Iroquois facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Iroquois Confederacy Haudenosaunee
Flag Coat of arms
Map showing historical (in purple) and currently recognized (in pink) Iroquois territory claims.
Status	Recognized confederate state, later became an unrecognized state
Common languages	Iroquoian languages
Government	Confederation
Legislature	Grand Council of the Six Nations
History
• Established	Between 1450 and 1660 (estimate)
• Disestablished	1867- (slow removals of sovereignty)
Preceded by Succeeded by Cayuga people Mohawk people Oneida people Onondaga people Seneca people Tuscarora people Canada United States
Today part of	Canada  United States

The Iroquois, also known as the Haudenosaunee or the "People of the Longhouse", are a group of tribes of indigenous people of North America. After the people who spoke Iroquoian came together as different tribes, which were mostly in what is now central and upstate New York, in the 16th century or earlier they came together in an group known today as the Iroquois League, or the "League of Peace and Power". The first Iroquois League was often known as the Five Nations, as it was made up of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca. After the Tuscarora nation joined the League in 1722, the Iroquois became known as the Six Nations. To this day, fifty sachems who represent different clans of the Iroquois meet at the Grand Council near Syracuse, New York.

When Europeans first arrived in North America, the Iroquois lived in what is now the northeastern United States, mostly in what is today upstate New York, west of the Hudson River and through the Finger Lakes region. Today, the Iroquois live mostly in New York and Canada.

The Iroquois League has also been called the Iroquois Confederacy. Some modern scholars now think the League and the Confederacy are different. According to this belief, the term "Iroquois League" stands for the ceremonies and culture found in the Grand Council, while the term "Iroquois Confederacy" stands for what was the spread out political and diplomatic group that was made after Europeans began colonizing America. The League still exists. The Confederacy broke up after the defeat of the British and allied Iroquois nations in the American Revolutionary War.

Name

The Iroquois call themselves the "Haudenosaunee", which means "People of the Longhouse," or more accurately, "They Are Building a Long House." They believe that the Great Peacemaker came up with the name when the League was formed. It means that the nations of the League should live together as families in the same longhouse. Symbolically, the Mohawk guarded the eastern door, as they lived in the east closest to the Hudson River. The Seneca guarded the western door of the "tribal longhouse", the land they controlled in New York. The Onondaga, who lived in the center of Haudenosaunee territory, were keepers of the League's (both literal and figurative) central flame. The French colonists called the Haudenosaunee by the name of Iroquois. There are several different places this name might have come from:

• French transliteration of irinakhoiw, a Huron (Wyandot) name for the Haudenosaunee. Used in a negative way, it meant "black snakes" or "real adders". The Haudenosaunee and Huron were traditional enemies, as the Huron were allied with the French and tried to protect their access to fur traders.
• French linguists, such as Henriette Walter, and anthropologists, such as Dean Snow, support the following explanation. Before France colonized the Americas, Basque fishermen traded with the Algonquins, who were enemies of the Haudenosaunee. The above scholars think "Iroquois" came from a Basque expression, hilokoa, meaning the "killer people", which changed because of different ways that Algonquins and French pronounced words.

History

Formation of the League

Members of the League speak Iroquoian languages that are very different from those of other Iroquoian speakers. This suggests that while the different Iroquoian tribes had the same historical and cultural origin, they came apart over a long enough time that their languages became different. Evidence from archaeology shows that Iroquois ancestors lived in the Finger Lakes region from at least 1000 AD.

A traditional Iroquois longhouse.

After coming together in the League, the Iroquois invaded the Ohio River Valley in present-day Kentucky to find more hunting grounds.

The Iroquois League was made before they first met European people. Most archaeologists and anthropologists think that the League was made sometime between about 1450 and 1600, although some people think it was even earlier.

According to tradition, the League was formed through the efforts of two men, Deganawida, sometimes known as the Great Peacemaker, and Hiawatha. They brought a message, called the Great Law of Peace, to the fighting Iroquoian nations. The nations who joined the League were the Seneca, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga and Mohawk. Once they stopped most of their fighting, the Iroquois fast became one of the strongest forces in 17th- and 18th-century northeastern North America.

According to legend, an evil Onondaga chieftain named Tadodaho was the last to be converted to the ways of peace by The Great Peacemaker and Hiawatha. He became the spiritual leader of the Haudenosaunee. This is said to have occurred at Onondaga Lake near Syracuse, New York. The title Tadodaho is still used for the league's spiritual leader, the fiftieth chief, who sits with the Onondaga in council. He is the only one of the fifty to have been chosen by the entire Haudenosaunee people. The current Tadodaho is Sid Hill of the Onondaga Nation.

