Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1802).djvu/309

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NOTES ON VIRGINIA.
295

all the treaties of peace. Beſides, it is cuſtomary when any of them die at a diſtance from home, to bury them, and afterwards to come and take up the bones and carry them home. At a treaty which was held at Lancaſter with the ſix nations, one of them died, and was buried in the woods a little diſtance from the town. Some time after a party came and took up the body, ſeparated the fleſh from the bones by boiling and ſcraping them clean, and carried them to be depoſited in the ſepulchres of their anceſtors. The operation was ſo offenſive and diſagreeable, that nobody could come near them while they were performing it.

(7.) p. 147. The Oſwegàtchies, Connoſedàgos and Cohunnegàgoes, or, as they are commonly called, Caghnewàgos, are of the Mingo or Six-nation Indians, who, by the influence of the French miſſionaries, have been ſeparated from their nation, and induced to ſettle there.

I do not know of what nation the Augquàgahs are; but ſuſpect they are a family of the Senecas.

The Nànticocks and Conòies were formerly of a nation that lived at the head of Cheſapeak-bay, and who, of late years, have been adopted into the Mingo or Iroquois confederacy, and make a ſeventh nation. The Monacans or Tuſcaroras, who were taken into the confederacy in 1712, making the ſixth.

The Saponies are families of the Wanamies, who removed from New-Jerſey, and, with the Mohiccons, Munſies, and Delawares, belong to the Lenopi nation. The Mingos are a war colony from the ſix nations; ſo are the Cohunnewagos.