The Iroquois (c. 1142- ), who call themselves the Haudenosaunee (“People of the Longhouse”), were American Indians who lived in upstate New York. They lived beyond the mountains north-west of New York City, living between the Hudson River and the Great Lakes.
The Iroquois were made up of the Five Nations that belonged to the Iroquois League. Since each nation spoke its own language, “Iroquois” is more a political term than a cultural one.
Going from east to west the Five Nations were:
- Mohawk
- Oneida
- Onondaga
- Cayuga
- Seneca
The Tuscarora joined about 1723, making it Six Nations. Mohawk was the language used for League affairs.
Those who did not join among neighbouring Iroquoian-speaking peoples: the Huron, Erie and Susquehanna. The Cherokee also spoke an Iroquoian language but lived far to the south.
The League was founded by Hiawatha sometime between 1142 and 1570. Not the made-up Hiawatha of Longfellow, but the one of history who followed the visions of the prophet Deganawida. Hiawatha went from nation to nation in a white boat to make peace. That led to the creation of a senate of the 50 top men from the Five Nations. Deganawida uprooted a white pine tree and the men threw their weapons down the hole. When the tree was replanted they joined hands round the tree: the League was formed. It made all decisions about war and peace for the Five Nations. It had a constitution.
Just as five families live in a longhouse, so the Five Nations lived in the League.
Women: were the head of the family and the clan (made up of families). They chose (and removed) the men who held higher positions of power, all the way up to the League senate.
Marriage: A married man lived with his wife’s people. His wife could divorce him by putting his stuff outside the door.
Property: Held in common. There were no poor. This made them a model in some Marxist circles.
War: No standing army. Some prisoners of war were given long, painful deaths, as recorded by their enemies, the French, but most became Iroquois.
Food: Men hunted deer, moose, caribou and small game; boys hunted rabbits and birds; women grew maize, squash and beans and had orchards of apple, pear and peach trees. They also ate nuts, strawberries and maple syrup.
Religion: These days most are Christians though some follow the teachings of the prophet Handsome Lake of the early 1800s. In the old Iroquois religion shamans cured the sick, the False Face Society frightened away evil spirits and the high god Orenda was at work in all things.
Dreams: Taken seriously, which is why they had what I call prophets. Dreams are how the hidden part of our soul (what we call the subconscious) speaks to us.
Decline and fall: The League, which reached its height from 1600 to 1770 through political unity and guns, was weakened by Catholicism, smallpox and, worst of all, the loss of almost all their land to the Americans (98% of New York state was stolen).
Some stuff White Americans got from the Iroquois: lacrosse, succotash, ideas about how to create a working constitutional democracy, most of upstate New York.
See also:
- The British – modelled directly on this post
- The Delaware
- The Sioux today
- How White America got rich
- shaman
How easy is it to get language materials of the Haudenosaunee?
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maize, squash and beans
Intercropped in mounds, famously called the Three Sisters
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I dig this!
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Beautiful work, Abagond.
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Great job! I think it is immesurably important to understand that the so-called concept of democracy that white people (especially USians) are obsessed with touting as their own ingenious invention, existed and thrived in poc communities, long before it was appropriated by whites. First Nations societies, Mesopotamia, parts of the ancient Indian Subcontinent, African Kingdoms, such as present day Ghana, Mali, Egypt etc. all followed different types of democracies (hell, I think even the Greeks wrote about some South Asian societies that were governed by forms of democracy).
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@Bulanik
I used to be into native american culture a lot. What a sad fate they suffered. Five nations were pretty much the last indian peoples (as a group) that could’ve pushed fight whites with full force if they had decided so. I might not remember that correctly, I don’t have much of a memory. But Iroqus nation was an impressive one.
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@abagond: great post, once again. It is funny how little is known about the influence the iroquois had in the structure and idea of US. I guess it is a bit embarassaning, take someones ideas and then almost wipe them out.
About the democracy: Iceland was constitutional democracy in viking age. The traditional finnish society was also a democracy, one man one vote, during the times before christianity. The romans could not understand why the germans chose their kings by voting or had a general assembly to discuss about such things as war etc.
Celtic societies were also pretty advanced in womens rights: a girl had full self determination at the age of 12, women owned their own propety, had the right to divorce and choose their spouses freely, have babies alone (with the father supporting the child according to the law economically AND otherwise), women could be and were rulers, warriors etc. if they wanted to do so etc.Catholic church denied all of these rights in latter part of 500’s and made a law that all women were under the command of their father, husband or older brother, and that women have no legal rights as an individual, only as a member of a mans household.
In Nordic cultures (Scandinavia, Finland and parts of Baltic lands) women also had rights. If and when husband was away for a long time, the woman was in command of the whole household and litterally had the keys. She could also take a “bed warmer” for lonely nights and decide all the deals and issues while the husband was away.
Women could also go to war and the french were particulary affraid of female vikings whom they called The Virgins of the Shield Arm. It is very much in doubt that these women were actually virgins but the catholic french wanted to have their own fantazies.
Hence the tradition of strong women in present day Nordic society. 800 yrs of christianity did not destroy it all.
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Very interesting.
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Always glad to hear these historical naratives. It tells me that the natural evolutionary trajectory of man kind is toward altruism, state formation, cohesion, empire building, in a word: civilization. Let white america tell it though, and Civiliazation with all it attributes is a distinctly white European invention.
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Great post, Abagond…please keep these historical nuggets coming….
I read an article recently that the Wampanoag tribe are trying to bring back their language…they are doing this through old documents because there is no one alive in the tribe who speaks the language.
The tribe is teaching a little girl to speak it as her first language and she is the first person to speak it since the 1900’s…how sad since this was the tribe that helped the Pilgrims survive another day, yet their culture was practically destroyed.
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Wampanoag: -ag is an Algonquian plural.
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FYI- A lot of commentators keeping using the past tense in reference to Iroquois, as if we were extinct and our nations abolished, which is simply not true. We are alive, there are many of us, we live amongst you and our nations remain, so please stop talking about us as if we were all gone.
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@Hannu
You do not remember that correctly.
You make it sound as if the Haudenosaunee just gave up and didn’t even try.
You obviously weren’t that “into native culture” since you don’t seem to know much about Indian Wars and resistance.
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Reblogged this on Project ENGAGE.
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