Kwahs, of Seneca traditions. The Aondironon of 1640, were mentioned as a nation destroyed in 1656, and the Ondisronu are placed just east of Niagara River, on Creuxius, map of 1660. They were Neutrals, nearest to the Hurons and were destroyed by the Senecas in 1648. The Atiaonrek, another destroyed nation mentioned in 1656, may also have been another Neutral tribe.

The Khionontaterrhonons were the Petun Nation, afterwards known as Tionontates. They were southwest of the Hurons. The Rhuerrhonons of 1635, and the Erichronon of 1640, probably included some nations found in the latter list. They are variously placed, having occupied much territory. The Relations make them sometimes quite near the Iroquois, and sometimes comparatively distant. At first they were on the southern shore of Lake Erie, but retired inland quite a time before their overthrow, on account of their western enemies. Their place on the map comes merely from conjecture. Sanson's map, 1656, locates them southwest of Lake Erie; Creuxius, 1660, places them southwest of that lake, while one of La Hontan's has them south and west of it; and Hennepin, 1689, between two large rivers in Ohio. It seems proper to consider the Massawomekes as a southern division of this numerous people. Not improbably the most western nation speaking the Huron tongue, was another branch. The Schahentoarrhonon of 1635, were probably the Skenchiohronon of 1640. They were friends of the Hurons, speaking their language, and appear at the west of Lake Erie, as the Squenquioronon, on Sanson's map. Creuxius places P. Onnonderetius there, making Latin of Indian words.

An accurate and discriminating survey of the Erie country is greatly to be desired, but a number of well known sites not far from the lake, may properly be assigned to them. Most of those in Cattaraugus and Chautauqua counties, N. Y., seem to have belonged to this numerous people at some time, as well as others in Pennsylvania. They were utterly destroyed in 1654-5.

In the list of 1640 the Hurons were called by the generic name of Ouendat, (Wyandot,) but the Kontareahronon is mentioned specifically, lying on the eastern border and perhaps being distinct from the four great nations. The Totontaraton is also mentioned as an Algonquin nation which had fled to them from the St. Lawrence, where its name appears at Otondiata on Sanson's map The four nations of the Hurons were the Attignaouantan, the Attigneengnahac, the Arendahronons and the Tohontaenrat. The first two were the ancient inhabitants, coming there about A. D. 1400, according to their traditions. The third nation was received about 1590, and the fourth about 1610. They probably left the lower St. Lawrence about the time the Mohawks did, or soon after. The Huron and Petun territory has been accurately examined and the history of both is well known.

These comprise the Huron-Iroquois nations definitely known at that day. The Algonquins of the great lakes will be mere briefly treated, many being nomadic. It was usual for the Jesuits to follow the Indian custom of calling all the small bodies of savages by proper names, so that the number of these is large as compared with the territory occupied. Creuxius, with his Latin terminology, more clearly distinguishes between nations and settlements or towns. One of the most prominent of these nations was that of the Nipissiriniens, near the lake of that name and north of the Hurons. It appears on Sanson's map under this name, but was at first called the Sorcerers by the French. Its Huron name was Askicouanehronons, and it was more wandering than settled. Other nations north of Lake Huron, as given by him, were the Aouechissaronon, being the Ehressaronon of 1640; the Elsouataironon, which may be the Houattachronon of the same year, and the Eaehiriouachaoronon, Enchek and Aossondi.

On the northeast shore of Lake Superior, on this map, from northwest to southeast, were the Ironinidons and the Kiristinous or Kilistinous, a number of people reaching to Hudson's Bay. The Nadouessoue or Sioux were next to these, being still east of the Mississippi on Marquette's map of 1673. Astakouankaeronons followed, and the Skiaeronons, otherwise the Pawichtigouek, were at the Sault Ste. Marie. Creuxius called them the Pagittoecii. They are the Oscouarahronon of 1640. Attracted by the fine fishing many small tribes joined them there, and from that vicinity came the Mississogas at a later day.

On the east side of the Lac des Puants, now Green Bay, on Sanson's map, were the Oukouakanaronons, apparently the Puants. The Hurons usually called them the Aoucatsiwaenhronons, their Algonquin name being Winnipegon, afterwards Winnebagos. Their name was connected with their origin. Much farther south were the Assistaeronons, the powerful Fire Nation, called Mascoutench or Mascoutins by the Algonquins. Although the missionaries explained that their popular name came from a mistaken interpretation, Mr. W. W. Tooker has given some good reasons for thinking they might have worked copper by the aid of fire. On Hennepin's map of 1697, they are placed east of Lake Michigan. They were known to Champlain, and the Neutrals fought against them. Still later they were attacked by the Iroquois, who knew them as the Ontonagannha, and these seem to have been the Onontiogas, afterwards found among the Senecas, in their Huron town. A tribe of this nation, called the Ouchawanag, has led some to think they might have been connected with the Shawnees.

In Michigan, Sanson's map had the Ariatoeronon at the north, being the Ahriottaehronon of 1640. On the east side were the Couaeronon, or the Akhrakouaeronon of 1640; and the Aictaeronon were farther south. In Canada, between the Ottawa and Otonabee Rivers, were the Quionontareronnon or Ehonkehronon, being the Ontarahronon of 1640. This was

a small body of Algonquins, commonly known as the Little Nation of the Isle, advantageously posted on the Ottawa river. The other Algonquins called them the Kichesipiiriniwek. Other Algonquins lay to the south of these, but were of little account. West of all these were the Hurons, Neutrals and Petuns.

