Iroquois: People of the Longhouses

Who were the Iroquois? The Iroquois are a group of people that lived in what is now upstate New York. Sometime around 400 years ago the Iroquois people banded together to form a confederacy. A confederacy is an alliance. Their confederacy was made up of five tribes: Oneidas Mohawks Cayugas Senecas Onondagas

Where did the Iroquois live? The Iroquois lived in what is now New York State along the St. Lawrence River. Around 1650, the Iroquois started moving West into Ohio near the Great Lakes. They conquered and drove out other Native Americans already living there.

Encounters with Europeans Around the early 1600s, a small pox epidemic in Virginia killed many Iroquois. At the same time many Europeans in the colonies died of Yellow Fever. The Iroquois liked the glass beads they could get from the Europeans.

How did the Iroquois live? The Iroquois people lived in villages of longhouses, which were large wood-frame buildings covered with sheets of bark. Iroquois longhouses were up to a hundred feet long. Each longhouse would be the home to one clan. A clan is a group of families or a group of people of common descent.

What did the Iroquois eat? The Iroquois were farmers and grew the “Three sisters”, corn, beans and squash. The men hunted deer and elk and fished in the rivers. Boys  were allowed to join the men in hunting after they had killed a deer by themselves. Iroquois meals included cornbread, soups, and stews cooked on stone hearths.

What Language did the Iroquois speak? There were six different languages spoken by the Iroquois nations. These languages are all related to each other, just as the European languages Spanish, French, and Italian are all related to each other.

What did the Iroquois do? Iroquois men were in charge of hunting, trading, and war. Iroquois women were in charge of the family and the farming. Iroquois clans were ruled by women, who made all the land and resource decisions for each clan. But the chiefs, who made military decisions and trade agreements, were always men.

What did Iroquois kids do? Girls learned skills such as farming and making clothes from their mothers and other women in the camp. Boys role-played as hunters and warriors using small bows and arrows, testing their skills by shooting at targets or small animals and birds. Boys were trained for war at an early age.

What is Lacrosse? Lacrosse was created by Native Americans and is considered America’s first sport. The French adapted the game and it gained popularity in Canada. Lacrosse is a combination of soccer, basketball, and hockey. Lacrosse was played with a stick and a ball made of deerskin, baked clay or stone. Playing Lacrosse was good preparation for war. Some games had as many as 1000 people playing. The playing field could be as long as 15 miles and the games could go on for days. Lacrosse is still played in high schools and colleges in the U.S.

What Tools did the Iroquois use?  Iroquois hunters used bows and arrows. Iroquois fishermen used spears and fishing poles. In war, Iroquois men used their bows and arrows or fought with clubs, spears and shields. Other important tools used by the Iroquois included stone adzes (hand axes for woodworking), flint knives for skinning animals, and wooden hoes for farming. The Iroquois were skilled woodworkers, steaming wood so they could bend it into curved tools.

What did the Iroquois wear? The Iroquois made most of their clothing from deerskin. The women wore skirts, vests, and moccasins. They decorated their clothes with porcupine quills and beads. The women made necklaces of beads and animal teeth. The Iroquois men wore deerskin breechcloths during the hot summer. In the cold weather they wore leather leggings and tunics. The men wore moccasins made of leather or corn husks.

How did the Iroquois Travel? When they wanted to travel by water they used elm bark canoes that they had dug out. They also used dogs as pack animals like the Plains Indians. The Iroquois were not a horse culture. The Spanish brought horses to the Americas much later. During the winter months the Iroquois used snow shoes and sleds. In the late 1600s, colonial governments hired the Iroquois to deliver mail along the Iroquois Trail between Albany and Buffalo, New York. It took the runners three days to deliver the mail.

Iroquois Art       The Iroquois were known for their mask carvings. They considered this a sacred art form and some non- Iroquois are not permitted to see some of the old masks. Intricate quillwork and beadwork are common to the Iroquois. The Iroquois also made wampam beads out of colored shell beads. Contrary to popular belief, Wampam beads were not traded as a kind of currency . Only the colonists used Wampum as money.   Wampum is a symbol of the founding of the Iroquois Confederacy.  If a person tried to deliver a message without the wampum they were not often believed.  The wampum often had a story woven into it.  Therefore the wampum helped the reader know what the story was about. Designs on wampum belts told the story of the clan.

Iroquois Music The Iroquois played drums filled with water to give them a distinct sound, different from other tribes in the area. Most Iroquois music is very rhythmic and consists mostly of drumming and singing. Flutes were used to woo women in the Iroquois tribes. An Iroquois man would play romantic music outside his girlfriend's longhouse at night to show her he was thinking about her.

Iroquois Relations with other Tribes The Iroquois Indians were fierce warriors who fought with most of the other eastern tribes. The Iroquois tribes also engaged in trade with their neighbors. Iroquois traders exchanged corn, tobacco and woodcrafts for furs and quahog shells. In the middle of the 17th century, the Iroquois fought a series of bloody wars called the Beaver Wars. The Iroquois were trying to expand their territory and monopolize the fur trade. A monopoly is the exclusive control of a good or service. The fighting over territory and trade pitted the Iroquois against the French. During the American Revolution, many Iroquois joined with the British against the American colonists.

What Customs did the Iroquois Have? The Iroquois honored the dead by placing them on a scaffold and lighting a fire underneath. If there was no sign of life after ten days the fire was put out and the body was buried. People were buried along with their personal belongings. If the people had to move for some reason they collected the skeletons and reburied them in their new home.

Iroquois Legends Story telling was an important part of Iroquois culture. The Iroquois people hold a great respect for all animals and they figured prominently in their stories. The Niagara Falls, (Thundering Waters)  are the most sacred waters of the Iroquois people, and a focus of many of their legends. For hundreds of years the Iroquois believed that the sound of the waterfall was the voice of the mighty spirit of the waters.

Where are the Iroquois today? The total number of Iroquois today is difficult to establish. About 45,000 Iroquois lived in Canada in 1995. In the 2000 census, 80,822 people in the United States claimed Iroquois ethnicity, with 45,217 of them claiming only Iroquois background. Tribal registrations in the United States in 1995 numbered about 30,000.