"This is a term bestowed by the Iroquois, in derision, on the tribes who appear, at an early day, to have descended the Utawas river, and occupied the left banks of the St. Lawrence, above the present site of Quebec, about the close of the 15th century. It is said to signify men who eat trees, in allusion to their using the bark of certain trees for food, when reduced to straits, in their war excursions. The French, who entered the St. Lawrence from the gulf, called the same people Algonquins--a generic appellation, which has been long employed and come into universal use, among historians and philologists. According to early accounts, the Adirondacks had preceded the Iroquois in arts and attainments." _H. R. Schoolcraft, Notes on the Iroquois, chapter 5._ See, also, below: IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY: THEIR CONQUESTS, &c. AMERICAN ABORIGINES: Æsopus Indians. See below: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY. AMERICAN ABORIGINES: Agniers. Among several names which the Mohawks (see below: IROQUOIS) bore in early colonial history was that of the Agniers. _F. Parkman, The Conspiracy of Pontiac, volume 1, page 9, foot-note._ AMERICAN ABORIGINES: Albaias. See below: PAMPAS TRIBES. AMERICAN ABORIGINES: Aleuts. See below: ESKIMAUAN FAMILY. AMERICAN ABORIGINES: Algonquian (Algonkin) Family. "About the period 1500-1600, those related tribes whom we now know by the name of Algonkins were at the height of their prosperity. They occupied the Atlantic coast from the Savannah river on the south to the strait of Belle Isle on the north. ... The dialects of all these were related, and evidently at some distant day had been derived from the same primitive tongue. Which of them had preserved the ancient forms most closely, it may be premature to decide positively, but the tendency of modern studies has been to assign that place to the Cree--the northernmost of all. We cannot erect a genealogical tree of these dialects. ... We may, however, group them in such a manner as roughly to indicate their relationship. This I do"--in the following list: