Native American Netroots - Iroquois

Red Jacket, Seneca Sachem

Ojibwa — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:10:30 GMT

In 1830 Red Jacket, the most famous Seneca orator, died in New York at the age of 74. Seneca writer, historian, and archaeologist Arthur Caswell Parker described the deathbed scene this way:

"He murmured that his old comrades were around him, some chiding him for his mistakes and urging him to see that there was a task ahead."

Red Jacket was born to the Wolf Clan (since the Seneca are matrilineal he belonged to his mother's clan) and was given the name Otetiani ("He is Prepared") and took the name Sagoyewatha ("He Causes them to be Awake") when he became a chief. His English name, Red Jacket, came from the scarlet coat given to him by the English for fighting on their side during the Revolutionary War.

At the beginning of the Revolutionary War Red Jacket argued for neutrality, but the Seneca, Mohawk, Onondaga, and Cayuga-all part of the larger Iroquois Confederacy-decided to support England. He served with the British forces. During the war he served primarily as a dispatch courier.

During the Revolutionary War, animosity developed between Red Jacket and the Mohawk leader Joseph Brant. Brant alleged that during the Battle of Newtown in 1779, when the Seneca and the Mohawk were allied with the British, Red Jacket had killed a cow, then used the blood to claim that he had killed an American rebel. In the years that followed, Brant would contemptuously refer to Red Jacket as "cow killer."

Red Jacket became the principal spokesperson for the Seneca following the Revolutionary War.

After the Revolutionary War, the United States assumed that since it had defeated the British it had earned the right to superimpose a series of treaties on the Indian nations. In 1784, American negotiators met with the Indian nations of the Iroquois Confederacy at Fort Stanwix. The Americans refused to recognize the Iroquois Confederacy (Six Nations) and insisted on dealing with each nation by itself. The American negotiators were aided by force of arms and by hostages to be used in negotiating the treaty terms. One notable leader was absent from the Fort Stanwix council: the Seneca sachem Red Jacket. According to Arthur Caswell Parker:

"Red Jacket remained aloof, not caring to face the humiliation that would be heaped upon his disorganized and distracted people."

In 1791, the federal government held a council with the Iroquois Six Nations. The American emissary, Timothy Pickering, pressured the Iroquois to provide the United States with warriors for the Indian wars in Ohio. Pickering boasted of American military supremacy and unwittingly insulted the Iroquois. For the Iroquois, public councils were settings which were meant to nurture a friendly, peaceful frame of mind. Councils were to build consensus. This error created an opportunity for Seneca leader Red Jacket to utilize oratory and to create an image for himself as the conservator of hallowed traditions.

In 1792, Red Jacket was among a number of Iroquois leaders who met with President George Washington in Philadelphia. Here he received a large silver medal.

That same year, three Seneca chiefs-Red Jacket, Cornplanter, and Farmer's Brother-attended a council in Ohio with the Shawnee, Miami, Delaware, and Wyandot in which they presented a peace proposal from the Americans. Shawnee leader Painted Pole reminded the Seneca that while the Iroquois were doing nothing, the Shawnee and their allies had defeated the American army twice. Ridiculing the Seneca, the Shawnee hurled the written copy of the American peace proposal into the fire.

In 1794, Red Jacket along with 50 other Iroquois leaders signed the Treaty of Canadaigua in which they ceded much of their land to the United States.

In 1801, the Seneca Council debated the possible sale of a strip of land along the Niagara River to the Americans. The prophet Handsome Lake opposed the sale on the grounds of revelations given to him by angels. His nephew Red Jacket, the speaker of the Seneca Nation, favored the sale. Handsome Lake accused Red Jacket of witchcraft and Red Jacket accused Handsome Lake of manufacturing his visions.

In 1802, a Seneca known as Stiff-Armed George got into a drunken fracas outside of a tavern. He was beaten and pursued, but then pulled a knife and stabbed two non-Indian men, one fatally. Reluctantly, the Seneca chiefs surrendered him to New York state authorities. According to Seneca leader Red Jacket:

"Did we ever make a treaty with the state of New York, and agree to conform to its laws? No. We are independent of the state of New-York."

