About the middle of the seventeenth century there lived on the shores
of Lake Ontario a Wyandot girl so beautiful that she had for suitors
nearly all the young men of her tribe; but while she rejected none,
neither did she favor any one in particular. To prevent her from
falling to someone not in their tribe the suitors held a meeting and
concluded that their claims should be withdrawn and the war chief
urged to woo her. He objected on account of the disparity of years,
but was finally persuaded to make his advances. His practice had been
confined rather to the use of stone-headed arrows than love-darts, and
his dexterity in the management of hearts displayed rather in making
bloody incisions than tender impressions. But after he had painted and
arrayed himself as for battle and otherwise adorned his person, he
paid court to her, and a few days later was accepted on condition that
he would pledge his word as a warrior to do what she should ask of
him. When his pledge had been given she told him to bring her the
scalp of a certain Seneca chief whom she hated. He begged her to
reflect that this chief was his bosom friend, whose confidence it
would be an infamy to betray. But she told him either to redeem his
pledge or be proclaimed for a lying dog, and then left him.
Goaded into fury, the Wyandot chief blackened his face and rushed off
to the Seneca village, where he tomahawked his friend and rushed out
of the lodge with his scalp. A moment later the mournful scalp-whoop
of the Senecas was resounding through the village. The Wyandot camp
was attacked, and after a deadly combat of three days the Senecas
triumphed, avenging the murder of their chief by the death of his
assailant as well as of the miserable girl who had caused the tragedy.
The war thus begun lasted more than thirty years.