Haudenosaunee Iroquois Case Study

Before the Europeans came to Canada, Natives had their own culture, traditions and norms. These differences were obvious to the Europeans who sailed to Canada, their interactions with the Native peoples proved these vast differences. One major difference noted was that the Iroquois organized their societies on different lines than did the patrilineal western Europeans. Iroquois women “by virtue of her functions as wife and mother, exercised an influence but little short of despotic, not only in the wigwam but also around the council fire.” “She indeed possessed and exercised all civil and political power and authority. The country, the land, the fields with their harvests and fruits belonged to her … her plans and wishes modeled the policy and inspired the decisions of council.” The Europeans were astounded by this way of life.

Members of the Nations 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 Great Lakes region from at least 1000 A.D.

In 1613, the Mohawks began noticing people settling on their land unexpected, and distributing its nature order, by cutting down trees and clearing the land. Due to the language barrier, it took a long time for the Mohawk people and new settlers to be able to communicate. It was clear since the beginning that in this relationship the settlers saw themselves as ‘higher up’ than Indigenous people as originally the Europeans thought that they should be called “Father” and the Indigenous people called “Son”, in order to greet each other, however the Indigenous people disagreed and said that they would identify each other as “Brothers”, in order to show equality between them. As the settlers and Indigenous people known as Haudenosaunee learned more

The Iroquois nations, one of the oldest and most prestigious tribes in the history of all Native Americans. In this paper I will be showing why the Iroquois ended up siding with the English through the French and Indian, and Revolutionary wars through factors of colonization. I will also be showing some features of their culture, considering the iroquois are not well known in the western United States, and discussing the fall of the once great tribes. The main reason I 've chosen the Iroquois is because of my own prior knowledge of the Iroquois, and their relationship to lacrosse. I started playing lacrosse my freshman year of highschool. The very first thing I learned, before any stick skills or any basics of the game, was the history of it. Our coach insisted that we knew the history and the culture of the game, and that we respected it. I was intrigued by how interesting the game was. The game was made as a form of war. Lacrosse was sometimes even referred to as “Little brother of war”. It would be called this because injury, even death were common during a lacrosse game. When two tribes had a disagreement, but didn 't feel the need to have a legitimate war, the opposing tribes would send their best warriors to the battlefield and play a lacrosse game. Games would be played to a score of 5-7, but considering how long the fields could be, these games could take hours, days even, however long it took for one of the tribes to win,

The Huron tribes were enemies of the Iroquois Confederacy, with whom they competed in fur trading. Samuel de Champlain agreed to an alliance with the Huron Indians. The alliance created a long lasting friendship, between the French and the Huron.

1). The reason for the construction of the Iroquois confederacy, or the league of the Iroquois, (Haudenosaunee) was the impeding factor of disunity between the tribes. Hienwatha, a Mohawk Iroquois, lived in Ontario and observed the disunity between the Iroquois tribes. In an attempt to unify the nations, he approached rival tribes and argued the benefits of unification. Initially, his idea is shut down by the elders of each tribe. The changing climate that started to occur, however, increased confrontations between tribes. Hienwatha yet again tries to explain to the Iroquois people about the possibility of peace and is rejected again. He then alludes the nations to a weaved belt of wampum shells which supposedly illustrated the connectedness of the five Iroquois nations. He traveled among the nations, of which all then supported the idea of unity, and was able to form a seemingly impenetrable force.

To begin, the Haudenosaunee and the United States are interrelated because the Haudenosaunee use the United States judicial system to protect themselves against laws that violate their sovereignty. Throughout Who are These People Anyway?, Chief Irving Powless Jr. mentions instances where the Haudenosaunee had to go to the United States judicial system to block a law which they felt violated their sovereignty. For example, the Haudenosaunee went to court over the issue of the imposition of sales taxes in their territory. The Haudenosaunee won the initial case, and when the New York State appealed the

The Iroquois, known as the people of the longhouse, was made up of the five nations, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca. These peoples took advantage of their fertile soil environment in the St. Lawrence Low Lands. These peoples partook in intensive slash-and-burn horticulture and fishing in their fortified villages (Sage, 2016). The Iroquois relied heavily on horticulture for a food source, and thus framed a lot of their social organization around subsistence. The Three Sisters is a term used to understand the sacred powers of the three main crops corn, beans, and squash that help to facilitate each other’s growth through biogeochemical cycles. The Iroquois lived in matrilineal societies and the women were given a lot of respect.

The political organization and practices of the Mesquakie were forced to adapt with the changing world they were surrounded by after European contact. Background on Mesquakie Political Ideology Before European Contact The social and political organization of the Mesquakie (Fox) tribe was primarily shaped by clans. Kinship politics created a disorganized system of government that did not allow for united actions or reactions.

The Iroquois was named by the French,but they wanted to be called the Haudenosaunee meaning people of the longhouse. The British called them the five nations. They lived in longhouses. They reached over 100 feet in length and could hold up to 60 people in one longhouse.

Without men, decisions would never be made! Men in the Mi’Kmaq nation had to attend all Grand Council meetings. Like the Mi’ Kmaq, the Anishnabe also had men become the leaders and were born with the blood to be a part of decision making. In contrast, the Haudenosaunee nation, had 50 men that were chiefs to decide impartially in court. Although men had a reliable job, women were also voted in to be clan mothers and chose the chief. Compared to all the other the other tribes, this nation held opportunities for both men and women. Although the Haudenosaunee nation had opportunities for both men and women, men had a lot of work

The reason that this society can be unranked is due to the fact that it is a culture of hunting and gathering and therefore everyone is perceived equally important in order for the society to function. However, the society is not 100% egalitarian, there are some social inequalities for the Ju/’hoansi, which is primarily based off of family roles, gender, age, as well as individual characteristics. Nevertheless, there are no chiefdom or other sort of ranked society. Within the Ju/’hoansi society, there is a focus on sharing everything equally due to the fact that it is an assertively egalitarian society; it is important for all the inhabitants of the society to share all the goods, foods, wealth, etc. equally amongst all the members of the society (Lecture 32). Another aspect to the sharing culture is the hxaro gift exchange culture. The traditional Ju/’hoansi society, was based off of a hxaro gift exchange system; people from different bands exchange gifts throughout long periods of time in order to create social relations between the two bands (Lecture 22). However, as the white men arrived, Lee experienced that the hxaro exchange system was not as prevalent as earlier due to the fact that people were settled down and therefore could not visit other bands as much as previous (Lecture

Haudenosaunee ladies could claim property and were the ones who really kept up the responsibility for area. It appeared to be common to these indigenous individuals that the area was under the ladies' control since they were the ones who tended the products, and as the Haudenosaunee were an agrarian based society, ladies were generally the ones in charge of feeding the group in more than

From North America, I have chosen the baby carrier of the Eastern Sioux tribe, from the upper Missouri River area. Made by both quillwork and bread work, from materials like wooden board, buckskin, porcupine quill, it is 33 inches tall and wide enough to swaddle baby in. It must have been made somewhere between the late 1500’s to the early 1600’s and can be found in the book from page 423. It is a work of art as well as having a functional purpose of protecting the Sioux babies.

During this time period the kings and queens ruled the land but they never formed a unified nation. Kings could have several wives, but women weren’t allowed to have more than one husband. Commoners we never treated as good as royalty. In fact, they had no vote or say in law decisions and when they were caught wearing green quetzal, feathers, or shell jewelry were punished. But for someone who did the crime of theft all they had to go was pay or give it back