Onghniaahra

The Onghniaahra were an Iroquoian-speaking tribe of the Neutral Confederacy of southern Ontario. Their name meant “near the big waters” or “the strait,” and they held the Niagara Peninsula between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie; the word Niagara is thought to derive from their name.

Like other Neutral peoples they lived in farming villages, hunted deer and traded dressed skins and furs to the Wendat for French goods. Jesuits called the confederacy Neutral because it stood apart from the wars of the Wendat and the Haudenosaunee. In 1651 Haudenosaunee armies overran the Neutral towns, and the Onghniaahra dispersed, their survivors joining neighbouring Iroquoian nations.