarf because his soul
was so mighty that he did not need body.
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