He then presented the state's governor with a copy of the Treaty of Canandaigua which clearly placed the case in federal jurisdiction. However, the governor wanted to prove state jurisdiction over all of the Indians in New York and the federal government declined to intervene.

In 1805, Seneca chief Red Jacket responded to a Christian missionary's proposal to convert his people:

"You have got our country, but are not satisfied; you want to force your religion upon us."

He went on to say:

"We are told your religion was given to your forefathers and has been handed down from father to son. We also have a religion which was given to our forefathers and has been handed down to us, their children. We worship in that way. It teaches us to be thankful for all the favors we receive, to love each other, and to be united. We never quarrel about religion."

He told the missionary:

"Brother, we do not wish to destroy your religion or take it from you. We only want to enjoy our own."

War broke out between England and the United States in 1812. In New York, the Americans call together a council of the Iroquois nations. The Americans invite the Iroquois to join them in their war against the British. Seneca leader Red Jacket told the Americans:

"My people care more for peace than for war."

According to Arthur Caswell Parker:

"Though Red Jacket argues for the neutrality of his people, he clearly declared their loyalty to the United States."

Red Jacket argued against joining the British and urged his people to ally themselves with the Americans. When the Seneca declared war against the British, Red Jacket became a captain in the United States Army.

In 1816, the Iroquois Six Nations met with the Shawnee, Ottawa, and Wyandot in Ohio to discuss the possibility of the removal of the New York tribes to Ohio. Mohawk leader Joseph Brant felt that it would be a good idea for the Seneca to move to Sandusky where they could join with the Wyandot. Arthur Caswell Parker described the council:

"The chiefs of the Six Nations, long accustomed to the clothing of the white man, were once more dressed in their ancient costumes."

Seneca leader Red Jacket addressed the council and reminded them that those tribes who recently sided with the British had lost a great deal. Red Jacket told them:

"We have always lost by taking up the hatchet. Even the British, upon whom we pinned our hopes, sold our land to the Americans after every war in which we were allied with them."

Red Jacket spoke against selling land to the Americans:

"To command respect, you must possess extensive territory! Keep your holdings sufficiently large so that you may not be crowded on any side by the whites."

In 1819, the Ogden Land Company, with the approval of the federal government, met with the Seneca to discuss buying their land. To watch out for the best interest of the Indians, the government appointed two agents to make sure that the Indians were not cheated or deceived. The Seneca chiefs-Little Billy, Red Jacket, Tall Chief, Young King, Two Skies, Infant, and Destroy Town-listened to the offer which was expressed in glowing terms about its benefit to the Seneca. One of the agents appointed by the government told the Seneca that the President James Monroe felt that it was in their best interest to sell their lands. The Seneca gave in and sold their land for 55 cents an acre and the land company quickly resold it for many times that amount. Arthur Caswell Parker wrote:

"Federal commissioners, delegated to prevent 'cheating of the Indians,' entirely forgot that they might have insisted upon a much higher compensation at a public sale, the profits of which could have been used to benefit these Indians for many years."

In 1821, the Seneca tribal council convicted Kauquatou of sorcery. Acting on behalf of the tribal council Chief Tommy-Jemmy cut Kauquatou's throat. In response, the state of New York prosecuted Tommy-Jemmy for murder. Red Jacket and Tommy-Jemmy's court-appointed attorneys argued that the death of Kauquatou was not murder under New York law because it was a legal execution under Seneca law, on Seneca land, by the sovereign Seneca people. The circuit court referred the case to the New York State Supreme Court which noted that no law extended state murder jurisdiction over the Iroquois.

By 1824, Red Jacket was considered the leader of the Seneca Pagan Party which advocated traditional ways and which opposed both the Long House religion of Handsome Lake and European Christianity.

In 1827 Red Jacket traveled to New York City to talk with the Quakers about providing aid for his people. According to Arthur Caswell Parker:

"Red Jacket trusted few persons other than the stalwart Quakers, who could not be intimidated and who were quick to expose a fraud."