Beaver Wars

In the 1600s, the Iroquois fought with other tribes for hunting land. This is called the Beaver Wars.

French and Indian Wars

During the French and Indian War (the North American part of the Seven Years' War), the Iroquois took the side of the British against the French and their Algonquian allies, both of whom had been enemies of the Iroquois in the past. The Iroquois hoped that helping the British would also bring favors after the war. In actuality, few Iroquois joined the campaign, and in the Battle of Lake George, a group of Mohawk and French ambushed a Mohawk-led British column. The British government made the Royal Proclamation of 1763 after the war, which said that white people could not live past the Appalachian Mountains, but this proclamation was largely ignored by the settlers, and the Iroquois agreed to move this line again at the Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768, where they sold the British all their remaining claim to the lands between the Ohio and Tennessee Rivers.

American Revolution

During the American Revolution, many Tuscarora and the Oneida took the side of the colonists, while the Mohawk, Seneca, Onondaga and Cayuga remained loyal to Great Britain. This was the first major split among the Six Nations. Joseph Louis Cook offered his services to the United States and received a Congressional commission as a Lieutenant Colonel- the highest rank held by any Native American during the war. However, after a series of successful operations against frontier settlements – led by the Mohawk war chief Joseph Brant, other war chiefs, and British allies – the future United States wanted revenge. In 1779, George Washington ordered the Sullivan Campaign led by Col. Daniel Brodhead and General John Sullivan against the Iroquois nations to "not merely overrun, but destroy," the British-Indian alliance.

After the American Revolution

After the war, the ancient central fireplace of the League was made again at Buffalo Creek. Colonel Joseph Brant and a group of Iroquois left New York to settle in Canada. As a reward for their loyalty to the British Crown, they were given a large land grant, now called Brantford, Ontario on the Grand River.

Food

Traditionally, the Iroquois were a mix of farmers, fishers, gatherers and hunters, although most of their food came from farming. The main crops they farmed were corn, beans and squash, which were called the three sisters and were considered special gifts from the Creator. These crops are grown strategically. The food was stored during the winter, and it lasted for two to three years. When the soil eventually became less fertile, the Iroquois moved.

Gathering was the job of the women and children. Wild roots, greens, berries and nuts were gathered in the summer. During spring, maple syrup was tapped from the trees, and herbs were gathered for medicine.

The Iroquois hunted mostly deer but also other game such as wild turkey and migratory birds. Muskrat and beaver were hunted during the winter. Fishing was also a big source of food because the Iroquois lived near a large river (St. Lawerence River). They fished salmon, trout, bass, perch and whitefish. In the spring the Iroquois netted, and in the winter fishing holes were made in the ice.

Women in society

When Americans and Canadians of European descent began to study Iroquois customs in the 18th and 19th centuries, they found that women assumed a position in Iroquois society that was about equal in power to that of the men. Women could own property including homes, horses and farmed land, and when they married, they could keep their property without it being given to their husbands. A woman could keep the money she earned for herself. A husband lived in the longhouse of his wife's family. A woman choosing to divorce a husband who was not being a good husband was able to ask him to leave the dwelling, taking any of his possessions with him. Women had responsibility for the children of the marriage, and children were educated by members of the mother's family. The clans were matrilineal, which means that clan ties were traced through the mother's line. If a couple broke up, the woman kept the children.

The chief of a clan could be removed at any time by a council of the mothers of that clan. The chief's sister was responsible for nominating the next chief.

Spiritual beliefs

Important festivals were at the same time as the major events of the agricultural calendar, including a harvest festival of thanksgiving. The Great Peacemaker (Deganawida) was their prophet. After the Europeans arrived, many Iroquois became Christians, among them Kateri Tekakwitha, a young woman of Mohawk-Algonkin parents. Traditional Iroquois religious beliefs became somewhat more popular again in the second half of the 18th century by the teachings of the Iroquois prophet Handsome Lake.

People

Nations

The first five nations listed below formed the original Five Nations (listed from south to north); the Tuscarora became the sixth nation in 1720.

