war with another powerful nation of Indians,
who lived to the north of them, between the
Kittatinny mountains, or highlands, and Lake
Ontario, and who call themselves Mingoes

, and
are called by the French writers, Iroquois, by
the English, Five Nations, and by the Indians to
the southward, with whom they were at war,
Massawomic; this war was carrying on in its
greatest fury, when Captain Smith first arrived
in Virginia. The Mingo warriors had pene-
trated down the Susquehanna to the mouth of
it. The Mingo nation consisted of five tribes;
three, who are called the Elder, to wit: the
Senecas, who live to the west, the Mohawks, to
the east, and the Onondagoes between them;
and two, who are called the younger tribes,
namely, the Cayugas and Oneidas. All these
tribes spoke one language, and were thus united
in a close confederacy, and occupied that tract
of country from the last end of Lake Erie to
Lake Champlain, and from the Kittatinny and
highlands to the Lake Ontario and the river
St. Lawrence. This nation turned their arms
against the Lenapi, and as this war was long
and doubtful, they, in the course of it, not only
exerted their whole force, but put in practice
every measure which prudence or policy could
devise to bring it to a successful issue. For
this purpose they bent their course down the
Susquehanna, warring with the Indians in their
way, and having penetrated as far as the mouth