However, the Quakers were involved with helping the Onondaga and did not have any resources with which they could respond to the Seneca request.

While in New York City, Red Jacket agreed to have his portrait painted by R. W. Weir, one of the noted artists of the city. In posing for the painting, Red Jacket dressed in a costume which he felt was appropriate: a caped coat with braid and tassels, a red sash, his Washington medal, and his pipe tomahawk.

In 1827, the Seneca deposed Red Jacket as chief because of his alcoholism and his inflexible political views. Part of the opposition to him stemmed from his involvement with the Pagan Party.

In 1829, Red Jacket once again asked the Quakers for aid. The Quakers provided the Seneca with both farm equipment and sound advice.

Shown above is the Red Jacket Monument at the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo, New York. In 1884, Red Jacket's remains were reburied at this cemetery. Against his wishes, Red Jacket was given a Christian burial.

The Ancestors of the Iroquois

Ojibwa — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 23:59:15 GMT

When the Dutch and the French, and later the English, began to enter into what would become New York State searching for trading partners in the seventeenth century, they encountered a large, well-organized alliance of tribes known as the Iroquois. The League of Five Nations, also known as the Iroquois Confederacy, was composed of five culturally and linguistically similar nations who had come together to promote peace among themselves.

The map above shows the approximate location of the Iroquoian and Algonquian tribes when the Europeans first began to enter the area.
The designation "Iroquois" was given them by the French and was most likely a French mispronunciation of a derogatory term used to describe them by enemy peoples. They call themselves Haudenosaunee which is often translated to mean "People of the Longhouse" and they symbolize their confederacy as a longhouse with five hearth fires. The longhouse is symbolically seen as being oriented west to east, with the Seneca occupying the western door; then the Cayuga, the Onondaga, the Oneida, and, finally, the Mohawk occupying the eastern door.

The map above shows the relative location of the five nations of the Iroquois Confederacy.

A drawing of an Iroquois longhouse is shown above.

Archaeologists have identified the ancestral Iroquoian culture in New York as the Owasco cultural tradition which began to flourish about 900 CE. The Owasco people were farmers whose lives centered on the raising of the Three Sisters: corn, beans, and squash. This vegetable diet was supplemented with a diversified subsistence of fish, game, and wild plants.

With agriculture, the Owasco people tended to be sedentary, living in villages, hamlets, and satellite camps. These ranged in size from a few dozen people to a few hundred people. At the beginning of the Owasco period, these ancestral Iroquois people built their villages in the fertile sites of their fishing grounds, on flood plains or just above on slightly higher terrain. Archaeologists have found numerous cache pits and remains of large vessels in these sites, which suggests that they had a stable and prosperous communal life.

The Owasco villages were made up of a number of longhouses. There was intense warfare between the communities: there was no over-arching political structure at this time.

The phase of Iroquois history called Carpenter Brook Owasco by archaeologists began about 1000 CE. This phase marked the beginning of a shift in settlement patterns from riverine villages to permanent towns located on hilltops.

In 1100 CE, ancestral Iroquoian people began to occupy the Maxon-Derby site. This site was an un-palisaded Owasco village which covered about two acres. It housed a maximum of 200 to 250 people. The people were living in small oblong houses with rounded ends. In addition to the small houses, there are two larger structures, about 60 feet in length, which resemble the later Iroquois longhouses.

By 1140, Owasco people were living at the Sackett site on Arsenal Hill near present day Canandaigua. This village covered more than three acres and was enclosed by an ellipsoidal ditch measuring 343 feet by 202 feet. The Owasco people dug the trench to a depth of two to three feet and to a width of seven to eleven feet. Within the village, the people were living in small wigwams. While there were no longhouses at the site, some of the features in the wigwams, such as narrow shelves or benches around the interior-are features which are found in later Iroquois longhouses.

In 1290, Owasco people established a village at the Chamerlin archaeological site. The village was surrounded by a palisade and contained longhouses which were up to 80 feet in length.

