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Iroquois
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The Iroquois Confederacy (also known as the "League of Peace and Power", the "Five Nations"; the "Six Nations"; or the "People of the Longhouse") is a group of First Nations/Native Americans that originally consisted of five nations: the Mohawk, the Oneida, the Onondaga, the Cayuga, and the Seneca. A sixth tribe, the Tuscarora, joined after the original five nations were formed. Although frequently referred to as the Iroquois, the Nations refer to themselves collectively as Haudenosaunee (Akunehsye`ni? in Tuscarora, Rotinonsionni in Mohawk).
When Europeans first arrived in North America, the Confederacy was based in what is now the northeastern United States primarily in what is referred to today as upstate New York.
word Iroquois has many potential origins.
combined confederacy of the Nations is known as the Haudenosaunee.
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The Iroquois Confederacy (also known as the "League of Peace and Power", the "Five Nations"; the "Six Nations"; or the "People of the Longhouse") is a group of First Nations/Native Americans that originally consisted of five nations: the Mohawk, the Oneida, the Onondaga, the Cayuga, and the Seneca. A sixth tribe, the Tuscarora, joined after the original five nations were formed. Although frequently referred to as the Iroquois, the Nations refer to themselves collectively as Haudenosaunee (Akunehsye`ni? in Tuscarora, Rotinonsionni in Mohawk).
When Europeans first arrived in North America, the Confederacy was based in what is now the northeastern United States primarily in what is referred to today as upstate New York.
Name
The word Iroquois has many potential origins.
- A possible origin of the name Iroquois is reputed to come from a French version of irinakhoiw, a Huron (Wyandot) name—considered an insult—meaning "Black Snakes" or "real adders". The Iroquois were enemies of the Huron and the Algonquin, who allied with the French, because of their rivalry in the fur trade.
- The Haudenosaunee (People of the Longhouse) often end their oratory with the phrase hiro kone; hiro translates as "I have spoken", and kone can be translated several ways, the most common being "in joy", "in sorrow", or "in truth". Hiro kone to the French encountering the Haudenosaunee would sound like "Iroquois", pronounced iokwe in the French language of the time.
- Another version is however supported by French linguists such as Henriette Walter and historians such as Dean Snow. According to this account, "Iroquois" would derive from a Basque expression, Hilokoa, meaning the "killer people". This expression would have been applied to the Iroquois because they were the enemy of the local Algonquians, with whom the Basque fishermen were trading. However, because there is no "L" in the Algonquian languages of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence region, the name became "Hirokoa", which is the name the French understood when Algonquians referred to the same pidgin language as the one they used with the Basque. The French then transliterated the word according to their own phonetic rules, thus providing "Iroquois". This is probably unlikely as the diphong "oi" did not produce the "wa" sound it does today in French, the sound would have been closer to "weh" in English.
Haudenosaunee
The combined confederacy of the Nations is known as the Haudenosaunee. Haudenosaunee means "People of the Longhouse," or more accurately, "They Are Building a Long House." The term is said to have been introduced by The Great Peacemaker at the time of the formation of the Confederacy. It implies that the Nations of the Confederacy should live together as families in the same longhouse. Symbolically, the Seneca were the guardians of the western door of the "tribal longhouse" (Kaye?carà•neh in Tuscarora), and the Mohawk were the guardians of the eastern door. The Onondagas, whose homeland was in the center of Haudenosaunee territory, were keepers of the Confederacy's (both literal and figurative) central flame.
Melting pot
The Iroquois are a melting pot. League traditions allowed for the dead to be symbolically replaced through the "Mourning War", raids intended to seize captives to replace lost compatriots and take vengeance on non-members. This tradition was common to native people of the northeast and was quite different from European settlers' notions of combat.
The Iroquois aimed to create an empire by incorporating conquered peoples and remolding them into Iroquois and thus naturalizing them as full citizens of the tribe. Cadwallader Colden wrote
"It has been a constant maxim with the Five Nations, to save children and young men of the people they conquer, to adopt them into their own Nation, and to educate them as their own children, without distinction; These young people soon forget their own country and nation and by this policy the Five Nations make up the losses which their nation suffers by the people they lose in war." By 1668, two-thirds of the Oneida village were assimilated Algonquians and Hurons. At Onondaga there were Native Americans of seven different nations and among the Seneca eleven.
Food
The Iroquois were a mix of farmers, fishers, gatherers, and hunters, though their main diet 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 cornstalks grow, and the bean plants climb the stalks, and the squash grow beneath, warding off the weeds. In this combination, the soil remained fertile for several decades. The food was stored during the winter, and it lasts for two to three years. When the soil eventually lost its fertility, the Iroquois migrated.
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 mostly hunted deer but also other game such as wild turkey and migratory birds. Muskrat and beaver were hunted during the winter. Fishing was also a significant source of food because the Iroquois were located near a large 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.
Wampum
Since they had no writing system, the Iroquois depended upon the spoken word to pass down their history, traditions, and rituals. As an aid to memory, the Iroquois used shells and shell beads. The Europeans called the beads wampum, from wampumpeag, a word used by Indians in the area who spoke Algonquin languages.
The type of wampum most commonly used in historic times was bead wampum, cut from various seashells, ground and polished, and then bored through the center with a small hand drill. The purple and white beads, made from the shell of the quahog clam, were arranged on belts in designs representing events of significance.
Certain elders were designated to memorize the various events and treaty articles represented on the belts. These men could "read" the belts and reproduce their contents with great accuracy. The belts were stored at Onondaga, the capital of the confederacy, in the care of a designated wampum keeper.
Famous wampum belts of the Iroquois include the Hiawatha Wampum, which represents the (original) Five Nations, the spatial arrangement of their individual territories, and the nature of their roles in the Confederacy. The modern Iroquois flag is a rendition of the pattern of the original Hiawatha Wampum belt. The Two Row Wampum, also known as Guswhenta, depicts the agreement made between the Iroquois league and representatives of the Dutch government in 1613, an agreement upon which all subsequent Iroquois treaties with Europeans and Americans have been based. Today, replicas of the Two Row Wampum are often displayed for ceremonial or educational purposes. Other historical wampum belts representing specific agreements or historical occurrences are known to exist, although many have been lost or stolen.
Beliefs
In the Iroquois belief system was a formless Great Spirit or Creator, from whom other spirits were derived. Spirits animated all of nature and controlled the changing of the seasons. Key festivals coincided with the major events of the agricultural calendar, including a harvest festival of thanksgiving. After the arrival of the Europeans, many Iroquois became Christians, among them Kateri Tekakwitha, a young woman of mixed birth. Traditional religion was revived to some extent in the second half of the 18th century by the teachings of the Iroquois prophet Handsome Lake.
Features of Confederacy
The general features of the Confederacy may be summarized in the following propositions:
The confederacy, whose founding was historically considered to coincide with a total solar eclipse in 1451, and now considered to coincide with a total solar eclipse in 1142 that more accurately cast a shadow over the region,, was a union of Five Nations, composed of Tribes, under one government on the basis of equality; each Nation remaining independent in all manners pertaining to National government.
It created a Great Council of Sachems, who were limited in number, equal in rank and authority, and invested with supreme powers over all matters pertaining to the Confederacy.
Fifty sachemships were created to be named in perpetuity in central gentes of the fifty tribes; with power in these gentes to fill vacancies, as often as they occurred, by consensus from among their respective members, and with the further power to depose from office for cause. Upon selection of a candidate, the General Council approved, or stated cause for disaproval.
The sachems of the Confederacy were also sachems in their respective tribes, and with the chiefs of these tribes formed the Council of each, which was mediator over all matters pertaining to the tribe exclusively.
Unanimity in public acts was essential to the Council of the Confederacy.
In the General Council the sachems deliberated by Nation, which gave to each Nation a veto over the others.
The Council of each Nation had power to convene the General Council; but the latter had no power to convene itself.
The General Council was open to the orators of the people for the discussion of public questions; but the Council in session decided issues.
The Confederacy had no chief executive magistrate, or official head. The symbolic chief executive, or president, was the titleship of Tadadaho.
Experiencing the necessity for a general military commander, they created the office in a dual form, that one might neutralize the other. The two principal war-chiefs were made equal in powers. Equality between the sexes had a strong adherence in the Confederacy, and the women held real power, particularly the power to approve or veto declarations of war. The Grand Council of Sachems were chosen by the clan mothers, and if any leader failed to comply with the wishes of the women and the Great Law of Peace, he could be removed by the clan mothers.
Originally, the principal object of the council was to raise up sachems to fill vacancies in the ranks of the ruling body occasioned by death or deposition; but it transacted all other business which concerned the common welfare. Eventually the council fell into three kinds, which may be distinguished as Civil, Mourning, and Religious. The first declared war and made peace, sent and received embassies, entered into treaties with foreign tribes, regulated the affairs of subjugated tribes, as well as other general welfare issues. The second raised up sachems and invested them with office, termed the Mourning Council (Henundonuhseh) because the first of its ceremonies was to lament for the deceased ruler whose vacant place was to be filled. The third was held for the observance of a general religious festival, as an occasion for the confederated tribes to unite under the auspices of a general council in the observance of common religious rites. But since the Mourning Council was attended with many of the same ceremonies, it came, in time, to answer for both. It became the only council they held when the civil powers of the confederacy terminated with the supremacy over them of the state.
