E-text prepared by the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries (http://www.archive.org/details/toronto) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 31955-h.htm or 31955-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/31955/pg31955-images.html) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/31955/31955-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries. See http://www.archive.org/details/niagaraaborigina00portuoft NIAGARA An Aboriginal Center of Trade by PETER A. PORTER Niagara Falls 1906 Copyright, Peter A. Porter, 1906. NIAGARA, AN ABORIGINAL CENTER OF TRADE The printed story of Niagara dates back only three centuries; and during the first three decades of even that period the references to this wonderful handiwork of Nature--which was located in a then unexplored region of a New World, a Continent then inhabited only by warring tribes of superstitious Savages--are few and far between. Three facts relating to this locality--and three only--seem to be proven as ante-dating the commencement of that printed story. That its "Portage" had long been in use. That it was then, and long had been, a spot for the annual assemblage of the Indians "for trade." That here, and here only, was found a certain substance which the Aborigines had long regarded as a cure for many human ills. Before 1600, everything else that we think we know, and like to quote about Niagara, is only Indian Myth or Tradition; possibly handed down for Ages, orally, from generation to generation, amongst the Aborigines; or, quite as probable, it is the invention of some Indian or White man Mythologist of recent times; the presumption in favor of the latter being strengthened, when no mention of the legend, not even the slightest reference thereto, is to be found in any of the writings of any of the authors, who (either through personal visits to the Tribes living comparatively near to the Cataract, or from narrations told to them by Indians living elsewhere on this Continent) had learnt their facts at first hand, and had then duly recorded them,--until long after the beginning of the eighteenth Century. It is probably to the latter class--modern traditions--even with all their plausibilities, based upon the superstitious and stoical nature of the Aborigines--that several of the best-known Legends concerning Niagara belong. Three of those legends, especially, appeal to the imagination. One relates to Worship, one to Healing, one to Burial,--embracing the Deity, Disease, and Death.