Iroquois "People of the Longhouse"

[Rev. Allen M. Drago ~ Traveler]

The Iroquois (pronounced /ˈɪrəkwɔɪ/), also known as the Haudenosaunee or the "People of the Longhouse", are an association of several tribes of indigenous people of North America. After the Iroquoian-speaking peoples coalesced as distinct tribes, based mostly in present-day upstate New York, in the 16th century or earlier they came together in an association known today as the Iroquois League, or the "League of Peace and Power". The original Iroquois League was often known as the Five Nations, as it was composed of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca nations. After the Tuscarora nation joined the League in 1722, the Iroquois became known as the Six Nations. The League is embodied in the Grand Council, an assembly of fifty hereditary sachems.

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

The Iroquois League has also been known as the Iroquois Confederacy. Some modern scholars now make a distinction between the League and the Confederacy. According to this interpretation, the Iroquois League refers to the ceremonial and cultural institution embodied in the Grand Council, while the Iroquois Confederacy was the decentralized political and diplomatic entity that emerged in response to European colonization. The League still exists. The Confederacy dissolved after the defeat of the British and allied Iroquois nations in the American Revolutionary War

The Iroquois refer to themselves as the Haudenosaunee, which means "People of the Longhouse," or more accurately, "They Are Building a Long House." According to their tradition, The Great Peacemaker introduced the name at the time of the formation of the League. It implies that the nations of the League should live together as families
in the same longhouse. Symbolically, the Mohawk were the guardians of
the eastern door, as they were located in the east closest to the
Hudson, and the Seneca were the guardians of the western door of the
"tribal longhouse", the territory they controlled in New York. The
Onondaga, whose homeland was 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.The name had several possible origins:

• French transliteration of irinakhoiw, a Huron (Wyandot) name for the Haudenosaunee. Used in a derogatory 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. Prior to French colonization, Basque fishermen traded with the Algonquins, who were enemies of the Haudenosaunee. The above scholars think "Iroquois" was derived from a Basque expression, hilokoa, meaning the "killer people". Because there is no "L" sound in the Algonquian languages of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence region, the Algonquian tribes used the name Hirokoa for the Haudenosaunee. They applied this to the pidgin language which they used with the Basque. The French transliterated the word according to their own phonetic rules and arrived at "Iroquois".

Formation of the League

Members of the League speak Iroquoian languages that are distinctly different from those of other Iroquoian speakers. This suggests that while the different Iroquoian tribes had a
common historical and cultural origin, they diverged as peoples over a
sufficiently long time that their languages became different. Archaeological evidence shows that Iroquois ancestors lived in the Finger Lakes region from at least 1000 AD.

A traditional Iroquois longhouse.

After becoming united in the League, the Iroquois invaded the Ohio River Valley in present-day Kentucky to seek additional hunting grounds. According to one pre-contact theory, it was Iroquois who, by about 1200, had pushed tribes of the Ohio River valley, such as the Quapaw (Akansea) and Ofo (Mosopelea) out of the region in a migration west of the Mississippi River. But, Robert La Salle listed the Mosopelea among the Ohio Valley peoples defeated by the Iroquois in the early 1670s, during the later Beaver Wars.
By 1673, the Siouan-speaking groups had settled in the Midwest,
establishing what became known as their historical territories. Just as
the Siouan peoples were displaced by the Iroquois, they displaced less
powerful tribes whom they encountered, such as the Osage, who moved further west.

The Iroquois League was established prior to major European contact. Most archaeologists and anthropologists believe that the League was formed sometime between about 1450 and 1600. A few claims have been made for an earlier date; one recent study has argued that the League was formed in 1142, based on a solar eclipse in that year that seemed to fit one oral tradition. Anthropologist Dean Snow argues that the archaeological evidence does not support a date earlier than 1450, and that recent claims for a much
earlier date "may be for contemporary political purposes".

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, known as the Great Law of Peace, to the squabbling Iroquoian nations. The nations who joined the League were the Seneca, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, and Mohawk. Once they ceased most of their infighting, the Iroquois rapidly became one of the strongest forces in seventeenth- and eighteenth-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.

Expansion

In Reflections in Bullough's Pond, historian Diana Muir argues that the pre-contact Iroquois were an imperialist, expansionist culture whose use of the corn/beans/squash agricultural complex enabled them to support a large population that made war against Algonquian peoples. Muir uses archaeological data to argue that the Iroquois expansion onto Algonquian lands was checked by the Algonquian adoption
of agriculture. This enabled them to support their own populations large
enough to include sufficient warriors to defend against the threat of
Iroquois conquest.

