LOCATION: United States (New York, Wisconsin); Canada (Quebec, Ontario)
POPULATION: over 125,000 (U.S. and Canada)
LANGUAGE: English; various Iroquois dialects
RELIGION: Traditional tribal religions
RELATED ARTICLES: Vol. 2: Native North Americans
INTRODUCTION
The Iroquoian peoples are a group of tribes from the Great Lakes area who speak dialects of the Iroquoian family of Native North American languages and have similar lifestyles. For our purposes, we will only consider those tribes who are members of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy (or League of the Iroquois): the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, Cayuga, and Tuscarora. Other Iroquoian peoples include the Huron, Erie, and Wyandotte.
"Iroquois" is the name adopted by the French for the people they encountered in the Great Lakes region. The name was given them either by the Ojibwa (or Chippewa), in which case it means "poisonous snakes," or by the Algonquin, meaning "bad or terrifying man." Both the Ojibwa and Algonquin were enemies of the Iroquois. The Iroquois call themselves Houdenosaunee, or "People of the Longhouse." The Iroquois are most likely descended from the Owasco peoples, who lived in the Great Lakes area as long as 1,000 years ago. The Owasco were settled agriculturalists and supplemented their diet through hunting and fishing. The Iroquois continued in that tradition well into the 19th century, and even today the basic structure of their life remains the same, though on a much more limited scale.
The Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, and Cayuga were constantly at war with one another over hunting and fishing grounds, honor and revenge, and, later, trapping grounds for the fur trade, in the early part of their history. Eventually, two men joined together to create the Iroquois Confederacy. An Onondaga named Hiawatha (not the same Hiawatha as in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem) began preaching peace among the Iroquois nations but found little support and even active resistance. According to legend, all three of his daughters died of illness or injuries thought to be caused by the evil wishes of his opponents, particularly an Onondaga chief named Thadodaho, who was very powerful and very antagonistic. In despair, Hiawatha left the Onondagas and wandered to the outskirts of a Mohawk village. There he met Deganawida, who was either a Mohawk or a Huron, and the two of them discovered a great sympathy toward each other. Together they convinced the Mohawk to be the first nation to join the Iroquois Confederacy. Soon the Oneida agreed to join as well. Hiawatha and Deganawida knew the Confederacy would not succeed without the support of Thadodaho, so they set about persuading him to join. Finally, Thadodaho agreed and the Onondaga became the third nation in the Confederacy. The Seneca and Cayuga then followed. The Mohawk, as the most eastern tribe, became the Keepers of the Eastern Door; the Seneca, as the westernmost tribe, were designated the Keepers of the Western Door, and the Onondaga, in the center, became the Keepers of the Council Fire. Every year, the 50 sachems (peace chiefs) who made up the Great Council of the Confederacy met at the Onondaga council house to discuss and vote on matters of the Confederacy. Sachems were always men, but they were chosen by the clan matrons, the elder women who headed each clan. Sachems served for life, or until their clan matron decided to remove them from office. Although the five nations each had a different number of sachems on the council, each nation had only one vote. So the sachems of each nation had to decide together how to use their one vote. In this way, each of the five nations had equal power in the Confederacy.
The first European known to have made contact with the Iroquois was the French explorer Jacques Cartier, who encountered the Iroquois in 1534. The Iroquois had already begun receiving European goods, such as metal knives and hatchets, guns, glass beads, and wool cloth, in trade with more eastern tribes. By the 17th century, the Iroquois were trading directly with the French, who were most interested in furs, particularly beaver pelts. The fur trade created tremendous hostilities between the Iroquois Confederacy tribes and their neighbors, especially the Huron. Competition was fierce for the best trapping grounds, and the French fueled the hostilities so that they could maintain control of the fur trade. In 1609 Samuel de Champlain, the governor of New France (now Canada), helped several neighboring, hostile tribes attack the Mohawk. At least 50 Mohawk were killed in the attack. Later, in 1649 the Iroquois invaded Huron territory in the search for more furs (as over-hunting had depleted the number of beaver and other fur-bearing animals in their home territory). The Iroquois decimated the Huron, killing most of them and forcing the others to relocate farther from Iroquois lands.
