Chapter XV. The Vale of Onondaga - Page 2

village of the Onondagas that lay before them, it was the temple and shrine of the great league, the Hodenosaunee. The Onondagas kept the council fire, and ranked first in piety, but the Mohawks, the Keepers of the Eastern Gate, were renowned even to the Great Plains for their valor, and they stood with the Onondagas, their equals man for man, while the Senecas, known to themselves and their brother nations as the Nundawaono, were more numerous than either.

"We shall be in time for the great festival, the Maple Dance," said Tayoga to the young Mohawk.

"Yes, my brother, we have come before the beginning," said Daganoweda, "and I am glad that it is so. We may not have the Maple Dance again for many seasons. The shadow of the mighty war creeps upon the Hodenosaunee, and when the spring returns who knows where the warriors of the great League will be? We are but little children and we know nothing of the future, which Manitou alone holds in his keeping."

"You speak truth, Daganoweda. The Ganeagaono are both valiant and wise. It is a time for the fifty sachems to use all the knowledge they have gathered in their long lives, but we will hear what the Frenchman, St. Luc, has to say, even though he belongs to the nation that sent Frontenac against us."

"The Hodenosaunee can do no less," said the Mohawk, tersely.

Robert could not keep from hearing and he was glad of the little affair with the two hostile bands, knitting as it did their friendship with the Mohawks. But he too, since he had penetrated the Iroquois spirit and saw as they did, felt the great and momentous nature of the crisis. While the nations of the Hodenosaunee might decide whether English or French were to win in the coming war they might, at the same time, decide the fate of the great League which had endured for centuries.

They descended into the vale of Onondaga, but at its edge, in a great forest, the entire group stopped, as it became necessary there for Tayoga, Willet and Robert to say a temporary farewell to the others who would not advance into the Onondaga town until the full power of the Hodenosaunee was gathered. The council, as Robert surmised and as he now learned definitely, had been called by the Onondagas, who had sent heralds with belts eastward to the Oneidas, who in turn had sent them yet farther eastward to the Mohawks, westward to the Cayugas whose duty it was to pass them on to the Senecas yet more to the west. The Oneidas also gave belts to the Dusgaowehono, or Tuscaroras, the valiant tribe that had come up from the south forty years before, and that had been admitted into the Hodenosaunee, turning the Five Nations into the Six, and receiving lands within the territory of the Oneidas.

Already great numbers of warriors from the different nations, their chiefs at their head, were scattered about the edges of the valley awaiting the call of the