The Iroquois may be the Kwedech described in the oral legends of the Mi'kmaq nation of Eastern Canada. These legends relate that the Mi'kmaq in the late pre-contact period had gradually driven their enemies – the Kwedech – westward across New Brunswick, and finally out of the Lower St. Lawrence River region. The Mi'kmaq named the last-conquered land "Gespedeg" or "lost land," leading to the French word Gaspé. The "Kwedech" are generally considered to have been Iroquois, specifically the Mohawk; their expulsion from Gaspé by the Mi'kmaq has been estimated as occurring ca. 1535-1600.

Around 1535, Jacques Cartier reported Iroquoian-speaking groups on the Gaspé peninsula and along the St. Lawrence River. Archeologists and anthropologists have defined as St. Lawrence Iroquoians,
a distinct and separate group, the peoples in the villages of Hochelaga
and others nearby (near present-day Montreal), which had been visited
by Cartier. By 1608, when Samuel de Champlain
visited the area, that part of the St. Lawrence River valley had no
settlements, but was controlled by the Mohawk as a hunting ground. On
the Gaspé peninsula, he encountered Algonquian-speaking groups. The
precise identity of any of these groups continues to be debated.

The Iroquois became well-known in the south by this time. After the first English settlement in Jamestown, Virginia (1607), numerous 17th-century accounts describe a powerful people known to the Powhatan Confederacy as the Massawomeck, and to the French as the Antouhonoron. They were said to come from the north, beyond the Susquehannock territory. Historians have often identified the Massawomeck / Antouhonoron as the Iroquois proper. Other Iroquoian candidates include the Erie, who were destroyed by the Iroquois in 1654 over competition for the fur trade.Over the years 1670-1710, the Five Nations achieved political dominance of most of Virginia west of the fall line (extending to the Ohio River valley in present-day West Virginia). They reserved it as a hunting ground and continued to claim it until 1722,
when they began selling land in the area to their British allies.

Beaver Wars

Beginning in 1609, the League engaged in the Beaver Wars with the French and their Iroquoian-speaking Huron allies. They also put great pressure on the Algonquian peoples of the Atlantic coast and what is now the boreal Canadian Shield region of Canada, and not infrequently fought the English colonies as well. During the seventeenth century, they were said to have
exterminated the Neutral Nation.and Erie Tribe to the west. The wars were a way to control the lucrative fur trade, although additional reasons are often given for these wars.

In 1628, the Mohawks defeated the Mahicans to gain a monopoly in the fur trade with the Dutch at Fort Orange, New Netherland. The Mohawks would not allow Canadian Indians to trade with the Dutch. In 1645, a tentative peace was forged between the Iroquois and the
Hurons, Algonquins and French. In 1646, Jesuit missionaries at Sainte-Marie among the Hurons
went as envoys to the Mohawk lands to protect the fragile peace of the
time. However, Mohawk attitudes toward the peace soured during the
Jesuits' journey. They were attacked by a Mohawk party en route. Taken
to the village of Ossernenon (Auriesville, N.Y.), the moderate Turtle and Wolf clans decreed setting the priests free. Angered by this, the more hawkish Bear clan killed Jean de Lalande and Isaac Jogues on October 18, 1646. The two French priests were later commemorated as among the eight North American Martyrs. In 1649 during the Beaver Wars, the Iroquois used recently purchased Dutch guns to attack the Hurons. From 1651 to 1652, the Iroquois attacked the Susquehannocks without success.

In the early seventeenth century, the Iroquois were at the height of their power, with a population of about twelve thousand people. In 1654, they invited the French to establish a trading and missionary settlement at Onondaga (in present-day New York state). The following year, the Mohawk
attacked and expelled the French from this trading post, possibly
because of the sudden death of 500 Indians from an epidemic of smallpox, a European infectious disease to which they had no immunity.

From 1658 to 1663, the Iroquois were at war with the Susquehannock and their Delaware and Province of Maryland allies. In 1663, a large Iroquois invasion force was defeated at the Susquehannock main fort. In 1663, the Iroquois were at war with the
Sokoki tribe of the upper Connecticut River.
Smallpox struck again; and through the effects of disease, famine, and
war, the Iroquois were threatened by extermination. In 1664, an Oneida
party struck at allies of the Susquehannock on Chesapeake Bay.

