The Finger (1947?)

[carljweber]

Among other things, James A. Landau said:

> I am told that "Mohawk" means "cannibal" (it is quite possible that the
> Mohawks deliberately adopted this name for psychological warfare).

All of the Amerindians were anthropophagic. The word "cannibal" itself was
brought back to Europe by the Spanish at first contact in about 1500. It's
another form of the word "carrib". The Mohawks, as one of the five tribes of
the Iroquois Confederaation, where known to the Algonquians and the French
for their rabid ferocity from the time of Champlain, about 1600. The name
"Eire" and the name "Huron" are proported to be insulting European
loanwords. In the case of "Huron", the second part of the word looks very
much like the well-known morpheme for "people" in Huron/Algonquian, and the
"hor" looks alot like the first part of "Iroquois". The Iroquois brought
genicide to the Huron tribes in the 1630s, and the Wyndotes, the modern
Hurons, are the only non-extinct Huron tribe.

Speaking of anthropophagy and the Mohawks, there was the tremendous scene of
merciless human torment, mutilation, and cannibalism in 1683, when the
Iroquois wrought their yearly cycle of  genocide on the tribes to their
east. These tribes would usually escape. But the most peaceful tribe of all
the Illinois tribes, the Tamarora, in trusting innocence, chose not to flee
to the safety of the western shores of the Mississippi. And four hundred
were barbariszed, and the Iroquois, including the Mohawk, took four hundred
slaves back to their eastern home.

CJW