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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).
     The Onondaga of Grand River reservation, Canada, have 9 clans, namely:
Wolf,
Tortoise (Turtle?),
Bear,
Deer,
Eel,
Beaver,
Ball,
Plover (Snipe?), and
Pigeonhawk.
     The Wolf, Bear, Plover, Ball, and Pigeonhawk clans have each only one federal chiefship; the Beaver, Tortoise, and Eel clans have each two federal chiefships, while the Deer clan has three. The reason for this marked difference in the quotas of chiefships for the several clans is not definitely known, but it may be due to the adoption of groups of persons who already possessed chiefship titles. In federal ceremonial and social assemblies the Onondaga by right of membership therein take their places with the tribal phratry of the "Three Brothers," of which the Mohawk and the Seneca are the other two members; but in federal councils-those in which sit the federal representatives of all the five (latterly six) Iroquois tribes-the Onondaga tribe itself constitutes a tribal phratry, while the Mohawk and the Seneca together form a second, and the Oneida and the Cayuga originally, and latterly the Tuscarora, a third tribal phratry. The federal council is organized on the basis of these three tribal phratries. The functions of the Onondaga phratry are in many respects similar to those of a judge holding court with a jury. The question before the council is discussed respectively by the Mohawk and Seneca tribes on the one side, and then by the Oneida, the Cayuga, and, latterly, the Tuscarora tribes on the other, within their own phratries. When these two phratries have independently reached the same or a differing opinion, it is then submitted to the Onondaga phratry for confirmation or rejection. The confirmation of a common opinion or of one of the two differing opinions makes that the decree of the council. In refusing to confirm an opinion the Onondaga must show that it is in conflict with established custom or with public policy; when two differing opinions are rejected the Onondaga may suggest to the two phratries a course by which they may be able to reach a common opinion; but the Onondaga may confirm one of two differing opinions submitted to it. Each chieftain has the right to discuss and argue the question before the council either for or against its adoption by the council, in a speech or speeches addressed to the entire body of councilors and to the public.
     Champlain related that in 1622 the Montagnais, the Etchemin, and the Hurons had been engaged for a long time in seeking to bring about peace between themselves and the Iroquois, but that up to that time there was always some serious obstacle to the consummation of an agreement on account of the fixed distrust which each side had of the faith of the other. Many times did they ask Champlain himself to aid them in making a firm and durable peace. They informed him that they understood by making a treaty that the interview of the ambassadors must he amicable, the one side accepting the words and faith of the other not to harm or prevent them from hunting throughout the country, and they on their side agreeing to act in like manner toward their enemies, in this case the Iroquois, and that they had no other agreements or compacts precedent to the making of a firm peace. They importuned Champlain many times to give them his advice in this matter, which they promised faithfully to follow. They assured him that they were then exhausted and weary of the wars which they had waged against each other for more than fifty years, and that, on account of their burning desire for revenge for the murder of their kin and friends, their ancestors had never before thought of peace. In this last statement is probably found approximately the epoch of that historic feud mentioned in the Jesuit Relation for 1660 (chap. II) and by Nicholas Perrot, which made the Iroquois tribes, on the one hand, and the Algonkin on the Ottawa and St Lawrence rivers, on the other, inveterate enemies, although this may have been but a renewal and widening of a still earlier quarrel. In 1535 Cartier learned from the Iroquoian tribes on the St Lawrence that they were continually tormented by enemies dwelling to the southward, called Toudamani (probably identical with Tsonnontouan, or Seneca, a name then meaning 'Upper Iroquois'), who continually waged war on them.
     In Sept. 1655 the Onondaga sent a delegation of 18 persons to Quebec to confer with Governor de Lauson and with the Algonkin and Hurons. The Onondaga spokesman used 24 wampum belts in his address; the first 8 were presents to the Hurons and the Algonkin, whose leading chiefs were there; each present had its own particular name. The Onondaga professed to speak for the "four upper Iroquois nations," namely, the Seneca, Cayuga, Oneida, and Onondaga, thus leaving only the Mohawk, the "lower Iroquois, from this peace conference, but the Onondaga speaker promised to persuade the Mohawk to change their minds and to make peace. The Onondaga asked for priests to dwell among them and for French soldiers to aid them in their war against the Erie.
     In May 1657, 10 years after the dispersion of the Hurons from their motherland, the Onondaga sought by the giving of numerous presents and by covert threats of war to persuade the Hurons who had fled to the vicinity of Quebec to remove to their country and to form with them a single people. The Mohawk and the Seneca also were engaged in this business. Finally, the Hurons were forced to submit to the persistent demands of the Iroquois tribes.
In 1686 the Onondaga were at war against the Chererrnons (Shawnee?). They were divided into two bands, one of 50 and another of 250, 50 of the latter being from other tribes. But in 1688 the Onondaga were much under French influence and were regarded as the chief among the Iroquois tribes.
     In 1682, at Albany, the Onondaga, with the Mohawk, the Oneida, the Cayuga, and the Seneca, entered into a treaty of peace with the commissioners from the colony of Maryland, who contracted not only for the white settlers, but also for the Piscataway Indians.