Onondaga
/ The Onondaga (Onoñtǎ’′ge‘,'on, or on top of, the hill or mountain'). An important tribe of the Iroquois confederation, formerly living on the mountain, lake, and creek bearing their name, in the present Onondaga county, N. Y., and extending northward to Lake Ontario and southward perhaps to the waters of the Susquehanna. In the Iroquois councils they are known as Hodiseñnageta, 'they (are) the name bearers.' Their principal village, also the capital of the confederation, was called Onondaga, later Onondaga Castle; it was situated from before 1654 to 1681 on Indian hill, in the present town of Pompey, and in 1677 contained 140 cabins. It was removed to Butternut creek, where the fort was burned in 1696. In 1720 it was again removed to Onondaga creek, and their present reserve is in that valley, a few miles south of the lake (Beauchamp, inf'n, 1907).
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