How and what do we know today about the people of the Iroquois Confederacy that remarkable association of Indian nations that maintained independence while occupying the zone between French and English colonial expansion in North America? Colonial officials, soldiers, merchants, missionaries and explorers were all interested in these Indians and soon they were the subject of book-length studies Moeurs des sauvages ameriquains (Joseph-François Lafitau 1724) and The History of the Five Indian Nations of Canada (Cadwallader Colden 1727). Even today these and other early accounts of Iroquois society remain worthy of examination for the insights they provide.
In the nineteenth century amateur anthropologists began collecting artifacts and studying Iroquois communities in Canada and the United States. Formal anthropological work started with the collaboration between Lewis Henry Morgan, a lawyer from upstate New York, and Ely S. Parker, son of a prominent Iroquois family and heir to a position on the Iroquois Confederacy Council. Morgan collected Iroquois material culture for the "Cabinet of Antiquities" of New York (now the New York State Museum) and illustrations of some of these adorned his League of the Ho-dé- no-sau-nee [or] Iroquois which appeared in 1851 and is touted as the first scientific study of a North American Indian tribe.
Morgan visited the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario, but the first intensive study published emanating from among Iroquois settled in Canada was Horatio Hale's Iroquois Book of Rites. Hale was, like Morgan, a lawyer, but with linguistic interests and talents surpassing those of his American contemporary.
Those nineteenth-century amateurs were replaced by professional anthropologists by the beginning of the twentieth century. Early professional anthropological work among the Iroquois included that of Marius Barbeau, Alexander Goldenweiser, and F.W. Waugh, all from the National Museum in Ottawa. Their counterparts on the American side of the border were both of Iroquois descent J.N.B. Hewitt of the Smithsonian Institution and Arthur C. Parker, Ely Parker's great nephew, who was employed by museums in Rochester and Albany, New York. Numerous scholars have built upon the work of these pioneers, but special mention should be made of William N. Fenton who began his researches among the Iroquois in the 1930s and who continues to dominate Iroquois studies today. Fenton's passionate interest in and respect for the traditional culture of the Iroquois is apparent to anyone familiar with his writing.
The result of the research and publication of these students of Iroquois culture is a record in print surpassed in quantity and quality by the literature on only a few, if any, other peoples in the world. That this record has reached print is, of course, a direct result of several generations of Iroquois who have taken it upon themselves to educate anthropologists and thus provide for the rest of the world a record of the richness of Iroquois cultural traditions.
Settlement and Subsistence
When first encountered by Europeans, the Iroquois were a confederacy of five Indian nations living south of Lake Ontario (Ontario is an Iroquoian word meaning "beautiful or large lake )." From east to west these nations were the Mohawk, the Oneida, the Onondaga, the Cayuga, and the Seneca. The name they used for themselves has been written Hodénosaunee, meaning "people of the longhouse." In the seventeenth century the Iroquois all resided in longhouses; these were about seven metres wide and of the same height, but as long as was required given the number of families that resided there. Along the centre of the longhouse was a passageway or aisle and each family lived on one side of the passageway and shared a fireplace or hearth with the family on the opposite side. The hearths were about seven metres apart, and a typical longhouse would be twenty to twenty- eight metres long, have three or four fireplaces, and hold six to eight families. The longhouses were constructed of poles covered with bark, usually elm bark. Benches ran down the side of the longhouse, serving as seats and beds.
In naming their confederacy the Hodénosaunee, the Iroquois were metaphorically picturing their homeland as one giant longhouse of five fires, one fire for each nation. Because they occupied the western end of the longhouse, the Seneca were styled the Doorkeepers of the Confederacy.
Each of the Iroquois nations spoke a distinct language, although they were closely related and speakers of one language could with some difficulty understand the speech of another, particularly that of their near neighbours. Many of the peoples living near the Iroquois spoke closely related languages, all in the Iroquoian language family. These included the Susequehannock to the south, the Wenro and Erie to the west of the Seneca, and the Neutral, Huron, and Petun in what is now Ontario. Other neighbours of the Iroquois spoke completely unrelated languages belonging to the Algonquian language family. These included the Ottawa, who resided north of the Huron, the Algonquin of the Ottawa River valley, the Montagnais of Québec, and the Mahican and peoples of New England who resided east of the Mohawk.
