are related even by the official historians. Indeed, the flight of
Hiawatha from Onondaga to the country of the Mohawks is to the Five
Nations what the flight of Mohammed from Mecca to Medina is to the
votaries of Islam. It is the turning point of their history. In
embellishing the narrative at this point, their imagination has been
allowed a free course. Leaving aside these marvels, however, we need
only refer here to a single incident which may well enough have been of
actual occurrence. A lake which Hiawatha crossed had shores abounding in
small white shells. These he gathered and strung upon strings, which he
disposed upon his breast, as a token to all whom he should meet that he
came as a messenger of peace. And this, according to one authority, was
the origin of wampum, of which Hiawatha was the inventor. That honor,
however, is one which must be denied to him. The evidence of sepulchral
relics shows that wampum was known to the mysterious moundbuilders, as
well as in all succeeding ages. Moreover, if the significance of white
wampum-strings as a token of peace had not been well known in his day,
Hiawatha would not have relied upon them as a means of proclaiming his
pacific purpose.

Early one morning he arrived at a Mohawk town, the residence of the noted
chief Dekanawidah, whose name, in point of celebrity, ranks in Iroquois
tradition with those of Hiawatha and Atotarho. It is probable that he
was known by reputation to Hiawatha, and not unlikely that they were
related. According to one account Dekanawidah was an Onondaga, adopted
among the Mohawks. Another narrative makes him a Mohawk by birth. The
probability seems to be that he was the son of an Onondaga father, who
had been adopted by the Mohawks, and of a Mohawk mother. That he was not
of pure Mohawk blood is shown by the fact, which is remembered, that his
father had had successively three wives, one belonging to each of the
three clans, Bear, Wolf, and Turtle, which compose the Mohawk nation. If
the father had been a Mohawk, he would have belonged to one of the Mohawk
clans, and could not then (according to the Indian law) have married into
it. He had seven sons, including Dekanawidah, who, with their families,
dwelt together in one of the "long houses" common in that day among the
Iroquois. These ties of kindred, together with this fraternal strength,
and his reputation as a sagacious councillor, gave Dekanawidah great
influence among h