English name	Iroquoian	Meaning	17th/18th century location
Seneca	Onondowahgah	"People of the Great Hill"	Seneca Lake and Genesee River
Cayuga	Guyohkohnyoh	"People of the Great Swamp"	Cayuga Lake
Onondaga	Onöñda'gega'	"People of the Hills"	Onondaga Lake
Oneida	Onayotekaono	"People of Standing Stone"	Oneida Lake
Mohawk	Kanien'kehá:ka	"People of the Great Flint"	Mohawk River
Tuscarora1	Ska-Ruh-Reh	"Hemp Gatherers"	From North Carolina²

¹ Not one of the original Five Nations; joined 1720.
² Settled between Oneidas and Onondagas.

Clans

Within each of the six nations, people are divided into a number of matrilineal clans. The number of clans varies by nation, currently from three to eight, with a total of nine different clan names.

Population history

It is difficult to figure out exactly how many Iroquois there are today. About 45,000 Iroquois lived in Canada in 1995. In the 2000 census, 80,822 people in the United States said they were Iroquois, with 45,217 of them claiming only an Iroquois background. There were about 30,000 tribal registrations among the Six Nations in the United States in 1995.

Grand Council

The Grand Council of the Iroquois League is an assembly of 56 Hoyenah (chiefs) or Sachems, a number that has never changed. Today, the seats on the Council are distributed among the Six Nations as follows:

• 14 Onondaga
• 10 Cayuga
•   9 Oneida
•   9 Mohawk
•   8 Seneca
•   6 Tuscarora

When anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan studied the Grand Council in the 19th century, he thought it was a central government. This interpretation became influential, but some scholars have since argued that while the Grand Council served an important ceremonial role, it was not a government in the way that Morgan thought. According to this view, Iroquois political and diplomatic decisions are made on the local level, and are based on what the local communities think. A central government that makes policy and puts it into practice for the people at large is not how the Iroquois handle government.

In 1855, Minnie Myrtle saw that no Iroquois treaty came into effect unless it was approved by 75% of the male voters and 75% of the mothers of the nation. The women held real power, particularly the power to veto treaties or declarations of war.

Councils of the mothers of each tribe were held separately from the men's councils. The women used men as runners to send word of their decisions, or a woman could appear at the men's council to speak, presenting the view of the women. Women often were the ones who suggested new laws.

Festivals

The Iroquois traditionally celebrate several major festivals throughout the year. These usually combine a spiritual component and ceremony, a feast, a chance to celebrate together, sports, entertainment and dancing. These celebrations have historically been oriented to the seasons and celebrated based on the cycle of nature rather than fixed calendar dates.

For instance, the Mid-winter festival, Gi'-ye-wä-no-us-quä-go-wä ("The supreme belief") ushers in the new year. This festival is traditionally held for one week around the end of January to early February, depending on when the new moon first occurs that year.

Iroquois ceremonies are primarily concerned with farming, healing, and thanksgiving. Key festivals correspond to the agricultural calendar, and include Maple, Planting, Strawberry, Green Maize, Harvest, and Mid-Winter (or New Year's), which is held in early February. The ceremonies were given by the Creator to the Iroquois to balance good with evil. In the 17th century, Europeans described the Iroquois as having 17 festivals, but only 8 are observed today. The most important of the ceremonies were the New Year Festival, the Maple Festival held in late March to celebrate spring, the Sun Shooting Festival which also celebrates spring, the Seed Dance in May to celebrate the planting of the crops, the Strawberry Festival in June to celebrate the ripening of the strawberries, the Thunder Ceremony to bring rain in July, the Green Bean Festival in early August, the Green Corn Festival in late August and the Harvest Festival in October. Of all the festivals, the most important were the Green Corn Festival to celebrate the maturing of the corn and the New Year Festival. During all of the festivals, men and women from the False Face Society, the Medicine Society and the Husk Face Society dance wearing their masks in attempt to humor the spirits that controlled nature. The most important of the occasions for the masked dancers to appear were the New Year Festival, which was felt to be an auspicious occasion to chase the malevolent spirits that were believed to cause disease.

Games and sports

The favorite sport of the Iroquois is lacrosse (O-tä-dä-jish′-quä-äge in Seneca). Historically, a version was played between two teams of six or eight players, made up of members of two sets of clans (Wolf, Bear, Beaver, and Turtle on one side vs. Deer, Snipe, Heron, and Hawk on the other among the Senecas). The goals were two sets of poles roughly 450 yards (410 m) apart. The poles were about 10 feet (3.0 m) high and placed about 15 feet (4.6 m) apart. A goal was scored by carrying or throwing a deer-skin ball between the goal posts using netted sticks—touching the ball with hands was prohibited. The game was played to a score of five or seven. The modern version of lacrosse remains popular among the Haudenasaunee to this day.