The Iroquois were a farming people, with the vast bulk of their diet coming from the extensive fields surrounding their villages. Planting and cultivation were the responsibility of the women, but men assisted in the harvest. The heavy labour of clearing the fields, that is, cutting back the forest, was also a male task. Three crops, corn, beans, and squash, which the Iroquois called the three sisters or the life supporters -- were by far the most important and had been grown by the Iroquois for many centuries. Corn was planted in small man-made (or rather woman-made) hills, so that only these and not the land between the hills needed to be weeded. In every seventh hill beans and squash were also planted. The bean vines wound themselves about the corn stalks, and the squash vine grew below about the hill. Many varieties of corn were grown for different tastes and other factors, such as suitability for grinding into flour. A wooden mortar and pestle were used to grind the corn.
Products from the gardens gave the Iroquois a well-balanced diet, but wild sources of food were also used. Fish was particularly important in the diet. Passenger pigeons, which would darken the sky in their migrations, and other fowl were eaten. Deer and bear were killed for their meat. There are even reports of bear cubs, captured when young, being raised in villages until of sufficient size to provide a banquet. Hunting was only a supplement to the diet, since at least seventy-five per cent of their daily food were products of the fields. However, hunting was of some importance as a source of raw materials. Before European cloth became available the Iroquois were clothed in leather and fur, so the male role of hunter remained of considerable importance even though most of what the male ate was domesticated crops grown by the women of his family.
There were also resources that could be gathered from the forest. Maple sap was collected each spring. Wild berries were to be found in abundance. These things served to sweeten and flavour the rather bland (and possibly monotonous) diet of corn and corn and more corn.
These economic activities were able to support a fairly large population. Iroquois villages were not a collection of huts but rather substantial settlements with populations upwards to two thousand and even more. Some of them were surrounded by palisades, walls made of upright logs, five metres high. It was common for two or even three of the palisades, a metre or two apart, to circle a village.
Social and Political Organization
Despite the size and impressive nature of these villages, it still would be correct to characterize the Iroquois as a mobile people. Sometimes economic tasks would draw people away from the village, to fishing stations or the forest for a winter hunt. Treks might be made to other villages for social reasons. Often persons left their homes to participate in political activities, for the Iroquois enjoyed attending councils and viewed politics and diplomacy as a spectator sport. The skills of the speaker were highly valued and the ritual of diplomacy was something for the entire community to enjoy.
When an Iroquois visited another village, he or she often sought out members of his or her own clan. The core of the residents of any longhouse belonged to the same clan, and the symbol of the clan was often painted over the door at the end of the longhouse. Here the visiting Iroquois would be welcomed by fellow clan members as a brother or sister. Since the clan was a basic unit of Iroquois society, one cannot understand Iroquois society without understanding the nature of the clan.
Each of the Iroquois nations was divided into a number of clans. Clan membership was fixed at birth , each infant was a member of his or her mother's clan. The baby's name came from a roster of names "owned" by the clan. This would be publicly announced prior to the Green Corn Ceremony in the summer or the Midwinter Ceremony in the winter. Later in life, an adult name, also from the roster of the clan, would be bestowed on the individual. Both names would have been used by clan members in the past, and after death the names would again be given to another member of the clan in a future generation.
All members of the same generation in a clan considered themselves as siblings, that is, as brothers and sisters. The terms used to address one's own brothers and sisters were in fact used for any clan member of one's own generation. It was forbidden to marry within the clan. This meant, of course, that one's father was not a member of one's clan. Nor would a man's children be members of his clan. Because clan membership was of such importance, one's relationship with one's siblings and one's mother's family was far more important than the relationship with one's father. An extremely important individual in the life of any Iroquois was the mother's brother, that is, the elder male in one's own clan. This individual would continue to influence his sister's children throughout their lives.