In 1300, the phase of Iroquois history called Oak Hill Iroquois by archaeologists began. During this time, Iroquois settlements were primarily permanent stockaded villages located in defensible sites. By this time, a pattern of village removals and resettlements had been established. Every 25 to 50 years, the villages would outgrow their sites, exhaust soil fertility and firewood, and would move two or three miles away.

In 1400, the phase of Iroquois history called Chance phase Iroquois by archaeologists began. In the Onondaga area there was a village resettlement which resulted in a larger village being fairly close to a smaller village. Having two towns fairly close to each other is a clear indication that they had some type of non-aggression pact and perhaps saw themselves as being part of the same nation and/or political entity.

In 1451, the Iroquois Confederacy-the League of Five Nations-was born when Deganawida, a Huron born of a virgin, crossed the great lake in a stone canoe and began to bring forth his vision of a great peace. Deganawida had a speech defect and had Hiawatha speak for him to the several Iroquoian tribes. As a result of their efforts, the Five Nations-the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk-met and buried the instruments of war and planted a pine tree of peace. The wampum belts recorded:

"I, Deganawida, and the union lords now uproot the tallest pine tree and into the cavity thereby made we cast all weapons of war. Into the depths of the earth, down into the deep underneath currents of water flowing to unknown regions we cast all the weapons of strife. We bury them from sight and we plant again the tree. Thus shall the Great Peace, Kayenarhekowa, be established."

This was the alliance which the French, Dutch, and English encountered in the seventeenth century.

The Iroquois Longhouse

Ojibwa — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 04:36:31 GMT

When the Dutch first travelled up New York's Hudson River to establish trading posts with the Indians they encountered one of the largest and most powerful Indian confederations in North America: the League of Five Nations, also known as the Iroquois Confederacy. The Iroquois were an agricultural people who lived in permanent villages. They used the symbol of their house-the hodensote or longhouse-as the symbol of their confederacy.
The Iroquois Nations:

While the designation "Iroquois" is often used to refer to the Five or Six Nations, it should be remembered that not all Iroquois-speaking nations in the Northeast were members of the League. The Huron, an Iroquois-speaking confederacy located north of the Great Lakes, was the most prominent Iroquois group which did not belong to the Confederacy.
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The territory of the original Iroquois Five Nations is called Iroquoia and that of the Huron is called Huronia. The confederated villages of Iroquoia ranged from the Schoharie river in the east to the Genesee River in the west; the Adirondacks and Lake Ontario marked its northern flank, the headwaters of the Delaware, Susquehanna, and Allegheny marked the south. Huronia lay just north of Lake Ontario and was centered at Georgian Bay.

Pictured above is a map showing the location of the Iroquois-speaking nations and their neighbors.

The above map shows the location of each of the five nations about 1650.

The Huron were a confederacy of four major tribes: Bear, Rock, Barking Dogs, and White Thorns (also known as Canoes). The people called their confederacy Wendat or People of the Peninsula. They were given the name Huron by the French.

The French applied the name Neutral to a number of allied Iroquoian-speaking groups who lived between Huronia and Iroquoia. These groups remained neutral in the hostilities between the Huron and the Iroquois. The Neutral groups include Attiragenrega, Niagagarega, Antouaronons, Kakouagoga, and Ahondihronon.

There were also a number of Iroquoian-speaking tribes located along the Saint Lawrence River at the time of first European contact in 1535. However, by 1603 these tribes had disappeared and a number of Algonquian-speaking groups were living in the area. There are many anthropologists and archaeologists who feel that the Saint Lawrence Iroquois were Oneida-Onondaga who had expanded into the area after 1100 and then retreated back to New York after 1535. Others, however, feel that the Oneida, Onondaga, and Saint Lawrence Iroquois were different groups.

The Longhouse:

The center of Iroquois life and the symbol of the League of Five Nations was the hodensote or longhouse. This was a large structure - up to 300 feet in length - framed with bent saplings and covered with bark. The average longhouse was 60 feet long, 16 feet wide, and 15 feet high.

Shown above is a reconstruction of an Iroquois longhouse.