The Iroquois themselves had their population decimated during the 1600s by diseases introduced by Europeans for which the Iroquois had no immunities or known treatments. Epidemics of measles, influenza, smallpox, tuberculosis, and gastroenteritis (a stomach disorder) wiped out thousands of Iroquois and other Native North Americans. At the height of their power, the Iroquois Confederacy had boasted 10,000 or more members. By the end of the 18th century, their numbers had been reduced by more than half to about 4,000. At the turn of the 20th century (1910), their population had not yet fully recovered, reaching only a little over 7,000.
In 1722–23 the Tuscarora, an Iroquoian tribe from North Carolina, joined the Confederacy. They had been forced by European violence and abuses to move north, and they were surprised and delighted to find people speaking a very similar language, with a very similar lifestyle, living in New York. The Tuscarora settled down there, with the Oneida, and were soon accepted into the Confederacy.
The now Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy were split by the American Revolution (1775–83), when the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, and Mohawk were persuaded by Mohawk Joseph Brant (1742–1807) to become British allies, while the Oneida and Tuscarora chose to side with the American colonists. The Iroquois had remained neutral throughout the European struggles for control of the "New World" in the 17th and early 18th centuries. The Onondaga leader Teganissorens had convinced the Iroquois in 1700 not to become involved in the French and British wars, or the British and Dutch battles. Even when many of their Native North American neighbors chose sides in the French and Indian War (1761–63), the Six Nations refused to help either the French or the British. But this resolve fell apart during the long and disruptive American Revolution, and the Confederacy fell apart as well. When the American colonists finally won the war, many of the four Iroquois nations who had sided with the British relocated to Canada where the atmosphere was friendlier. Of those who stayed, the new U.S. government sent the Cayugas and Mohawks to a reservation (called a "reserve" in Canada) in Ontario, Canada, and forced most of the Oneidas to relocate to a reservation near Green Bay, Wisconsin. Some Iroquois were allowed to remain on their original homelands in what had become New York State, but European American settlement had greatly reduced their territories. Further European American expansion continued to squeeze out the Iroquois until finally the U.S. government (and Canada) confined the Iroquois to small reservations. The Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy were now reduced to small subsistence farmers, dependent on the U.S. and Canadian governments for their survival.
Because the Iroquois live in both Canada and the United States but think of themselves as one people, in 1974 they were given the right by a treaty to cross the border between the two countries without restriction. In 1924 the U.S. Congress passed a law rescinding this right, and the Iroquois were forced to fight in the courts to regain their rights. Clinton Rickard of the Tuscarora Nation founded the Indian Defense League in 1927 to help in the fight. This was the first advocacy organization for Native North Americans. In 1928 the Iroquois won back their right to cross the European-imposed borderline that passes through their lands. This victory is celebrated each year in July by a "Border Crossing" festival. Conflicts continue to arise, however, between the Iroquois Nations and the U.S. and Canadian nations over these rights. Legal battles also continue over land claims and water rights and over the right of the Iroquois people to possess their own history. Recently, the Iroquois finally succeeded in having some wampum belts (belts of strung beads that tell the stories of Iroquois history) returned to them that had been on display for decades at the New York State Museum.