Iroquois clans bore names related to animals and birds, although they are not always the same terms used for these species in everyday speech. The name of the Ball Clan may refer to behaviour of a deer or a bird. However, the animal and bird names are invariably used when referring to the clans in English today and in the historical and anthropological literature on the Iroquois. Three clans, Wolf, Bear, and Turtle, were found in all the Iroquois nations, but no two nations had an identical set of the remaining clans. The clans of the Iroquois are listed in Table 1.
The Iroquois nations divided their clans into two groups known to anthropologists as moieties. The asterisk in Table 1 divides the clans into moieties. In some contemporary communities these moieties are not named, simply being referred to as "sides." The Seneca referred to them as the animal clans (the moiety including Wolf, Bear, Turtle, Beaver) and the bird clans (Deer, Snipe, Heron, Hawk -- that the Deer Clan is part of the bird clans moiety does not seem to disturb the Seneca). The Onondaga named the moieties Longhouse (Wolf, Turtle, etc.) and Mudhouse (Hawk, Deer, Bear and Eel). Moiety membership was important in certain ceremonies such as at funerals where the deceased was buried by the opposite moiety. Moieties competed against each other in lacrosse and other games, which for the Iroquois were often seen as religious events pleasing to the Creator.
Table 1
Clans of the Iroquois
MOHAWK ONEIDA
Wolf Wolf
Turtle Turtle
Bear Bear
ONONDAGA CAYUGA SENECA
Wolf Wolf Wolf
Turtle Heron Bear
Snipe Snipe Turtle
Beaver * Beaver
Ball Deer *
* Turtle Deer
Hawk Bear Snipe
Deer Ball Heron
Bear Beaver Hawk
Eel Eel
Each clan was divided into several smaller groups anthropologists call lineages. The lineage consisted of a group of people descended through females from a known female ancestor. Usually the eldest woman in a lineage would wield considerable power and she is customarily referred to as the lineage matron. A large portion of Iroquois fields were not owned or farmed by individuals but rather by lineages, with the women of the lineage forming a work group to perform the agricultural labour. Figure 1 (see glossary) illustrates the membership of a lineage. Note that men continue to belong to a lineage after marriage, but children do not belong to the lineage of their father but instead to that of their mother.
Upon marriage a man left his lineage household and moved in with his bride's family. This is known as matrilocal residence. In addition to indicating lineage membership, Figure 1 (glossary) also designates those individuals who would reside together in the same longhouse. Although he had moved to another household, a man retained strong ties to his lineage. If a member of his lineage was killed by enemies, he would be expected to avenge that death. Also, political office was directly tied to lineage membership, but prior to discussing that, the story of the founding of the great confederacy of the Iroquois must be told.
Deganawida and the Great Peace
The Iroquois Confederacy predates European encounters with the Five Nations. Iroquois oral traditions tell the story of its founding. As with many oral traditions, there are different versions of the story. Thus our knowledge of the historical founding of the Confederacy of the Iroquois is both enhanced and obscured by the legend of its founding told and retold by generations of Iroquois the length and breadth of the Iroquois territory.
The Confederacy was founded to end a period of bloodshed and strife. The key figure was not an Iroquois, but rather a Huron, born of a virgin mother on the shores of the Bay of Quinte in what is now Ontario. Desiring to end the conflict and murder pervasive between nations and even villages in the Iroquois country, this Huron, whose name was Deganawida, first travelled to the country of the Mohawks in a quest to establish peace. There he encountered the most ferocious man of that nation, a cannibal named Hiawatha. Deganawida was able to reform Hiawatha and convince him to follow the road to peace. Indeed, Hiawatha became speaker for Deganawida, and the two are the cofounders of the Confederacy. One by one they convinced the other Iroquois nations to join the Great Peace, as it came to be known. Finally, only the Onondaga held out, but they were a powerful people whose chief, Thadodaho, was a notorious sorcerer with seven crooks in his body and snakes in his hair. Yet the arguments of Deganawida and Hiawatha eventually prevailed.
When the leaders of the Five Nations met with Deganawida to establish the Great Peace, there were fifty of them who met in council. The names of those fifty remain with us, for when a member of the Confederacy Council dies, his successor to office takes the name or title associated with the position. Deganawida, possibly because he was a foreigner, has no position on the council, but the second title on the Mohawk list is Hiawatha.