The First Nations Lacrosse Association is recognized by World Lacrosse as a sovereign state for international lacrosse competitions. It is the only sport in which the Iroquois field national teams and the only indigenous people's organization sanctioned for international competition by any world sporting governing body.

A popular winter game was the snow-snake game. The "snake" was a hickory pole about 5–7 feet (1.5–2.1 m) long and about .25 inches (0.64 cm) in diameter, turned up slightly at the front and weighted with lead. The game was played between two sides of up to six players each, often boys, but occasionally between the men of two clans. The snake, or Gawa′sa, was held by placing the index finger against the back end and balancing it on the thumb and other fingers. It was not thrown but slid across the surface of the snow. The side whose snake went the farthest scored one point. Other snakes from the same side which went farther than any other snake of the opposing side also scored a point; the other side scored nothing. This was repeated until one side scored the number of points which had been agreed to for the game, usually seven or ten.

The Peach-stone game (Guskä′eh) was a gambling game in which the clans bet against each other. Traditionally it was played on the final day of the Green Corn, Harvest, and Mid-winter festivals. The game was played using a wooden bowl about one foot in diameter and six peach-stones (pits) ground to oval shape and burned black on one side. A "bank" of beans, usually 100, was used to keep score and the winner was the side who won them all. Two players sat on a blanket-covered platform raised a few feet off the floor. To play the peach stones were put into the bowl and shaken. Winning combinations were five of either color or six of either color showing.

Players started with five beans each from the bank. The starting player shook the bowl; if he shook a five the other player paid him one bean, if a six five beans. If he shook either he got to shake again. If he shook anything else the turn passed to his opponent. All his winnings were handed over to a "manager" or "managers" for his side. If a player lost all of his beans another player from his side took his place and took five beans from the bank. Once all beans had been taken from the bank the game continued, but with the draw of beans now coming from the winnings of the player's side, which were kept out of sight so that no one but the managers knew how the game was going. The game was finished when one side had won all the beans.

The game sometimes took quite a while to play, depending on the starting number of beans, and games lasting more than a day were common.

Government

Mohawk leader John Smoke Johnson (right) with John Tutela and Young Warner, two other Six Nations War of 1812 veterans. Photo: July 1882

The Grand Council of the Six Nations is an assembly of 56 Hoyenah (chiefs) or sachems. Sachemships are hereditary within a clan. When a position becomes vacant a candidate is selected from among the members of the clan and "raised up" by a council of all sachems. The new sachem gives up his old name and is thereafter addressed by the title.

Today, the seats on the Council are distributed among the Six Nations as follows:

• 14 Onondaga
• 10 Cayuga
• 9 Oneida
• 9 Mohawk
• 8 Seneca
• 6 Tuscarora

When anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan studied the Grand Council in the 19th century, he interpreted it as a central government. This interpretation became influential, but Richter argues that while the Grand Council served an important ceremonial role, it was not a government in the sense that Morgan thought. According to this view, Iroquois political and diplomatic decisions are made on the local level and are based on assessments of community consensus. A central government that develops policy and implements it for the people at large is not the Iroquois model of government.

Unanimity in public acts was essential to the Council. In 1855, Minnie Myrtle observed that no Iroquois treaty was binding unless it was ratified by 75% of the male voters and 75% of the mothers of the nation. In revising Council laws and customs, a consent of two-thirds of the mothers was required. The need for a double supermajority to make major changes made the Confederacy a de facto consensus government.

The women traditionally held real power, particularly the power to veto treaties or declarations of war. The members of the Grand Council of Sachems were chosen by the mothers of each clan. If any leader failed to comply with the wishes of the women of his tribe and the Great Law of Peace, the mother of his clan could demote him, a process called "knocking off the horns". The deer antlers, an emblem of leadership, were removed from his headgear, thus returning him to private life.

Councils of the mothers of each tribe were held separately from the men's councils. The women used men as runners to send word of their decisions to concerned parties, or a woman could appear at the men's council as an orator, presenting the view of the women. Women often took the initiative in suggesting legislation.

