Iroquois

1
Iroquois

• North America
• Canada

2
Identification and Location

• The League of Iroquois was originally a
  confederacy of 5 North American Indian tribes
• Mohawk
• Oneida
• Onondaga
• Cayuga
• Seneca
• In 1722 the Tuscarora tribe joined making it a
  league of 6 tribes.
• They lived in Quebec and Ontario, Canada and
  some places in the United states.

3
Population

• 1600- 5,500 people
• 1904- 16,000 people
• 1980- 20,000 people
• They used all 6 tribal languages in there
  communities

4
Settlements

• Villages were built on elevated terraces
• Village populations were usually between 300 and
  600 people
• The village was surrounded by hundreds of acres
  of fields

• Villages were used as long as the living sources
  were plentiful.
• All of the settlements were connected by trails

5
Economy

• Weapons
• Bows and Arrows
• Stone axes and knives
• Today they use more modern tools and weapons
• Crops
• Maize, beans and squash
• They also hunted and fished

6

• Work
• Farming was a main profit of the tribes
• Now many of them work in high steel construction
• Arts
• Pipes of fired clay
• Knows for making baskets of ash and maple splint
• False Face Masks masks were used for curing
  ceremonies
• Trade
• Had an intricate trade system
• Clay pipes, small amounts of fur.
• They were mainly good as voyagers and trappers

7
Political Organization

• The Iroquois created a Confederacy to run their
  tribes
• The Iroquois Confederacy operated under a
  council of 50 sachems who represented all 6
  tribes.
• Each sachem was equal in power
• Council was the legislative, executive and
  judicial body

8

• Council Deliberated On
• Peace
• War
• Common matters of the tribes
• All internal affairs were dealt with within the
  tribes
• Later On
• A Pine Tree Chief was created
• He took on the leadership role of the council
• He was advisor to the sachems
• The Confederacy continued to grow until the
  American Revolution when the Iroquois interests
  divided.

9

• Kinship
• Inheritance is a large part of the Iroquois
  culture
• Matrilineal
• Sub- groups
• Matrrilineages
• Matrisibs
• Moities
• Patrilineal
• The traditional way of doing things is

10
Marriage

• At one time marriage was arranged and the mother
  played a large role in the pairing of children
• Now marriage is an individual choice
• Polygamy was practiced
• Divorce was possible
• Mother would get the children

11
Living Units

• Extended family groups live in a longhouse
• Individual families occupy a house
• They share a common hearth
• Elder women run the long house that they live in
• Property goes through the matrilineal line in the
  US but goes through the patrilineal line in
  Canada.

12
Religion

• The Handsome Lake Religion
• Supernatural world and the deities, the most
  important of which was the Great Spirit, who was
  responsible for the creation of men, the
  plants,animals and the force of good in nature.
• Religious ceremonies were tribal affairs
  concerned primarily with farming, curing illness
  and thanksgiving.

13
Religion

• Practitioners
• Keepers of the Faith
• Spilt between female and male members of the tribe

14
Death and Afterlife

• When a sachem dies he is given a condolence
  ceremony and a new sachem is installed
• Common People
• In Early times
• The dead is buried in a sitting position facing
  east.
• After burial a captured bird is released in the
  belief that the spirit is carried away
• Today
• The dead are left on wood scaffolding and there
  bones are deposited in a special house.
• Then a feast is held.

15
Stratification SystemThe Iroquois stratification
system is mainly based around a persons gender

• Men
• Hunt
• Build houses
• Cleared fields
• Trade and Warfare
• Men also had to worry about tribal roles and
  confederacy politics.

• Women
• Farmed
• Gathered wild foods
• Watched children
• Made clothing
• Made Baskets
• Prepared food
• Elect officials to confederacy

16

• Rank
• Because of the way that they have there power
  distributed
• Leadership is inherited
• Women make key decisions
• They choose leaders
• Run Religious ceremonies
• Elder women ran longhouses

17
The End

• Reid, Gerald. Cultural Summary Iroquois. As seen
  on the eHRAF collection of Ethnography on the
  web, 24 March 2004.