The longhouse was occupied by a group of matrilineally related families. Each family had its own compartment within the longhouse. For each two families there would be a hearth, usually spaced at about 20 foot intervals. To let the smoke out, there was a smoke hole-a large rectangular opening in the arched roof-covered by a piece of bark which could be moved by a pole from below.

The two families sharing the hearth would live in compartments across the aisle from each other. Each family's room was considered its private domestic space and contained sleeping platforms and shelving for storage. Bunks along the inside wall served as beds at night and as benches during the day. A curtain was hung from a pole above the benches. At night, this curtain, which was sometimes painted, would be dropped down providing the bed with some privacy.

Overhead shelves provided storage space for clothing and baggage. Sometimes, children would also be stowed away in this area. Corn, dried fish, and other dried foods were hung on the overhead poles.

Construction of the longhouse began with two rows of forked poles at about four or five foot intervals. The frame for the arching roof was then formed with bent poles attached to the base poles. The structure was strengthened with rafters and additional transverse poles. The structure was then covered with large sheets of bark, usually from cedar, elm, ash, basswood, fir, and spruce. The bark was stripped from the trees in the spring when the sap was flowing.

The longhouse had a door of animal hide or of hinged bark at either end. Over the front door there would be a panel carved or painted with the clan symbols of the families who lived there. Since the clan was matrilineal - traced through the mother - the women owned the houses.

The inside of the longhouse tended to be noisy, crowded, and smoky. The first Jesuits to describe the longhouses reported an abundance of fleas and lice, which they believed were the result of children urinating on the floor.

Villages:

A drawing of an Onondaga village is shown above.

Iroquois villages were usually near streams or rivers. A small Iroquois village might have only four or five longhouses, while a large village would have more than 100. The larger villages were sometimes called "castles" by the European immigrants and had populations of about 3,000 people.

The population of an Iroquois village varied greatly according to the season. During the summer, villages would be nearly abandoned. Men would often leave the village during the summer for extended hunting, fishing, and warring expeditions. Women and children would move to small cabins closer to the fields so that they could tend the crops.

While the Iroquois lived in permanent villages, meaning that these villages were occupied year-round, villages tended to move on a regular basis. After about ten years the farmlands adjacent to the village would begin to become exhausted and crop yields would fall. In addition, it was difficult to keep bark-covered homes up for long periods of time. After about a decade, it was harder to clean and repair the house.

Among the Huron, village size rarely exceeded 1,500 to 2,000 inhabitants. One of the limiting factors was the rapidity with which local resources-firewood being a major concern-were used up. Disputes within a village would sometimes result in a fissioning of the village.

Between the longhouses and around the perimeters of the Iroquois villages were refuse dumps which contained large amounts of organic waste. These conditions would attract blood-feeding insects, like ticks and mosquitoes. It addition, the waste was attractive to scavenging dogs and rodents.

When the villages were moved, not everyone moved at the same time nor to the same location. People were free to move when they wanted and where they wanted. Some people would move to different communities and some to a new location. It would take several years for a village to be completely abandoned.

Iroquois villages were often stockaded and located in easily defensible high places near water. The stockade was made from logs and was often 15 to 20 feet in height. Often the stockades were made in double, triple, and even quadruple lines which were interlaced and reinforced with heavy bark. Some villages had a deep ditch surrounding the village as an additional defense line. On the top of the stockade would be piles of stones which could be thrown down at attackers, and jars of water which could be used to put out fires caused by burning arrows.

A typical village might enclose from five to ten acres within the palisade and would use several hundred acres outside of the palisade for farming.