The Onondaga became the wampum keepers and the fire keepers of the Confederacy (referring to the council fire that burnt symbolically at the village of Onondaga), and were given more positions on the Confederacy Council than any other nation. In addition, Thadodaho was recognized as foremost among the Confederacy Council, although in theory all members of the council were equals. At a grand council Hiawatha combed the snakes from Thadodaho's hair, while Deganawida cast the weapons of war into the ground and planted over them the great Tree of Peace in whose shade the nations of the Iroquois Confederacy sit.
Wampum is made from cylindrical shell beads, either purple or white, woven into belts or threaded on strings. Holding wampum demonstrated the sincerity of the speaker. Wampum belts were exchanged when nations concluded treaties or alliances. These belts served as a record of the treaties, and they would be periodically displayed and their significance recited. Hence as wampum keepers for the Confederacy the Onondaga played a central role in intertribal diplomacy.
Each of the fifty titles on the Confederacy Council was vested in a matrilineage. When the holder of one of the titles died, another member of the same matrilineage was picked to take his place. The exact procedure followed in picking the successor may have varied, but it is clear that the female members of the matrilineage had great influence and that the most important voice in the selection of the chief was the lineage's female head. A title usually passed to a man's brother or to his sister's son.
The number of chiefs varied from nation to nation. The Onondaga had the largest number, with Thadodaho first on the list of fourteen. The Mohawk and the Oneida each had nine chiefs (but Hiawatha, second on the Mohawk list, was not filled); the Cayuga had ten; and the Seneca, the most populous of the five Iroquois nations, had the fewest number of titles, eight. In actual fact the number of chiefs was not particularly important, since all council decisions were required to be unanimous.
Each of the three clans of the Mohawk and Oneida was represented by three positions. The situation was more complex for the other three nations, with uneven representation among the clans and with some clans with no positions at all. For example, among the Seneca the Snipe Clan enjoyed three positions, and the Hawk Clan a single position; the Deer and Heron Clans were not represented on the Confederacy Council from among the bird clans. On the animal clan side, two positions were occupied by the Turtle Clan, one was a Bear Clan title, the other a Wolf Clan position.
At the present time it is difficult to give a definitive list of the clan affiliation of the Onondaga and Cayuga positions. In the past matrilineages have died out or had no suitable heir to take up a title. In these cases, the title when it became vacant was taken up by another matrilineage, perhaps in the same clan but in many recorded cases in another clan. For example, some time ago Thadodaho was a Bear Clan title, but in recent years it has been held by an Onondaga of the Deer Clan on the Six Nations Reserve near Brantford, Ontario.
One should take care to neither overestimate nor underestimate the importance of this Confederacy Council. Despite its existence, the Iroquois remained an egalitarian people almost completely lacking in institutions allowing one individual to impose his will upon another. Hence if the majority in the Confederacy wished to pursue one policy while one of the nations (or even a smaller segment of the society) saw its interests lying in a different direction, the majority could not prevent the minority from going its own way. Thus the Onondaga remained neutral and at peace with the Huron in the last great battles with that nation; however, over a century later a portion of the Seneca fought as French allies and again later as part of an uprising, Pontiac's Rebellion (1763), against British occupation of the upper Great Lakes at a time when most of the Iroquois, including some Seneca, held a firm alliance with the British Crown.
Despite the fact the Confederacy Council was seldom if ever able to represent a united front politically toward external forces, it would also be a grievous error to underestimate its importance. The rich ritual surrounding the council was of far greater significance than the actual political unity it engendered; the ideology of the Confederacy was its importance. Thus the Iroquois, although each nation went separate ways, still viewed themselves as sitting in the shade of the Tree of Peace. This image was constantly reinforced by the long ritual known as the Condolence Ceremony in which the efforts of Deganawida and Hiawatha in founding the league were recounted, the entire list of fifty chiefs was named, and replacements were brought forward to fill the positions of those who died since the last Condolence Ceremony. However imperfect the relations between the constituent members of the Confederacy might be at some point in time (and that might be 1650, 1750, 1850, or 1950 and possibly still in 2050), there has always been this powerful story of the founding of the Great Peace and the goal of returning to the unity of that glorious era.