In 1665, three of the Five Nations made peace with the French. The following year, the Canadian Governor sent the Carignan regiment under Marquis de Tracy to confront the Mohawks and the Oneida. The Mohawks
avoided battle, and the French burned their villages and crops. In 1667,
the remaining two Nations signed a peace treaty with the French. This
treaty lasted for 17 years.

Around 1670, the Iroquois drove the Siouan Mannahoac tribe out of the northern Virginia Piedmont region. They began to claim ownership of it by right of conquest. In 1672, the Iroquois were defeated by a war party of Susquehannock. The
Iroquois appealed to the French for support and asked Governor Frontenac
to assist them against the Susquehannock because

"it would be a shame for him to allow his children to be crushed, as they saw themselves to be... they not having the means of going to attack their fort, which was very strong, nor even of defending
themselves if the others came to attack them in their villages."

Some old histories state that the Iroquois defeated the Susquehannock during this time period. As no record of a defeat has been found,
historians have concluded that no defeat occurred. In 1677, the Iroquois adopted the majority of the Susquehannock into their nation.

By 1677, the Iroquois formed an alliance with the English through an agreement known as the Covenant Chain. Together, they battled to a standstill the French who were allied with the Huron. These Iroquoian people had been a traditional and historic foe of the Confederacy. The Iroquois colonized the northern shore of Lake Ontario and sent raiding
parties westward all the way to Illinois Country. The tribes of Illinois were eventually defeated, not by the Iroquois, but rather by the Potawatomis.
In 1684, the Iroquois invaded Virginian and Illinois territory again,
and unsuccessfully attacked the French fort at St. Louis. Later that
year, the Virginia Colony agreed at Albany to recognize the Iroquois'
right to use the North-South path running east of the Blue Ridge (later the Old Carolina Road), provided they did not intrude on the English settlements east of the fall line.

In 1679, the Susquehannock, with Iroquois help, attacked Maryland's Piscataway and Mattawoman allies. Peace was not reached until 1685.

With support from the French, the Algonquian nations drove the Iroquois out of the territories north of Lake Erie and west of present-day Cleveland, regions which had been conquered
during the Beaver War

Jacques-René de Brisay de Denonville, Marquis de Denonville, Governor of New France from 1685 to 1689, set out for Fort Frontenac with a well-organized force. There they met with the 50 hereditary sachems of the Iroquois Confederation from the Onondaga council fire, who came under a flag of truce. Denonville recaptured the fort for New France and seized, chained, and shipped the 50 Iroquois Chiefs to Marseilles, France, to be used as galley slaves. He then ravaged the land of the Seneca. The destruction of the Seneca land infuriated the Iroquois Confederation.

On August 4, 1689, they burned to the ground Lachine, a small town adjacent to Montreal. Fifteen hundred Iroquois warriors had been harassing Montreal defenses for many months prior to that. They finally exhausted and defeated Denonville and his forces. His tenure was followed by the
return of Frontenac,
who succeeded Denonville as Governor for the next nine years
(1689–1698). Frontenac had been arranging a new plan of attack to lessen
the effects of the Iroquois in North America and – realizing the danger
of the imprisonment of the Sachems – he located the 13 surviving
leaders and returned with them to New France that October 1698.

During King William's War (North American part of the War of the Grand Alliance), the Iroquois were allied with the English. In July 1701, they concluded the "Nanfan Treaty", deeding the English a large tract north of the Ohio River. The Iroquois claimed to have conquered this territory 80 years earlier. France did
not recognize the validity of this treaty, as it had the strongest
presence within the area in question. Meanwhile, the Iroquois were
negotiating peace with the French; together they signed the Great Peace of Montreal that same year.

Culture

Stone pipe (19th century engraving).

Melting pot

The Iroquois are a melting pot. League traditions allowed for the dead to be symbolically replaced through the "Mourning War" in 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, the bean plants climb the
stalks, and the squash grow beneath, inhibiting weeds and keeping the
soil moist under the shade of their broad leaves. In this combination,
the soil remained fertile for several decades. The food was stored
during the winter, and it lasted 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 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 significant source of food because the
Iroquois were located 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 observed that women assumed a position in Iroquois society roughly equal in power to
that of the men. Individual women could hold property including
dwellings, horses and farmed land, and their property before marriage
stayed in their possession without being mixed with that of their
husband's. The work of a woman's hands was hers to do with as she saw
fit. A husband lived in the longhouse of his wife's family. A woman
choosing to divorce a shiftless or otherwise unsatisfactory 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, that is, clan ties were traced through the mother's line. If a couple separated, 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, and the chief's sister was responsible for nominating his successor

[WarMouse -Manager-]

Thank you for posting this!