PREFACE.
A copy was carefully made under the supervision of my kind friend, the Rev. Felix Martin of the Society of Jesus, who on his return to Canada submitted it to the Oblate Father Antoine, missionary at the Sault St. Louis. This competent Mohawk scholar on comparing it with specimens of the various dialects at his mission, and an analysis of the five Iroquois dialects, pronounced it to be Onondaga, noting as the most striking differences the substitution of A for the Mohawk r, and in the preterites of i for the Mohawk on.
A comparison with various vocabularies of the tribes which composed the " Complete Cabin" left me under no doubt as to the correctness of this opinion, and I have accordingly styled it an Onondaga-French Dictionary.
The fuller and later labors of Zeisberger and Pyrlaeus give us the same language half a century further down the stream of time, enabling the ethnologist to acquire a full knowledge of its genius, structure and limits.
The language as here given is singularly free from European words ; not even Ni8 the general corruption of Dieu being given for God. The conjugations are not however as full as in other treatises on these dialects, lacking three of the fifteen persons usually given in each tense, and what is still more peculiar all the verbs are of the paradigm K, none being found of that in ~W.
The work is here produced as it was in the original, no liberty having been taken, except that of throwing together in front some grammatical notes interspersed through the work, chiefly at the end of the letter A, and under the words ĪTom, Pronom, &c, and the insertion in brackets under their respective letters of some words grouped in these notes. The object of this will be apparent, as it avoids confusion and facilitates reference.
 York, Jan., 1860,                                J. G. S.