territory circa 1615 and spent a winter among the Nation, during 1625-1626. A Franciscan Récollet, Father Joseph de La Roche Daillon, spent time with the Nation in 1626 and estimated the population as 40,000 at that time. About 14 years later, Brébeuf and Chaumonot visited 18 Neutral Nation settlements and stayed in ten villages. By that time, the estimated population was only "about 12,000 people and 4,000 warriors in about 40 villages and hamlets". After destroying the Hurons, the Iroquois attacked the Neutrals. Around 1650, during a period that is now loosely referred to as the Beaver Wars, referring to the theft of furs, the Iroquois Confederacy declared war on the Attawandaron. Some historians state that the Iroquois destroyed the Neutral society, which ended as a separate entity in 1651. However, the Neutral population had already been reduced by diseases such as smallpox and measles carried by Europeans. By 1652, the Iroquois had also destroyed the Huron, Petun and Erie Nations. Some of the Neutrals were incorporated into Seneca villages in upstate New York, and others were absorbed into various other societies. The Kenjockety family, one of the last known families to trace their ethnicity to the Neutrals, still lives among the Senecas. Anthropologist Jackes discussed the year 1651 as particularly significant: "during the final Iroquois onslaught ... the Neutral fled into the woods and dispersed for the last time ... The years of famine and disease no doubt contributed to the rout". The last reference to the Neutrals as an independent society is from the fall of 1653. A historical mention in 1864 refers to the "Huron de la nation neuter" and "Hurons neutres" (neutral Hurons). Society and culture 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 (also called the Tobacco Nation) as well as the Neutrals: "And this (tattooing) in some nations is so common that in the one which we called the Tobacco, and... the Neutral. I know not whether a single individual was found, who was not painted in this manner, on some part of the body." The Museum of Ontario Archeology describes the society as "semi-nomadic", living in villages for about 20 years before abandoning a site after depleting the game and the soil of the area. A historian in 1997 stated that the Nation "also