Prominent individuals

A painting of the Seneca chief, Red Jacket, political negotiator and critic of European religion, speaking to crowd

A painting of the Seneca chief Cornplanter

A painting of Joseph Brant, by the American artist Gilbert Stuart

• Frederick Alexcee, artist (also of Tsimshian ancestry)
• Henry Armstrong, boxer, No. 2 in Ring Magazine's list of the 80 Best Fighters of the Last 80 Years
• Joseph Louis Cook or Akiatonharónkwen, a Mohawk leader born to Abenaki and African-American parents and adopted by the Mohawk
• Chief John Big Tree, Seneca chief and actor
• Governor Blacksnake (Chainbreaker) Thaonawyuthe, Seneca war chief
• Joseph Brant or Thayendanegea, Mohawk leader
• Canassatego, Onondaga leader, diplomat and spokesperson known for his speech at the 1744 Treaty of Lancaster, where he recommended that the British colonies emulate the Iroquois by forming a confederacy.
• Polly Cooper, Oneida who aided the Continental Army during the American Revolution and was a friend of George Washington
• Cornplanter or Kaintwakon, Seneca chief
• Jesse Cornplanter, Seneca artist and author
• David Cusick, Tuscarora artist and author
• Deganawida or The Great Peacemaker, the traditional founder, along with Hiawatha, of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy
• John Deseronto or Deserontyon, prominent Mohawk war chief
• Gary Farmer, Cayuga actor
• Graham Greene, Oneida and award-winning Canadian actor
• Handsome Lake (Ganioda'yo), Seneca religious leader
• Cornelius Hill (Onangwatgo), last hereditary Oneida chief, also Episcopal priest
• Lillie Rosa Minoka Hill, Mohawk physician who was the second female American Indian doctor in the U.S.
• Little Beard Si-gwa-ah-doh-gwih ("Spear Hanging Down"), Seneca chief
• John Smoke Johnson (Sakayengwaraton), Mohawk chief
• Pauline Johnson, Canadian writer and performer popular in the late 19th century, of Mohawk-European ancestry
• Stan "Bulldog" Jonathan, Mohawk professional hockey left winger
• Ki Longfellow, novelist
• Tom Longboat (Cogwagee), Onondaga distance runner
• Oren Lyons, Onondaga, traditional Faithkeeper of the Turtle clan
• Shelley Niro, Mohawk filmmaker, photographer, and installation artist
• John Norton (Teyoninhokovrawen), Mohawk warrior and leader of Cherokee-Scottish ancestry (adopted by Mohawk)
• Skenandoa ("pine tree chief"), Oneida chief
• Ely S. Parker, also known as Donehogawa or Häsanoan′da, Seneca, Union Army officer during American Civil War; appointed Commissioner of Indian Affairs by President Ulysses S. Grant
• Sanford Plummer, Seneca artist
• Red Jacket, Seneca orator and chief of the Wolf clan
• Robbie Robertson, Mohawk, songwriter, guitarist and singer who was part of The Band.
• Sayenqueraghta, Seneca war chief
• August Schellenberg, Mohawk-Métis actor
• Jay Silverheels, actor, Canadian Mohawk, portrayed Tonto the companion to the Lone Ranger on the US TV series The Lone Ranger
• Joanne Shenandoah, Oneida singer, songwriter, actress and educator
• Tanacharison (Half-king), Seneca war leader during the Seven Years' War
• Kateri Tekakwitha, Mohawk-Algonquin, first Catholic Native American saint
• Lyle Thompson, professional lacrosse player
• Miles Thompson, professional lacrosse player
• Billy Two Rivers, Mohawk professional wrestler

Images for kids

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  Map of the Five Nations (from the Darlington Collection)

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  Map showing Iroquois claims through the 1700s.

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  Iroquois painting of Tadodaho receiving two Mohawk chiefs

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  Iroquois conquests 1638–1711

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  The four "Mohawk Kings" who travelled to London in 1710.

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  Iroquois engaging in trade with Europeans, 1722

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  Unnamed Iroquois chief, early 18th century

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  Lithograph of the Mohawk war and political leader Thayendanegea or Joseph Brant

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  Stone pipe (19th-century engraving)

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  Seneca man in traditional dress

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  gusto'weh headdress

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  Seneca woman in traditional dress

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  Meeting of the Society of Mystic Anamals c.1900

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  Member of the False Face Society

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  Detail. Ball-headed club. A diplomatic gift to James Bruce (8th Earl Elgin and 12th Earl of Kincardine), made most probably by Haudenosaunee (Iroquois). From Canada, early-mid 19th century CE. National Museum of Scotland

See also

In Spanish: Iroqués para niños