Tuscarora and Six Nations Websites

ATOTARHO

Atotarho, who by tradition was an Onondaga, is the great embodiment of the Iroquois courage, wisdom and heroism, and he is invested with allegoric traits which exalt him to a kind of superhuman character. Unequaled in war and arts his fame spread abroad, and exalted the Onondaga nation in the highest scale. He was placed at the head of the confederacy, and his name was used after his death as an exemplar of glory and honor. While like that of Caesar, it became perpetuated as the official title of the presiding Sachem of the confederacy. He was a man of energy and renown. And such was the estimation in which he was held in his life time, and the popular veneration for his character after death, that, as above denoted, his name became the distinctive title for the office, and is not yet extinct, although the tribes have no longer war to prosecute or foreign ambassadors to reply to.