confusing identities attributed to Stadacona and Hochelaga, The

Journal of Canadian Studies, Winter 1998 by Pendergast, James F

In 1916 Arthur C. Parker advanced a migration hypothesis akin to that proposed earlier by Beauchamp.(f.36) He speculated that a still undifferentiated people who were later to become the discrete three eastern tribes of the Five Nation Iroquois League, (the Onondaga, Oneida and Mohawk), had migrated from the Mississippi Valley eastward along the north side of Lake Ontario into the St Lawrence Valley. There near Montreal, he alleged, they had shared a common homeland and a common ancestry with the Stadaconans and Hochelagans. When, as he explained, "the hive swarmed" elements moved southward to the contact period Iroquois tribal homelands in New York State.(f.37) The simultaneous presence of an element of Mohawk in their ancient Montreal area homeland and another element in their new Mohawk Valley homeland, however, raised a problem for Parker. He solved this with a modified migration hypothesis that claimed only some Mohawk had migrated to the Mohawk Valley from their ancestoral home in the vicinity of Montreal. Parker twice identified the main body who had moved to the Mohawk valley as the true Mohawk. In both these works he designated the minority who had remained behind in the St Lawrence Valley at Hochelaga, "Laurentian Iroquois." There were claims that all this took place soon after Jacques Cartier's visit in 1535. This wholly Mohawk identification is the second, and probably the most widely held definition currently accorded the Laurentian Iroquois identity.

In his 1940 monograph Problems Arising from the Historic Northeastern Position of the Iroquois, William Fenton cogently proposed four possible identifications for the Laurentian Iroquois.(f.38) One of these suggested that the Iroquoians in the St Lawrence Valley were a discrete people who were not involved in the development of the Onondaga, the Oneida or the Mohawk. Fenton named this discrete Iroquoian population Laurentian Iroquois. This is the third still current definition for the Laurentian Iroquois.

In 1961 Professor Floyd Lounsbury identified certain words in the Cartier vocabularies as being representative of a discrete Iroquoian language that he attributed to Stadacona and Hochelaga.(f.39) Lounsbury labelled this language Laurentian, the language of Fenton's Laurentian Iroquois. This is the fourth definition for Laurentian Iroquois still current.

In 1992 Professor Olive Dickason in her textbook Canada's First Nations and Professor Ramsay Cook in the introduction to his 1993 work The Voyages of Jacques Cartier identified the Iroquoians involved in the 1534-1543 Cartier/Roberval episodes as Laurentian Iroquoians (sic).(f.40) This identity had not been accorded the Stadaconans and Hochelagans before. Having identified them generally as members of the Iroquoian linguistic family, Dickason and Cook distanced themselves from the erroneous Five Nation Iroquois particularized affiliation proffered by those who still support Parker's 1916 Mohawk hypothesis. Nevertheless, because Dickason and Cook have not defined their new term Laurentian Iroquoians, we are left to ponder which of the three current Laurentian identifies (Hewitt's Huron, Parker's Mohawk, or Fenton's discrete people who spoke Lounsbury's Laurentian language) they intended to support or replace. Dickason distinctly polarizes the discussion in favour of Hewitt's Huron identity when she raises an option whereby the Huron Rock tribe may have come from Stadacona and again when she has Huron survivors of the devasting Iroquois attack in 1649, "... return to their ancient territories along the north shore of the St Lawrence."(f.41)