Iroquois Spirituality

Ojibwa — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 15:36:04 GMT

Long before the Europeans arrived on this continent there was born to the Huron people a man who had a vision of bringing peace to his people. In his vision he saw a great pine tree. The roots of this tree were five powerful nations. From these roots, the tree grew so high that its tip pierced through the sky and on top there was an eagle watching to see that none of the nations broke the peace among them. This Peacemaker was a man named Deganawida (also spelled Deganawidah).
The Iroquois Nations:

According to oral tradition, Deganawida named each of the allied nations, choosing a place as the distinguishing feature of nationality:

Seneca: the big hill people, or the people of the big mountain

Cayuga: the people at the landing, in reference to portaging a canoe

Mohawk: the people of the flint, in reference to the flint quarries in their territory

Onondaga: the people of the hill, in reference to the hill where a woman long ago had appeared to give the people corn, beans, squash, and tobacco

Oneida: the people of the standing stone, in reference to the supernatural stone which followed them

Deganawida's vision, articulated through the great Mohawk orator Hiawatha, united five Iroquois-speaking nations - the Seneca, the Cayuga, the Onondaga, the Oneida, and the Mohawk- into the League of Five Nations. Later the Tuscarora would join them to form the League of Six Nations. The League is also called the Iroquois Confederacy. They refer to themselves as Haudenosaunee (People of the Longhouse).

Iroquois Spirituality:

The Iroquois tribes, like many other Indian cultures, viewed themselves as a part of nature: neither subordinate to it nor in dominion over it. Seneca archaeologist Arthur Caswell Parker, in his biography of Red Jacket, writes:

"Life was like water; it flowed on like a river and then entered a great sea and mingled in a vast pool of life. Old age was like a tree whose branches had been broken by storms and whose trunk had become weather-beaten and decayed. Good words were like flowers that bloomed and bore seed that lived on after the flowers had withered."

In maintaining harmony with the world, individuals had guardian spirits to aid them. Everyone-especially young men-found a special guardian spirit at puberty. Great emphasis was given to individual contact with the spirit world. To obtain spiritual aid, people would fast and/or give gifts of tobacco to the spirits. Humans share the natural world with spirit powers and it is important to communicate with these spirit powers.

Everything has a soul. This includes the plants, the animals, the lakes, the rivers, the rocks, and the forces of nature. All things have power to communicate their will and to influence human experience to some degree. In a generalized form, spiritual power is called orenda.

One of the most important aspects of Iroquois spirituality is the dream. Writing in 1668 about the Seneca, the Jesuit missionary Father Fremin observed:

"The Iroquois have, properly speaking, only a single Divinity-the dream. To it they render their submission and follow all its orders with the utmost exactness."

With regard to spiritual beliefs, the Iroquois believed that all living things were filled with an essence called orenda. Dreams were the main form of contact between orenda and human beings. Individuals would fast and pray to obtain a vision. Dreams expressed the desires of the most inner realm of the soul. The fulfillment of a dream was absolutely essential.

As with tribes in other culture areas, the Iroquois also had a vision quest. Young people were expected at puberty to engage in the vision quest in order to seek out a personal guardian spirit. This guardian spirit was usually associated with the person's new and sacred name.

Dreams could also tell of the future, providing advice on what to do and not do. Dreams were taken into account at council meetings. In addition, it was common for trade, hunting, fishing, and war expeditions to be organized in response to a dream.

In mid-winter, the Iroquois would hold a dream festival. During this time, old fires would be put out and new fires would be lighted.

Among the Huron, each person has two souls: one of these souls animates the body and one soul extends beyond physical activities. In sleep, one soul communicates with spirits and with other human souls. When this soul returns to the body, dreams are the way in which the soul's experiences are communicated. It was essential to reenact these dream adventures in order to unify the two souls and make each person whole again. The failure to do this would result in serious illness which could impact the entire village.

The Iroquois False Face Society

Ojibwa — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 04:43:29 GMT

^{photo credit: Aaron Huey}

Among many cultures around the world there are two kinds of illness. First are those which have a clear physical cause, such as a broken arm. Then there are those for which the cause is less readily apparent. Curing these illnesses often involves ceremonies and spirituality.
The Iroquois tribes have a number of different medicine societies which can perform different curing rites. The Little Water Society, for example, dealt with general illness and was usually called in when the patient had had a vision of the dwarf spirits (that is, the Little People). The healing rite would begin by placing tobacco on the fire and calling for the spirits of the dwarfs.

In cases of an illness which modern physicians call dementia, the Bear Society would be called in. In their healing rites, the members would dance counter clockwise around the patient.

