Onondaga.

In the Onondaga language, “Onondaga” means “people of the hill.” The main Onondaga village was on a hill southeast of present-day Syracuse, New York. The Onondaga nation was the geographically central nation of the Five (later Six) Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. Therefore, the confederacy's capital was at this main Onondaga village, and the Onondaga were the Keepers of the Council Fire of the confederacy. The main speaker of the council was always an Onondaga, as was the keeper of the council wampum. The Great Council of the Confederacy, which met each autumn and in emergencies, was composed of fifty sachems (chiefs) from the five Indigenous nations. The Onondaga held fourteen of these hereditarily chosen sachemships, more than any other nation. These rules were set down before European contact (estimates vary widely, from the 1300s to the 1500s) by the founders of the Iroquois Confederacy, Hiawatha, and Deganawida.