LOCATION AND HOMELAND
The Iroquois live mainly on seven reservations in the Finger Lakes and Great Lakes region of New York State and on five reserves (as they are called in Canada) in Quebec and Ontario, Canada. Some Oneida also live on a small reservation near Green Bay, Wisconsin. The largest reservation, or reserve, is the Six Nations Grand River Reserve in Ontario, Canada. Most of the Iroquois on the Grand River Reserve are Mohawk or Cayuga. The reservations and reserves are all located (except for the Oneida reservation in Wisconsin) on the original home-lands of the Iroquois, though with only a fraction of the territory. The terrain of these lands is hilly and wooded, covered with deciduous and evergreen forests. The climate is temperate with four distinct seasons. Fertile soil, sufficient rainfall (and snowfall), and an adequate growing season combine to make this area very good for farming. The Iroquois have been settled agriculturalists throughout their history. An abundance of wild game and fish provided large amounts of easily obtained protein for their diet as well. The Iroquois, therefore, were a healthy people who were able to sustain themselves in large, permanent settlements. This allowed them to develop a highly organized social and governmental structure known as the Iroquois Confederacy or League of the Iroquois. Some see great similarities in the government and constitution of the new United States of America and the structure of the Iroquois Confederacy.
Not all Iroquois live on the reservations or reserves. Many have left to find work in cities. The largest groups of off-reservation Iroquois are in the cities of Buffalo, Rochester, Niagara Falls, and Brooklyn, New York.
The total population of Iroquois today is over 125,000.The Mohawk are the most numerous of the Iroquois nations, followed by the Oneida and Seneca. The Cayuga, Onondaga, and Tuscarora nations are much smaller.
LANGUAGE
All Iroquois speak dialects of the Iroquoian family of Native North American languages. There was no written language for most of their history (now it is written with the Roman alphabet), but the Iroquois did use wampum belts (belts of strung beads in various designs) to tell the stories of their history. These wampum belts were a form of recorded information. The Europeans sometimes used wampum belts as money in trade, but the Iroquois never did.
An Iroquois mother chooses her baby's name from a list of those names owned by her clan, choosing one that no other living person is using at that time.
FOLKLORE
The Iroquois have a combination earth-diver and culture-hero (or, in this case, two-hero) creation story. Before the earth or anything on it existed, the Sky People lived in Sky World, high in the heavens. They were ruled by Sky Chief and his wife, Sky Woman. When Sky Woman became pregnant, Firedragon—a notorious troublemaker—told Sky Chief that the child was not Sky Chief's. Sky Chief became enraged and tore the Tree of Life, which grew in the center of Sky World, from the ground. Sky Woman bent over to look through the hole it left in the ground. In some versions of the story, she simply fell through the hole. In other versions, Sky Chief pushed her. In any event Sky Woman fell out of Sky World towards the deep waters below. The birds and animals below managed to save her by first having the birds break her fall and support her on their wings, then sending various animals down into the waters to try to find some earth. All failed until Muskrat dove down very deep and came up with a bit of mud in his paw. The animals placed the mud on Turtle's back and the birds set Sky Woman down on top of it. This bit of mud on Turtle's back became the Earth.
Sky Woman eventually gave birth to twin boys, Good Twin and Bad Twin. Good Twin was born first, in the usual way, but Bad Twin was so impatient he pushed his way out of his mother's body through her armpit and she died. The plants that later became the Iroquois' staple foods sprang up from Sky Woman's grave. Good Twin and Bad Twin became enemies and fought a series of terrible battles, creating the things of this world as they went. Good Twin ultimately won and then created human beings to enjoy this world.
The Iroquois traditionally told stories around the fire during the long winter months when there was little else to do. These stories were told both for entertainment and to educate the young about Iroquois history and traditions.
RELIGION
There is a special longhouse in each village that serves as a cultural center for members of the Iroquois community where they can learn about practicing the traditional way of life. In the past, the longhouse was a dwelling and also a spiritual center for the Iroquois. To say someone is "longhouse" today means that they follow the traditional Iroquois way of life.
European missionaries of many denominations established missions among the Iroquois in the 1600s and attempted to convert them to Christianity. Many Iroquois have since become Christian or have combined Christianity with their traditional beliefs. Today some Iroquois remain purely traditional, but most of them are Christian.
One Mohawk who took strongly to Christianity was Kateri Tekawitha (1656–80). She converted to Christianity in 1670 and became a Catholic nun. Called a saint while still alive by those who knew her, Kateri became a candidate for sainthood in the Roman Catholic Church in 1884 and was declared "venerable" in 1943, then "blessed" in 1980. The campaign to have her declared a full saint continues.