Champlain placed the Cheveux Relevez north of Lake Erie, and Creuxius on the Great Manitoulin Island. They soon became known as the Outaouacs or Ottawas, and included several nations. Other nations naturally come into view, the Maloumines or Wild Rice Indians, near the Puants, being visited in 1640. The Illinois were first mentioned in 1656. It has been conjectured that the Irinions of 1642 were the Illinois, but a careful reading of that Relation makes it clear that these were the Ironinidons of Sanson's map. The Kickapoos and Miamis were reached in 1670. The Hurons had some Algonquin allies in 1648, south of Lake Huron, called Ontaneek, and there were other obscure Algonquin tribes. One far down the St. Lawrence must not be forgotten, because often confounded with the Iroquois family. It had its name of Iroquet from that of its principal chief. He was the one who refused to show the Neutrals the way to the St. Lawrence. Its proper name was Onnontchataronon in the Huron tongue, and it once had its home in Montreal.

If one were to include in this all the nations against whom the Iroquois fought we would reach the Mississippi, Hudson's Bay and the Carolinas. No distance was too great for these terrible warriors. After the Huron war they had to seek even more distant foes. Among these was the Amicouek, or Beaver nation, better known as the Nez Perces, three days north of the Hurons, while the remote tribes of New England trembled at their name and presence. But in most of the country now considered scarcely a tribe was left out of the many mentioned. A populous land became their mere hunting grounds. They made a desert and called it peace.

THE FRESCOES OF MITLA.

BY PHILLIP J. VALENTINI.

A large folio volume, containing forty-nine pages of text and thirteen photographic illustrations, bearing the title Wandmalereien von Mitla, has appeared. It is devoted to describing and explaining a series of pictures painted al fresco on the inner walls of a chamber in the famous but now somewhat dilapidated palace of Mitla, Mexico.

Dr. Edward Seler, who is at the head of the American department of the Ethnologic Museum of Berlin, on an exploration tour in 1888 was the fortunate discoverer of them. The discovery was accidental and took place when he was led to house his horses in the curate's stable that was roughly adjusted for this purpose in one of the chambers of the named ruins. It took him and Mrs. Amelia Seler, the latter being the faithful companion, everywhere, of her laborious husband, as much as eleven days to secure an exact copy from these paintings, which on account of the height were accessible only by the way of ladders and the construction of a scaffold, and it is but now, after the lapse of seven years, employed in collecting the material necessary for giving an accurrate idea of the historic find, that the author finds himself ready to publish the results. In doing so, he dedicates the volume to the well known promoter of American archæology, the Duke of Loubat, who liberally bore the expenses connected with a luxury edition.

Here then, and not without a new feeling of perplexed astonishment, we stand again before the revelation of a quite unknown fact. That the ancient American artists were con summate architects and sculptors we need not be told. That they knew how to emblazon their horoscopic calendars, drawn on vellum or on maguey paper, with a wealth of most beautiful and lasting colors, we have learned from the pages of those fifteen so-called Mexican Codices, which were edited some fifty years ago, by the munificence of Lord Kingsborough. But that like the advanced Egyptians, the Greeks and the Romans, our mysterious prehistoric artists should have also viewed their chamber-walls in the light of a national "poikile" and had chosen these walls as a ground upon which to perpetuate "al fresco" the exploits of their heroes, and that they knew how to represent them pictorially and as intelligibly to the sense of sight as it is possible without the employment of the phonetic medium-this fact, indeed, has been a new addition to the store of that miscellaneous and enigmatic knowledge which accummulates year after year, and the threads of which to the present day have withstood all efforts made in the line of logical and therefore acceptable connection.

In would take more space than is allowed here to enumerate in detail all the arguments by which the author of the volume was enabled to reach the final result of his investigation concerning the very subject matter as it is represented in the frescoes. Dr. Seler comes to the conclusion that the story told in them is nothing else than that of Quetzatlcoatl, the culture hero of the Toltecs, a story which oral as well as written tradition is told in unconnected fragments and in such legendary disguise as was that of ancient Osiris, the culture hero of the Nile River. Again, however, fate has intervened to transmit the story as complete as Dr. Seler assumes it was depicted. Almost all the lower portions of the frescoed panels are obliterated and effaced by the hands of white-washers, and other breaks were caused by rain leaking through a rotten roof. Thus, the otherwise so welcome a find is but a fragment, suggestive enough, indeed, but not conclusive, inviting to study and challenging all the powers of trained imagination, but also ever ready to enrapture the lover into the realms of hazardous speculation.

The text is divided into six parts. In Part I the reader is introduced into the locality of Mitla itself, and a description is given of the sundry palaces; of their chambers and the purposes they served. The upper chambers were accommodated for the living of the high priest and his acolytes; the subterranean were destined for abodes of deceased kings and priests, with an additional sacrarium in which the idols and all the other paraphernalia connected with the cult of the dead were preserved. (Pages 5-11).

In Part II we are informed of all that is known of the Zapotecan nation, to which Mitla owes its construction, which is but little, and this little only as far as it is connected with the continuous war in which they were engaged with their neighbors, the Aztecs. (Pages 12-16).

Part III embraces an ingenious comparison made of the Zapotecan calendar and that of the Aztecs, and the mythology of both nations is shown as mutually interlaced. (Pages 17-22).

Part IV represents the special Zapotecan conception as regards religion, their pantheon and the organization of their priesthood. (Pages 23-27).

Part V gives the sculptured and pictorial representations of the Zapotecan gods. (Pages 28-39).

Part VI concludes the text with the detailed description and interpretation of the wall frescoes themselves. Eagaged in this work, Dr. Seler has an occasion to prove what advantages he enjoys in having acquired absolute control over that multiform and ever changing Proteus of Mexican mythology. Without this aid, he would scarcely have succeeded in identifying, and beyond all dispute, that it is the image of Quetzalcoatl, which offers the clue for disclosing the burden of the pictorial text. We may not find ourselves in agreement with him as regards several other identifications and the conclusions drawn.