Iroquois Religion
The Iroquois believed that before the creation of humanity, the world was nothing but a vast sea inhabited by water creatures and water fowl. They conceived of the sky as a huge dome. On the top of the dome there were people. A tree whose blossoms provided light for the people living there grew at the very centre. The leader of these people, however, became ill. The Iroquois believed that illness was caused by an unfulfilled desire. The people in the sky world tried to guess the wish of the soul of their leader. It was determined that the great Tree of Light must be uprooted. This was done and the leader lay by the side of the hole created and stared down at the sea far below. He called his wife to his side. In fact there had been strife between the two and he suspected her of infidelity. He pushed her through the hole and she fell toward the primeval sea.
The water animals below looked up and saw her falling toward them. Some geese flew up, wing-tip to wing-tip, and caught her on their backs. The animals below debated who would be strong enough to hold the woman, and it was decided that the turtle had the necessary strength. The geese lowered the woman onto the back of the turtle, while the animals dove toward the bottom to bring up mud to form earth on the turtle's back. All floated to the surface dead, but when the paws of the muskrat were examined, bits of soil were found there and this was placed on the turtle's back. This mud expanded rapidly until it reached continental size.
The Sky Woman had been pregnant when pushed through the hole, and eventually she gave birth to a daughter. The girl grew to womanhood but she failed to follow her mother's instructions and was impregnated by the West Wind (in other versions of this myth the pregnancy is caused by water or by a male visitor who lays arrows beside the girl's bed). The pregnancy did not go well. The young woman became aware that she was carrying twins when she heard them arguing with each other inside her womb. One twin was in favour of being born the normal way, but the second said it would be shorter to exit through their mother's armpit. Despite the argument of the first that such action would kill their mother, the second was determined to be born in that fashion. The woman went to her mother and explained she was going to die in childbirth and gave her mother instructions on how to bury her.
The twin brothers emerged from their mother's womb in the manner they planned, the younger (who was known as Flint or the Evil Mind) bursting through his mother's side and killing her. When the Sky Woman found them, and the body of her daughter, she asked which had killed the girl. The younger twin pointed at his brother, and their grandmother cast the elder into the bush. This did not kill the elder brother (known as Sapling or the Good Mind) and he returned to the household of his grandmother and brother, but those two formed an alliance against the Good Mind.
The mother of the twins was buried according to her instruction. From her body grew the three plants so important in the life of the Iroquois. From her feet grew squash; from her hands and fingers, beans; and from her breasts, corn. Also from her head grew tobacco, a plant of continuing religious importance to the Iroquois.
The twins grew into adulthood, and each set about the task of creating the world as we know it. The Good Mind, whom the Iroquois also revere as the Creator, made man and woman and all things that are a help to humans. The Evil Mind, jealous of his brother, made those things in the world that pester humanity. Each brother tried to reverse the work of the other, but neither could destroy the other's creation. The Evil Mind made the plants created for humanity smaller, less rich, and more difficult to process. The Good Mind reduced mosquitoes from giants capable of killing to the small creatures plaguing humanity today.
Eventually it became clear that the twins would have to fight each other. Each asked the other what he feared most. The Good Mind lied and said cattail rushes; the Evil Mind told the truth and said antler (remember that the Evil Mind was also called Flint and antler is an excellent tool to use in making stone tools). The two brothers fought, and their struggles raised mountains and gouged valleys. The Evil Mind's cattail rushes proved ineffective, but his brother inflicted telling blows with his antler weapons. The Evil Mind was defeated and cast into a pit; the Good Mind returned to the Sky World.
This epic struggle is still remembered in Iroquois communities at the time of the Midwinter and Green Corn ceremonies (described below). As the climax to these two events, the moieties play each other in the bowl game. One moiety represents the Good Mind; the other takes the side of the Evil Mind and his grandmother as they fight for the control of the world.
