Can we suppose that in this dim tradition there is light cast on the lost colony of Virginia, which was first left on the island of Roanoke? The Tuscaroras,[80] who preserve the tradition, came to western New-York from that quarter. They were a fierce, powerful and warlike nation, having in 1712 resolved on the massacre, on a certain day, of all the whites in the Carolinas. What is once done by natives, barbarous or civilized, is often the reproduction of some prior national act, and especially if that act had been attended with success; and it is by no means improbable that in this desperate and bloody resolve of 1712, the Tuscaroras meant to repeat the prior tragedy of “Croatan.”[81] Whether, however, the incident be of ante-Columbian or post-Columbian date, it is worthy preservation, and may be assigned its place and proper importance when we have gleaned more facts from the dark abyss of American antiquity. [80] This tribe have also the clan of the hawk or falcon. [81] Vide Hackluit. [_b_.] Forays into the country of the Cherokees and Catawbas. Nothing is more distinct or better settled in the existing traditions of the Iroquois, than their wars with some of the southern tribes, particularly the Cherokees. I found this subject first alluded to among the Oneidas, who were hotly engaged in this southern war; afterwards among the Onondagas, the Senecas of Tonawanda, the Tuscaroras, and with still increasing particularity, among the Senecas of Buffalo, Cattaraugus, and Teonigono. But I was never able to fix the era of its commencement, or to find an adequate cause for it. It seems almost incredible that a war of this kind should have been carried on, at such a great distance from their central council fire at Onondaga, yet nothing is better established in their reminiscences. They first came into contact, as Tetoyoah told me was his opinion, in the western prairies. The Iroquois are known to have hunted and warred far and wide in that quarter. The two nations seem to have been deeply and mutually exasperated. Tetoyoah spoke of an act of horrid treachery, the breaking of a peace pledge, and the murder of a peace deputation.