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In common with the red races, they are the "autochthonoi" of the soil -- "fresher from the hand that formed of earth the human face," than the present rulers of the land that was once theirs. On their hunting grounds, the pioneers of the Genesee country, preparatory to settlement, kindled their camp-fires. Our clustering cities and villages are on the sites of their ancient castles, forts and places of burial. In the vallies where they lived, and on hills where blazed their beacons, a people with the best blood of Europe in their veins, at one and the same time, are founding halls of learning, and gathering in the golden harvests. The early annals of their occupation, to which the reader is soon to be introduced, are intimately blended with this once powerful and numerous branch of the Iroquois confederacy, that furnished under the totemic bond, at the era of confederation, two of the presiding law-givers and chiefs. * An opinion prevails, that the guardians of the Eastern Door, the Mohawks; or, as called by their brethren, "Do-de-o-gah," or __________ * Documentary History. 86 PHELPS AND GORHAM'S PURCHASE.
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