Handsome Lake (?–1815) was a Seneca visionary who started a new religion in the early time called Gaiwiio, or "Good Word." Followers of Gaiwiio today refer to it as the New Religion.
MAJOR HOLIDAYS
The Iroquois celebrate seasonal changes and events relating to the production of food. There were traditionally six to eight festivals each year, including planting, ripening, and harvest times, maple sugar season and berry-picking seasons, and the New Year at midwinter. The most important was the New Year festival. One custom at the New Year festival was dream guessing. People would tell the community, through song, dance, or silent gestures, about a powerful dream they had had, and the members of the community would try to guess the dream. Then the community would come up with a way to make that dream come true. For example, if a woman dreamed of having a plot of land in which to plant corn, the community would give her that land. If someone dreamed of being angry with and doing violence to another member of the community, the people would find a way to work out the conflict through non-violent means. This custom allowed the Iroquois to resolve any tensions and fulfill unexpressed desires in their community.
A very significant ceremony developed after the founding of the Iroquois Confederacy. When a chief dies, a Condolence ceremony is held where the founding of the Confederacy is commemorated and the Condolence committee talks about the deceased chief and other leaders of the past. The Condolence ceremony helps comfort the mourners of the deceased chief and welcomes the new chief who has been chosen by the clan matron. Deer antlers are placed on the new chief's head.
A modern holiday among the Iroquois is Border Crossing Day, held on the third Saturday of July, which celebrates the birthday of Clinton Rickard, founder of the Indian Defense League of America in 1927. Rickard and the Indian Defense League helped win back the Iroquois' right to cross the U.S.-Canadian border without restriction.
RITES OF PASSAGE
Traditionally, babies were given a taste of animal oil right after birth to clean out their system and feed the guardian spirit that lived in their soul from birth until death. When a boy was born, he was then dipped in a stream to make him strong and courageous. The names given Iroquois infants were confirmed by the community at the next major festival.
Most boys upon reaching puberty would go on a Vision Quest. This entailed going alone into the woods without food and waiting for days, or even weeks, for that boy's personal guardian spirit to appear (in the form of an animal or bird). The guardian spirit would give the boy instructions for his adult life, and a special song to sing for courage and protection in times of danger.
At the time of a girl's first menstrual period, she would cook and eat her food alone from special pots. She would continue to do this at each menstrual period thereafter until menopause.
INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS
The Iroquois traditionally put a high value on self-reliance, endurance, and courage in both men and women. Gentle and considerate towards their own people, they could be cruel to their enemies. The Iroquois code of honor required revenge for injury or insult. Murder was avenged by murder.
LIVING CONDITIONS
Before they were confined to reservations, the Iroquois lived in large villages surrounded by wooden palisades (a fence of tall pointed stakes used for defense) with watchtowers along the top. The villages had to be moved every 10–20 years because the soil would become depleted and the available wood for building and fuel would be used up. They tried to make the new site as close as possible to the previous one.
Villages were made up of as many as 30 longhouses, each of which housed up to 100 or more people. A longhouse was so called because it was rectangular: 130 or more feet (40 or more meters) in length and about 30–33 feet in width. Each long-house had a center aisle where the cooking fires burned and separate rooms along both sides divided by hide or bark partitions. Each family had one room. Inside the family's room was a sleeping and sitting platform with the belongings stored underneath and shelves above to store food. Bearskins were used as bedcovers.
The Iroquois made elmbark canoes. These canoes were not as fast on the water or as maneuverable as birchbark canoes, but they were sturdier and could even be used as ladders to climb over the walls of enemy camps.
Today, the Iroquois live on reservations (called "reserves" in Canada) in modern housing and use cars and buses for everyday transportation. Health problems typical to all Native North Americans affect the Iroquois: diabetes, alcoholism, depression.
