the missionary Heckewelder in L819, and published
more l'ull\ by Brinton in the Walam Olum in L885. According t<>
the firsl account, the Delawares, advancing from the west, found their
further progress opposed by a powerful people called Alligewi or Tal-
ligcw i. occupying the country upon a river which Heckewelder thinks
identical with the Mississippi, but which the sequel shows was more
probably the upper Ohio. They wen' said to have regularly built
earthen fortifications, in which they defended themselves so well
that at la-t the Delawares were obliged to seek the assistance of the
"Mengwe,"or Iroquois, with the result that aftera warfare extending
over many years the Alligewi finally received a crushing defeat, the
survivors fleeing down the river and abandoning the country to the
invaders, who thereupon parceled it out amongst themselves, the
■* Mengwe" choosing the portiona I unit the I rreal lakes while the Dela-
wares took possession of that to the south and cast. The missionary
adds that the Allegheny (and Ohio) river was still called by the Dela-
wares the Alligewi Sipu, or river of the Alligewi. This would seem
to indicate it as the true river of the tradition. He speaks also of
remarkable earthworks seen by him in 1 7^'-» in the neighborhood of
Lake Erie, which were said by the Indians to have been built by the
extirpated tribe as defensive fortifications in the course < if this war.
Near two of these, in the vicinity of Sandusky, he was shown mounds
under which it was said some hundreds of the slain Talligewi were
buried. 1 As is usual in such traditions, the Alligewi were said to have
been