HURON
567
HURON
cumstances, and pieced together by one of themselves:
"About the middle of the 17th century, the Wyan-
dots, on the Island of St. Joseph, were suddenly
attacked by a large party of Senecas with their allies
and massacred [by] them to a fearful extent. It was
at this time, probably, that a Catholic priest named
Daniels, a missionary among the Wyandots, was slain
by the relentless savages. During this massacre,
a portion of the Wyandots fled from the island to
Michilimackinac. From there a portion of the refu-
gees journeyed westward to parts unknown, the
balance returned to River Swaba." This meagre,
confused, and inaccurate account seems to be all that
has been handed down in the oral traditions of the
eventually were forced to withdraw, not being backed
by the rest of the Neutrals against the Senecas in their
efforts to resist the encroachments of the latter.
Huronia proper occupied but a portion of Simcoe
County, or, to be more precise, the present townships
of Tiny, Tay, Flos, Medonte, Orillia, and Oro, a very
restricted territory, and roughly speaking comprised
between 44° 20' and 44° 53' north latitude, and, from
east to west, between 79° 20' and 80° 10' longitude
west of Greenwich. The villages of the Petun, or
Tobacco, Nation were scattered over the Counties
of Grey and Bruce; but the shore line of their country
was at all times chosen as a camping-ground by bands
of erratic Algonquins, a friendly race who were often-
ffl'. Lf"','l'!)- GlaAQTlTmb'Island (.'.'^^ 'S
Pt Cochin
L A K E \^
ATTIOOUA if^,
Jesuit Missions
IN
HURONIA
REFERENCE Indian Villages. in llallon, shown thus: • Ti^iilthfa Modern Villages. In Qotblo, ebown tbuaiHWAvERLEY
Townahlp Linear
County Linos: .__^
1 L' 3 J & 7 8 10 11 12 13 14 15
Wyandots in the West concerning the laying waste
of their country two centuries and a half ago, and of
the events, all-important for them at least, which
preceded and accompanied their own final dispersion.
As these occurrences were fully chronicled at the time
they took place, the student of Indian history may, by
comparison, draw his own conclusions as to the accu-
racy of Dooyentate's summary, and at the same
time determine what credence is to be given to Indian
traditions of other events, all certainly of minor
imjiortance.
With the opening years of the seventeenth century reliable Huron history begins, and the geographical position of their country becomes known when French traders and missionaries, at that epoch, penetrate the wilderness for the first time as far as what was then terrned "the Freshwater Sea". The region then in- habited by the three great groups, the Hurons proper, the Petuns, and the Neutrals, lay entirely within the confines of the present Province of Ontario, in the Dominion of Canada, with the exception of three or four Neutral villages which stood as outposts beyond the Niagara River in New York State, but which
times welcomed even to the Petun villages of the
interior. After the year 1()39, owing to defeats and
losses sustained at the hands of the Assistaeronnons,
or Fire Nation, the Petuns withdrew towards the
east and concentrated their clans almost entirely
within the confines of the Blue Hills in Grey County,
overlapping, however, parts of Nottawasaga and Mul-
mur townships in Simcoe. As for the Neutral Nation,
its territory extended from the Niagara River on the
east, to the present international boundary at the
Lake and River St. Clair on the west, while the shores
of Lake Erie formed the southern frontier. To the
north, no one of the Neutral Villages occupied a site
much beyond an imaginary line drawn from the
modern town of Oakville, Halton County, to Hills-
boro, Lambton County.
These geographical notions are not of recent acqui- sition ; they have nearly all l^een in the possession of authors who have dealt seriously with Huron history. But what is wholly new is the systematic reconstruc- tion of the maps of Huronia proper and of a small portion of the Petun country, an achievement which may be further perfected, but which, as it stands,