FAMILY LIFE
The Iroquois are matrilineal and matrilocal (lineage is inherited through the mother and newly married couples live near the bride's family). The extended family is very important to the Iroquois. The main unit of society in traditional times was the ohwachira, a group of relatives who trace their ancestry back to one woman. The eldest living woman was usually the head of the ohwachira. Two or more ohwachiras make up a clan. The Mohawk and Oneida had three clans: Turtle, Bear, and Wolf. The other Iroquois nations had these three clans and more, such as Beaver, Deer, and Hawk. Children in a matrilineal, matrilocal society are raised by their mother and her sisters and brothers, not by their father. Men helped raise their sisters' children, not their own.
Adoption of children and adults was common among the Iroquois. Enemy captives were sometimes adopted into a clan to keep it strong. Most captives were glad to be adopted because they could not return to their homes, having lost respect among the members of their former community by allowing themselves to be captured.
Women were expected to give birth quietly and with courage. To cry or scream during labor, no matter how painful it was, was very bad form. Babies spent most of the first year of their life strapped to a cradleboard, a flat board with a footrest at the bottom and a wooden hoop to protect the baby's head at the top. Cradleboards could be carried on the mother's back or propped against a tree or house while the mother was working. Cattail fluff was used for diapers.
Once the Iroquois were confined to reservations, family life began to change. Nuclear family units began to live in separate houses, rather than together with their cousins, etc., in a longhouse. With the extended family no longer on the premises to help with childrearing, and European-dominated education that taught that the patrilineal European culture was superior to matrilineal Native North American culture, men became the heads of families rather than women. Traditional-ists among the Iroquois continue to struggle to maintain the old ways with matrilineal extended families and a strong clan system. But, swimming against the tide of modern Western European culture is difficult.
CLOTHING
Modern Iroquois wear Western-style clothing for everyday purposes. For ceremonies and festivals and to make a statement at activist demonstrations, they will wear traditional clothing.
Traditionally, Iroquois clothing was made from animal skins and furs. The men brought home the skins and the women prepared them by removing the hair and flesh with a stone scraper, soaking the hide in boiled deer brains to soften it, then drying and smoking it to make it durable. The leather was then stitched together with sinew. The fur was left on beaver, bobcat, and squirrel skins for warmth and decoration.
Both men and women wore a soft deerskin loincloth in the summer and leather moccasins. Both sexes were generally bare from the waist up in warm weather. In cooler weather, men wore kilts and women wore longer skirts. Both wore leggings and close-fitting, hip-length shirts with sleeves. In the bitter cold of winter, they wore cloaks or robes made of bear, deer, buffalo, or beaver skins, with the fur left on. Clothing was often embroidered with dyed moose hair and porcupine quills.
Adults painted their bodies with figurative or geometrical designs, using paint made from natural materials, such as red and yellow ochre, bloodroot, and charcoal, mixed with sunflower seed oil. They wore fur and feather caps and collars and jewelry made of feathers, animal teeth, bone, and shell beads. Women wore their hair in a single braid down the back. Men's hairstyles varied. Warriors preferred the "scalp lock" (today often called a "Mohawk"), where the head was shaved bald except for a strip of hair down the center.
After the Europeans arrived, the Iroquois began to wear woolen clothes and to decorate their clothing with glass beads, both obtained in trade with Europeans or other tribes who had traded with the Europeans.
FOOD
The Iroquois have been farmers since the beginning of their history. Women traditionally did all the planting, tending, and harvesting of crops, while the men supplemented the diet by hunting and fishing. The only crop grown by men was tobacco, used in religious ceremonies. The women also gathered wild plums, grapes, cherries, berries, crabapples, and nuts (chestnuts, black walnuts, and hickory nuts). In the late winter and early spring, maple sap was collected and boiled down into syrup and sugar. This was the only sweetener available to early Iroquois. Corn, squash, and beans were the staple foods, referred to as "the Three Sisters," daughters of Mother Earth. Corn was called "our life," and squash was "supporter of life." Dried corn was often boiled with wood ashes to add nutrition and help loosen the hulls. Once the hulls were removed, the remaining corn, called hominy, was washed and boiled until tender. The Iroquois usually only ate one large meal a day, at midmorning (what would now be called "brunch"), though food was available throughout the day.
