Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 August 1894 — Indian “Tribes” and “Nations.” [ARTICLE]

Indian “Tribes” and “Nations.”

The difference between “tribes” and “nations” of Indians is not generally understood, the two terms being frequently confounded. Mrs. Harriet Maxwell Converse thus marks the distinction: “The Seneca nation is compete i of eight tribes, and this nation is as distinct among Indians as France, Germany and England are distinct among the nations of Europe. The six nations, composing the original confederacy of the Iroquois, one of the mo ■ t powerful confederacies ever known among primitive peoples, included the Onondagas, the Cayugas, the Senecas, the Mohawks and the Cneidas. The Tuscaroras were added in 1723. The name Iro uois was not their proper Indian name but was derived, I believe, from the French and has been used instead of Ho-de-man-san-ne, which being interpreted signified the People of the Long House. Only tnree of the original nations retain reservations in New York State, the Mohawks, Cayugas and Oneidas having crossed the border to Canada with Brant and Sir William Johnson during the revolutionary war.”