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CHAPTER IV
        A LEAGUE OF FIVE NATIONS:
                  THE IROQUOIS
THE Athapascan tribes who roamed the great pine forests
of Canada formed a connecting link between the Eskimo
to the north and the Algonquians to the east and south.
The Tinneh, or Dinn6, as the most northern branch of
this widespread family was called, had adopted many of
the practices of their Arctic neighbors, and at the same
time displayed traits common to most forest dwellers. In
the regions where the birch tree grew they used, its bark,
as did the other tribes, for their lodges and canoes; while
in the looseness of their tribal organization and moral code,
and in their dependence on animal food-particularly
the caribou-they most resembled the Eskimo. The
hunter's existence was indeed forced upon the Tinneh,
since the climate of their country was too cold and the
soil too poor for agriculture.
  Along the shores of the Great Lakes, however, and
throughout the fertile valley of the St. Lawrence where
lived the Algonkin and the Hurons (the latter an Iroquoian
tribe), the first French settlers found great fields of growing
corn, for these tribes dwelt in permanent villages and tilled
the soil. Among the most interesting of the early chroni-
cles of this region are the 7esuit Relations, written by those
heroic missionaries who came over from France at the
beginning of the seventeenth century, fired by zeal to
Christianize the Savages. Joining the colony already es-
tablished on the banks of the St. Lawrence, they began
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