John Bartram visited the Iroquois in 1743 and later described a feast they served him, consisting of a corn and fish soup, boiled squash and squash blossoms, and corn dumplings with beans. A modern version of Iroquois corn and fish soup can be made as follows:
Iroquois Soup
4 large mushrooms, sliced
1 medium onion, peeled and thinly sliced
2 (10½ oz.) cans beef consommé
Dash black pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons yellow corn meal
1 (12 oz.) package frozen haddock fillets
2 tablespoons minced parsley
1 (10 oz.) package frozen baby lima beans
1 clove garlic, crushed
1/3 cup dry sherry (optional)
½ teaspoon basilHeat corn meal, consommé, mushrooms, garlic, parsley, and seasonings in a large saucepan. Once the liquid boils, reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes without covering. Add remaining ingredients (optional). If haddock is added, break into bite-size pieces as the soup continues to simmer, and stir occasionally. Simmer about 20 more minutes and serve hot. Makes 4-6 servings.
(Adapted from Kimball and Anderson, The Art of American Indian Cooking. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Co., 1965, p. 169.)
EDUCATION
Traditionally, Iroquois children learned the skills they needed to survive in their world by watching and participating in life with their parents, relatives, and other adults. The Iroquois were first introduced to Western European education by French priests at Quebec in 1608. The priests first tried going to the Native North American villages and learning the Native language so that they could then teach the Natives French culture and Christianity. The Natives simply ignored them. So the priests then tried taking young Native North Americans back to France to educate them there. The idea was that when these young European-educated Natives returned to their villages in North America, they would act as role models for the rest of their community. Instead, the young people found it impossible to adapt to such a foreign life in Europe, and when they returned they no longer fit in with their traditional society because they had not learned the skills necessary to survive there. So they became marginalized in both cultures and often turned to alcohol for comfort, becoming depressed alcoholics rather than role models.
The French priests decided then to send Native North American children to Roman Catholic boarding schools, but most of the children ran away from the schools, and their parents did not encourage them to return. Finally, the French set up reserves (known as "reservations" in the United States); each with a school, Christian church, and missionary hospital, then forced the Native North Americans to relocate there. The French hoped that the Natives would become acculturated to European ways by living on these reserves. Instead, the reserves became institutions of segregation, separating Native North Americans from the rest of European society (and vice versa). The Native peoples became even more resistant to adopting European ways as a result of their enforced segregation.
The Iroquois were never inclined to adopt Christianity or European ways, at least not in large numbers. A few Iroquois did become Christian, and surface accoutrements, such as Western-style clothing, have become standard. Educationally, the Iroquois have done fairly well in recent decades at making the European-dominated system work for them. Lloyd Elm (1934–), an Onondaga educator and administrator, served as the education programs specialist in the Office of Indian Education at the U.S. Department of Education in Washington, D.C., from 1976–1981. Prior to that, he served on the board of directors for the National Education Association (1973–1974), and he now serves on the New York State Board of Regents (which oversees all education in New York).
Of Iroquois 25 years old and older in 1990, only 10.4% have less than a ninth grade education. Almost 72% (71.2% of men, 72.5% of women) are at least high school graduates, and over 41% have some college education. Only a fourth of those actually finish college—11.3% (11.2% of men, 11.5% of women) have a Bachelor of Arts degree or higher.
