Description
The Attiwandarons or Neutrals appear to have lived in harmony with their environment and in reasonable accord with their neighbours for well over three centuries. But in the decade or so preceding 1650 the coming of the white man foreshadowed their doom, although they had little actual contact with him. Cholera and probably smallpox struck the bands, taking a heavy toll of lives. Famine followed, further decimating this once proud people. Before they had any chance to recover their strength, they became caught up in the series of attacks by which the Iroquois destroyed the Huron Nation. The Neutrals, already weakened to perhaps 12,000 persons, were no match for the warlike Iroquois, especially since the latter were proficient in the use of the white man's weapons, which they had obtained through the fur trade. The Neutrals were virtually annihilated; the remnants of the bands joined with the surviving Hurons and Petuns, migrated westwards, and established the Wyandot Nation.
Language
Neutral or Neutral Huron was the Iroquoian language spoken by the Neutral Nation.
Culture
Little is known about these first tribes except that they belonged to the Algonkian Nation and were hunters and gatherers. They may have engaged in primitive farming before giving way to a new wave of tribes. The Neutral Confederacy had much in common with the Petun Nation and may have had shared ancestry. The Jesuit Relations in 1652 describes tattooing among the Petun as well as the Neutrals. They quarried Onondaga chert from the Onondaga Limestone formation in their lands. Prior to European contact, they used this chert as a tool stone for arrowheads, bifaces, and other weapons and tools. This extended into the protohistoric and post-contact periods, and has been documented at sites associated with the Onondaga, Oneida, and St. Lawrence Iroquoians. It was superior for toolmaking to other local chert varieties around the St. Lawrence Lowlands.