Example to the United States
The Iroquois nations' political union and democratic government has been credited as one of the influences on the Articles of Confederation and the United States Constitution. However, there is heated debate among historians about the importance of their contribution. Historian Jack Rakove writes: "The voluminous records we have for the constitutional debates of the late 1780s contain no significant references to the Iroquois." Researcher Brian Cook writes: "The Iroquois probably held some sway over the thinking of the Framers and the development of the U.S. Constitution and the development of American democracy, albeit perhaps indirectly or even subconsciously... However, the opposition is probably also correct. The Iroquois influence is not as great as [some historians] would like it to be, the framers simply did not revere or even understand much of Iroquois culture, and their influences were European or classical - not wholly New World." However, Cook concedes that much of the heated debate around the influence of Amerindians on the United States Constitution amounts to academic knee-jerk reactions and protectionist turf-wars. Cook further notes "The National Endowment for the Humanities rejected a number of research proposals that dealt with the Iroquois influence theory... [and] Johansen's first book on the Iroquois influence, Forgotten Fathers, was ordered removed from the shelves of the bookstore at Independence Hall."
Although their influence is hotly debated, it is a historical fact that several founding fathers had direct contact with the Iroquois, and prominent figures such as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were closely involved with the Iroquois. Whether this was purely politics for protection or true admiration, perhaps can never be fully determined.
In 2004 the U.S. Government acknowledged the influence of the Iroquois Constitution on the U.S. Framers. The Smithsonian Institution also noted the similarities between the two documents, as well as the differences. One significant difference noted was the inclusion of women in the Iroquois Constitution, one group among many that the framers of the U.S. Constitution did not include.
Member nations
The first five nations listed below formed the original Five Nations (listed from west to north); the Tuscarora became the sixth nation in 1720.
Modern population
The total number of Iroquois today is difficult to establish. About 45,000 Iroquois lived in Canada in 1995. In the 2000 census, 80,822 people in the United States claimed Iroquois ethnicity, with 45,217 of them claiming only Iroquois background. However, tribal registrations in the United States in 1995 numbered about 30,000 in total.
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.
Government
The Iroquois have a representative government known as the Grand Council. The Grand Council is the oldest governmental institution still maintaining its original form in North America. Each tribe sends chiefs to act as representatives and make decisions for the whole nation. The number of chiefs has never changed.
9 Oneida
9 Mohawk
8 Seneca
0 Tuscarora
Modern communities
Prominent people of Iroquois ancestry
- Frederick Alexcee, artist (also of Tsimshian ancestry)
- Henry Armstrong, boxer, #2 in Ring Magazine's list of the 80 Best Fighters of the Last 80 Years
- George Armstrong, hockey player, most successful captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs with five Stanley Cup victories.
- Joseph Brant or Thayendanegea, Mohawk leader
- Cornplanter or Kaintwakon, Seneca chief
- Deganawida or The Great Peacemaker, the traditional founder along with Hiawatha of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy
- Graham Greene (actor), of Canadian Oneida ancestry
- Handsome Lake or Ganioda'yo, Seneca religious leader
- Hiawatha
- Ki Longfellow, novelist (also of French and Irish ancestry)
- Oren Lyons, Onondaga, a traditional Faithkeeper of the Turtle clan
- Ely S. Parker, Seneca, Union Army officer during American Civil War, Commissioner of Indian Affairs during Ulysses S. Grant's first term as President.
- Red Jacket (known as Otetiani in his youth and Sagoyewatha after 1780), Seneca orator and chief of the Wolf clan
- Robbie Robertson, Mohawk, songwriter, guitarist and singer best known for his membership in The Band.
- Joanne Shenandoah, Oneida singer, songwriter, actress and educator
- Jay Silverheels, actor, of Canadian Mohawk origin
- Kateri Tekakwitha, Catholic patron of ecology, of Mohawk and Algonquin ancestry
See also
External links
- "The Four Indian Kings" in , an online exhibition of Canadian historical art at Library and Archives Canada
- : the official source of news and information from the Haudenosaunee.
- : an examination of theories for and against Iroquois influence on American democratic thought.
- The Documentary History of the State of New York, Vol. 1, Ch. I. Papers relating to the Iroquois and other Indian Tribes. 1666—1763
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