School enrollment is fairly high for primary and middle school students, but falls off somewhat in secondary school and falls drastically in college.
| AGE | PERCENT ENROLLED IN SCHOOL IN 1990 |
| 3–4 | 29.9 |
| 5–14 | 94.5 |
| 15–17 | 89.9 |
| 18–19 | 59.0 |
| 20–24 | 28.1 |
CULTURAL HERITAGE
Traditional Iroquois musical instruments are water-drums (drums filled with water to produce a certain pitch), rattles, and the human voice. A modern Iroquois musician is John Kim Bell (1953–), a Mohawk who became the first Native North American symphony conductor when he was hired by the Toronto Symphony in 1980. Bell also produced and co-wrote the orchestral score for the first Native North American ballet, entitled "In the Land of the Spirits." He founded the Canadian Native Arts Foundation in 1988 to provide scholarships to young Native North Americans who wish to pursue training in the arts. Bell was named to the Order of Canada, a medal given by the governor general of Canada in recognition of outstanding merit and achievement.
The Iroquois language never had its own written form, so the oral tradition became strong and rich. Today, Iroquois write both in English and in the Iroquois language written down with the Roman alphabet. Modern Iroquois writers include Beth Brant (1941–), a Mohawk poet and prose author; and E. Pauline Johnson (1861–1913), an early Mohawk poet and performer. Johnson was also one of the first Native North American women to publish short fiction.
The Mohawk actor Jay Silverheels (1912–80) was best known for his portrayal of Tonto, the Lone Ranger's sidekick in the popular 1950s series. (Silverheels was actually the second actor to play Tonto in the series.) He did a great deal of other work in film and was a tireless activist in the areas of alcohol abuse and the elderly. In the 1960s, he founded the Indian Actors Workshop in Hollywood, and in 1979, the year before he died, he became the first Native North American to be awarded a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame.
Other modern Iroquois in show business include Gary Dale Farmer (1953–), a Cayuga actor, producer, and activist; Graham Greene (1950–), an Oneida actor perhaps best known for his portrayal of Kicking Bird in the 1991 film Dances with Wolves, and for his occasional role as Leonard in the television series Northern Exposure; and Joanne Shenandoah, an Oneida actress, singer, and songwriter who founded Round Dance Productions, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving Native North American culture.
WORK
In this modern industrial age, Iroquois (especially Mohawk) men have become famous as high steel construction workers. The work requires the same agility, coordination, and courage as traditional Iroquois occupations, such as hunting and warfare. Iroquois construction workers have traveled all over the U.S. and Canada to build bridges and skyscrapers. The work is very dangerous, and it pays well. Unfortunately, it often separates the men from their families and creates a great deal of stress for everyone—for the men, isolated in large cities, or traveling long distances from home, for weeks or months on end; and for their wives, parents, children, and other loved ones waiting at home, and worrying about their safety.
Many other Iroquois work off-reservation in factories or other industries. Others are professionals, such as teachers, nurses, social workers, doctors, and lawyers. Individual Iroquois have become known for their work as anthropologists, educators, historians, scholars, environmentalists, engineers, journalists, and activists. One well-known 19th-century Seneca, Ely S. Parker (1828–95), became the first Native North American Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Appointed to the post by U.S. president Ulysses S. Grant, a longtime friend of Parker's, he served from 1868 to 1871.
SPORTS
The Iroquois invented the game the French named lacrosse. It is now Canada's national sport. The Iroquois believe that their ancestors gave them the game to develop their endurance and make them great warriors. Boys began learning to play at a very early age. Many Iroquois today still start lacrosse lessons as small children. Lacrosse is played in much the same way as it was centuries ago. Two teams compete to try to move a small ball (traditionally made of wood or deer hide) down the field toward the other team's goal and, finally, into the goal. They carry and throw the ball with long wooden sticks that have a basket at the top, woven from leather thongs. Traditionally, at major festivals each team could have hundreds of men on it and the game could last for hours. Traditional lacrosse was much more violent than today's game. Injuries, often serious ones, were commonplace.
In earlier times children and adults also enjoyed playing a game called "snowsnake," in which a long stick carved and painted to resemble a snake was thrown along an icy path in the snow. The object was to throw it farther than anyone else. Bets were often made on this game. Women played "shinny," a sport resembling today's field hockey.
