Footprints of the Red Men: Indian geographical names in the valley of Hudson's river, the valley of the Mohawk, and on the Delaware: their location and the probable meaning of some of them.Ruttenber, Edward Manning
History
Footprints of the Red Men: Indian geographical names in the valley of Hudson's river, the valley of the Mohawk, and on the Delaware: their location and the probable meaning of some of them.
Ruttenber, Edward Manning
Indians of North America -- New York (State); Names, Geographical -- New York (State); Names, Indian -- North America
In this connection the several names by which the castle was called, viz:
_Onekagoncka, Carenay_ or _Caneray, Osserueñon, Assarue,_ and
_Oneugiouré,_ may be again referred to. As already stated, the "best
expert authority" of the Bureau of Ethnology reads _Onekagoncka_ as
signifying, "At the junction of the waters," and _Osserueñon,_ in any of
its forms, as signifying "At the beaver-dam." Possibly the names might be
read differently by a less expert authority, but _Oneka_ certainly means
"Water," and _Ossera_ means "Beaver-dam." Add the reading by the late
Horatio Hale of _Oghracke,_ "At the beaver-dam," and the locative chain
is complete at the mouth of Aurie's Creek (Oghracke). _Tribally,_ the
names referred to one and the same castle, as has been noted, and the
evidence seems to be clear that the location was the same. There is no
evidence whatever that any other than one and the same place was occupied
by the "first castle" between the years 1635 and 1667. It is not strictly
correct to say that "castles were frequently removed." Villages that were
not palisaded may have been frequently changed to new sites, but the
evidence is that palisaded towns remained in one place for a number of
years unless the tribe occupying was driven out by an enemy or by
continued unhealthfulness, as the known history of all the old castles
shows; nor were they ever removed to any considerable distance from their
original sites.
Van Curler's description of the castle has been quoted. He did not say
that it was palisaded, but he did call it a "fort," which means the same
thing. Rev. Megapolensis wrote, in 1644: "These [the Tortoise tribe] have
built a fort of palisades and call their castle _Assarue._" It was not
an old castle when Van Curler visited it in 1635, or when Father Jogues
was a prisoner in it in 1642, but in its then short existence it had had
an incident in the wars between the Mohawks and the Mahicans of which
there is no mention in our written histories. On his return trip Van
Curler wrote that after leaving _Onekagoncka_ and walking about "two
miles," or about six English miles, his guide pointed to a high hill on
which the immediately preceding castle of the tribe had stood and from
which it had been driven by the Mahicans "nine years" previously, _i. e._
in 1627, when the war was raging between the Mohawks and the Mahicans of
which Wassenaer wrote. It was obviously about that time that the tribe,
retreating from its enemies, rallied west of Schohare Creek and founded
the castle of which we are speaking, and there it remained until it was
driven out by the French under De Tracey in 1666, when its occupants
gathered together at Caughnawaga on the north side of the Mohawk, where
they remained until 1693 when their castle was again destroyed by the
French, and the tribe found a resting place on the west side of the mouth
of Schohare Creek. The remarkable episode in the early history of the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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