ople first brought cloth and iron among them.

They will not come into a house where there is a menstruous woman, nor
eat with her. No woman may touch their snares with which they catch
deer, for they say the deer can scent it.

The other day an old woman came to our house, and told my people that
her forefathers had told her "that Tharonhij-Jagon, that is, God, once
went out walking with his brother, and a dispute arose between them,
and God killed his brother." I suppose this fable took its rise from
Cain and Abel. They have a droll theory of the Creation, for they
think that a pregnant woman fell down from heaven, and that a tortoise,
(tortoises are plenty and large here, in this country, two, three and
four feet long, some with two heads, very mischievous and addicted to
biting) took this pregnant woman on its back, because every place was
covered with water; and that the woman sat upon the tortoise, groped
with her hands in the water, and scraped together some of the earth,
whence it finally happened that the earth was raised above the water.
They think that there are more worlds than one, and that we came from
another world.

The Mohawk Indians are divided into three tribes, which are called
Ochkari, Aanaware, Oknaho, that is, the Bear, the Tortoise and the
Wolf. Of these, the Tortoise is the greatest and most prominent; and
they boast that they are the oldest descendants of the woman before
mentioned. These have made a fort of palisades, and they call their
castle Asserue. Those of the Bear are the next to these, and their
castle is called by them Banagiro. The last are a progeny of these,
and their castle is called Thenondiogo. These Indian tribes each carry
the beast after which they are named (as the arms in their banner) when
they go to war against their enemies, as for a sign of their own
bravery. Lately one of their chiefs came to me and presented me with a
beaver, an otter, and some cloth he had stolen from the French, which I
must accept as a token of good fellowship. When he opened his budget
he had in it a dried head of a bear, with grinning teeth. I asked him
what that meant? He answered me that he fastened it upon his left
shoulder by the side of his head, and that then he was the devil, who
cared for nothing, and did not fear any thing.

The government among them consists of the oldest, the most intelligent,
the most eloquent and most warlike men. These commonly resolve, and
then the