ENTERTAINMENT AND RECREATION
Entertainment and recreation for the Iroquois is similar to that for the general American population.
FOLK ART, CRAFTS, AND HOBBIES
Iroquois today are known for their soapstone, wood, bone, and antler carvings and sculptures. They also make baskets, lacrosse sticks, and do leather, feather, and bead work.
SOCIAL PROBLEMS
The same problems afflicting other Native North Americans today, such as alcoholism, depression, and suicide, also afflict the Iroquois. They also struggle with the same conflict between traditionalists and progressives. This conflict has become particularly fierce at the Akwesasne Mohawk reservation, which straddles the U.S.–Canada border. Violence erupting between traditional and progressive factions has led to many arrests and even a few killings in recent years. In some places this conflict becomes tangled (or is one and the same) with the conflict between traditionally religious and Christian Iroquois.
The loss of land has been a serious problem for the Iroquois, as with other Native North American peoples. In the 1950s the Seneca lost more than 9,000 acres, forcing 130 families to leave their homes, when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built the Kinzua Dam near Warren, Pennsylvania. Damming the Allegheny River caused waters to flood over Seneca lands. In 1960 the Tuscaroras near Niagara Falls lost a significant amount of land to a public reservoir (an artificial pond or lake, used to store water for public consumption) built by the U.S. government. The Iroquois are currently engaged in many legal battles to regain ancestral lands that were stolen from them during the past two or three centuries by European Americans and Canadians.
GENDER ISSUES
Reciprocal dualism is a governing principle that applies to all of Iroquoian society, including gender relations. For the Iro quois there is a symbolic opposition of the sexes. This opposition is reflected in all aspects of Iroquoian society, including the spatial organization of traditional villages. Women's space includes the village and all of the areas of cleared fields to the edge of the woods. Men's space is the wooded areas.
Within the Iroquois longhouse, the senior living woman is the matriarch who controls the household. All of the individuals living in the household are related by blood or marriage to a common female ancestor. The matrilineal descent group is the primary unit of Iroquois government, since males who hold political office derive their positions through their female relatives.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Matilda Joslyn Gage, the two major theoreticians of the early women's rights movement in the United States, wrote about the superior social, political, religious, and economic status of women among the Iroquois. Their work for women's rights was inspired and influenced by their knowledge of the Iroquois system of gender balance and harmony.
In precontact Iroquois society, individuals who changed gender were accepted; however, the evidence concerning their roles in society is sketchy at best. It is clear that following contact and the conversion of many Iroquois to Christianity, these gender changing individuals were no longer accepted or tolerated. There is evidence that, among the Iroquois, boys who began to demonstrate the characteristics of a woman-man were discouraged to follow the change in gender. As in other tribes where male prestige was based on warlike deeds, the Iroquois did not favor males who followed the female gender.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Champagne, Duane, ed. The Native North American Almanac. Detroit: Gale Research, 1994.
Lang, Sabine. Men as Women, Women as Men: Changing Gender in Native American Cultures. Austin: University of Texas, 1998.
Kimball, Yeffe, and Jean Anderson. The Art of American Indian Cooking. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Co., 1965.
Reddy, Marlita A., ed. Statistical Record of Native North Americans, 2nd ed. Detroit: Gale Research, 1995.
Ridington, Jillian and Robin. People of the Longhouse: How the Iroquoian Tribes Lived. Buffalo, New York: Firefly Books, 1995.
Sherrow, Victoria. The Iroquois Indians. New York: Chelsea House, 1992.
Sneve, Virginia Driving Hawk. The Iroquois. New York: Holiday House, 1995.
Wagner, Sally Roesch. Sisters in Spirit: Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Influences on Early American Feminists. Nashville: Book Publishing Company, 2001.
Waldman, Carl. Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes. New York: Facts on File, 1988.
—by D. K. Daeg de Mott