Midwinter and Green Corn are the two most important and the two longest of the religious ceremonies still conducted in Iroquois communities. One cannot doubt that in the past the cycle of ceremonies varied from nation to nation and village to village, just as it varies from one Iroquois community to another today; one also cannot doubt that some ceremonies have been lost or been changed through time over the three centuries in which Iroquois have been in contact with white people. However, the following list of ceremonies and dates probably resembles the religious practices of the Iroquois at the time they came into contact with Europeans.
Table 2
Iroquois Cycle of Ceremonies
CEREMONY DATE DURATION
Bush Midwinter 1 day
Maple mid-March 1 day
Thunder April 1 day
Moon / Sun April 1 day
Seed Planting April 1 day
Corn Sprouting 3-4wks after above 1 day
Strawberry June 1 day
Raspberry July 1 day
Green Bean early August 1 day
Corn Testing early September 1 day
Green Corn September 3 days
Life Supporters after above 1 day
Harvest November 1 day
Midwinter Jan/Feb 9 days
These calendrical ceremonies are clearly related to the yearly subsistence cycle, most to the agricultural practices of the Iroquois (Midwinter marks the return of the sun, important to a people anticipating spring planting). A few centre on wild products which supplemented and flavoured the Iroquois diet.
Also important in Iroquois religion were individual well-being and health. To meet these ends there were and are still a series of societies, often referred to as "medicine societies." By far the most famous of these medicine societies is the False Face Society. Practitioners of this society carved wooden masks, now decorated with brass or tin about the eyes and with hair made from horses' tails. The False Faces carry large rattles made from the snapping turtle and dance with a humped-back stance; they scatter coals and ashes and blow on the ill individual. Those who have dreamed of the False Faces and those who have been cured by them become members of the society. The masks they wear are powerful and must be treated with respect, periodically being fed with False Face mush (made from corn) and receiving tobacco burned in their honour.
Other medicine societies include the Society of Medicine Men (the Pumpkin), the Little Water Society, the Little People Society (Dark Dance), the Company of Mystic Animals (including the Bear Society, the Buffalo Society, the Eagle Society, and the Otter Society), and the Husk Face Society. Most of these societies have distinctive dances and songs. Some of them perform their rites in public; others are secret and private, restricting attendance at their rituals to members and the individual they are attempting to cure. Public performances of the medicine societies are part of some of the calendrical ceremonies listed in Table 2.
A prophet provided reform and revitalization to Iroquois religion in 1799. He is known in English as Handsome Lake; he held the first title on the Seneca list of chiefs in the Confederacy Council. His teachings were not entirely nativistic. Although he did preach against some of the evils introduced by Europeans such as alcohol and "fiddle dances," he probably also transformed Iroquois religion, placing greater emphasis on the Creator than had existed previously. Some of his reforms were to limit divorce by strengthening the bond between husband and wife at the expense of the relationship between a woman and her mother. Despite the fact that his teachings were of divine origin (they were given him by four supernatural beings as he lay dead or dying), those that have not fit with Iroquois culture as it was evolving have been rejected. Most notable was his failure to eradicate the medicine societies. Iroquois concern with health made these institutions essential, particularly since Handsome Lake offered nothing to replace them. Almost all that is known or understood about Iroquois religion has been recorded after Handsome Lake's reforms.
European Impact upon Iroquois
Initial contacts between Iroquois and French were violent. The Mohawk were defeated by Hurons and Algonquins assisted by Champlain and his men in 1609 and 1610. Despite what repeated popular histories have stated, this did not create undying enmity for the French among the Iroquois. It did, however, lead the Mohawk to channel their aggression eastward rather than to the north. Access to the Dutch traders established at Fort Orange (now Albany) was blocked by the Mahican. The Mohawk drove that nation out of the lower Mohawk Valley and established direct trading links with the Dutch.
In the meantime Champlain and his allies invaded the Iroquois country in 1615. They attacked an Oneida or possibly Onondaga town. The town was fortified with a triple palisade, Champlain was wounded, the siege failed, and Champlain retreated back to the St. Lawrence.
