MOHAWKS, a tribe of North American Indian, the easternmost of the Six Nations, named collectively by the French, the Iroquois. According to their own tradition, confirmed by those of other tribes, they were the eldest peo ple in the confederacy of the Six Nations and styled themselves Kaniengehaga, "people of the place of the flint?' They believed that they were liberated from subterranean confinement by Tareya-wagon, who guided them into the valley of the Mohawk; thence they passed to the Hudson and to the sea. The valley in which they at first established themselves was the seat of their power from the discovery of the country until the American Revolution. Their dominion extended from Lake Cham plain to the head-waters of the Susquehanna and the Delaware. A warlike tribe, they in flicted great tortures on their prisoners and practised cannibalism. With the introduction of
firearms by Dutch traders they became re nowned above all the other nations for their skill as warriors, and carried terror wherever they went. Their forays extended as far as the Connecticut River, and their influence pre vailed among the small independent tribes about the region of the present city of New York. During the French and Indian War they supported Sir William Johnson, following him in his most perilous expeditions and aiding him in the contests of Lake 'George and Niagara. After his death they transferred their attachment to his family, and were forced to flee from their ancestral home to Canada, where lands were assigned them on the Grand River and on the Bay of Quint& near the east end of Lake Ontario, where over 1,200 still reside. See IROQUOIS LEAGUE; SIX NATIONS.