Ethnographic Histroy of Native American Peoples
Ethnographic Histroy of Native American Peoples
Before the white man the story of Iroquois Indians began long before the white explorers, traders, and settlers reached the shores of the New World. The Iroquois originally lived in some unknown part of the North America. According to legend, these Indians were instructed by the Great Spirit to move into the Northeast. There they carved a territory for themselves in the middle of a rival group of Indians, the Algonquin’s.
The Iroquois settled in beautiful and rich lands of northern New York State. We know this territory today as the area surrounding Lake Ontario, the Five Finger Lakes, and the Saint Lawrence River. The lakes and rivers provided abundant fish, thick woods offered game of many kinds. It was an ideal location but the Iroquois had to fight their neighbors to maintain this new homeland.
Fighting became a way of life for the Iroquois in those centuries before the arrival of the white man. In fact the word “Iroquois” is the Algonquin word meaning “rattlesnake”. That name tells how the enemy viewed the Iroquois. The Iroquois called themselves “Hodenosaunee” (Ho-de-no-saw-ne), meaning “ the people of the long house”. The Iroquois Indians are not one tribe but several; the group includes the Mohawk, the Seneca, the Onondaga, the Oneida, and the Cayuga tribes. Today these names mark well-known areas of the New York and the northeast. The Iroquois became a Nation of the six tribes after 1715 when the Tuscarora Indians relocated from the south to join them.
The Iroquois Indians were constantly fighting; they fought to defend themselves from their enemies. They fought to gain more land or more power. They also fought to avenge themselves in intertribal feuds; they fought as often with each other as they did with unrelated tribes.
The Seneca and the Mohawk tribes were the fiercest among the Iroquois Nation. Their warriors conducted many raids upon other Iroquois tribes as well as upon the rival Algonquin and the Huron. As raiders they could approach like foxes, fight like lions, and disappear like birds. They were masters of the silent ambush in the woods.
The League of the Iroquois Nation after centuries of continuous family warfare, the Iroquois were finally united in a “great...