There were times when the patient would not improve after the ceremony from the healing society. In cases of serious illness when other medicine societies have failed to bring about a cure the Wooden False Face Society would be called in. This society dates back to a time during creation when the world was ruled by mythical beings.

The wooden False Face masks are made from white pine, maple, basswood, and poplar. To make a mask, the features are first carved in a living tree. During the process of carving the mask and cutting it free, a prayer is addressed to the evolving mask and to the spirit forces which it represents. The mask is then painted and adorned with horse hair. The new mask is consecrated to human service by placing it in the hot coals and ashes of the longhouse fire.

All of the masks are characterized with distorted features and deep-set eyes. The noses are bent and crooked. The masks are generally painted red and black and have pouches of tobacco tied onto the hair above their foreheads. With regard to the symbolism of the masks, they portray the Great Doctor, dwelling at the world's rim, whose broken nose and twisted mouth derive from a mythical struggle with the Creator for control of the world. The masks also symbolize the forest-dwelling 'Common-faces' seen in dreams. In addition, some of the masks are beggar masks which caricature neighbors and strangers alike.

The masks are not artifacts, but living representations of a spirit. One of the rules governing the care of the masks is the need to periodically anoint them with a mixture of sunflower seed oil and animal grease. At the same time the masks are fed white corn mush. In payment for their services tobacco is burned for them and small bags of tobacco are tied to them.

Members of the Wooden False Face Society might be called at any time of day or night to perform ceremonies for those who are ill. Upon recovery, the patient is expected to join the False Face Society. The actual curing ceremony is sacred and is not to be shared with those outside of the society.

Traditionally, the Wooden False Face Society would perform two community rituals each year. During this ceremony, the story of the False Faces is told. The members of the society, wearing their masks, then go through the community, entering the houses and driving out all sickness, disease, and evil.

At the present time, there are several concerns about the False Face masks. First, there are a number of non-Iroquois artists who are making what they call False Face masks and selling them to the general public. Second, a number of False Face masks are in the hands of private collectors who do not care for them in the traditional manner. The Iroquois have called for collectors and museums to return the masks to the tribes so that they can be cared for in a respectful manner. The National Museum of the American Indian has returned a number of these items. The Iroquois Traditionalists Society opposes the sale of False Face masks to private collectors and museums.

No photos of the False Face masks are shown in this diary as public display of the masks and photographs of them is considered improper by the Iroquois people.

The Tuscarora and the Iroquois League

Ojibwa — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 03:58:37 GMT

Long before the arrival of the English and French colonists in North America, five autonomous tribes had come together to form an alliance known as the League of Five Nations, or the Iroquois Confederacy. The five member nations were the Onondaga, the Cayuga, the Oneida, the Mohawk, and the Seneca. The purpose of the League was to renounce warfare among the member nations and to present a unified front against other nations. The League was created because of the spiritual vision of one man-Deganawida-and the speaking ability of another-Hiawatha. With the arrival of the French and English colonists in the American Northeast, the League became an important trading partner and power broker.

In 1722 the League of Five Nations became the League of Six Nations when the Tuscarora were admitted to membership. The expansion of the League to include the Tuscarora was brought about by conflicts with the English settlers.
In 1710, the Tuscarora had the Susquahannock tribe carry a formal petition of peace to the English Provincial Government of Pennsylvania. As a result, two peace commissioners from Pennsylvania met with the Tuscarora chiefs as well as Opessa, the Shawnee head chief at Conestoga. The Tuscarora chiefs delivered eight wampum belts to the English. The first belt was from the women who asked that they might be able to fetch wood and water without danger. The second belt was from the children, including those not yet born, asking for room to play without the fear of death or slavery. The third belt was from the young men who ask to be able to hunt without the fear of death or slavery. The rest of the belts asked for a lasting peace and for a way of communicating with Pennsylvania.

The Pennsylvania commissioners did not give the requests a favorable reception. At this time, the English did not see the Tuscaroras as presenting any sort of threat. There was no war between the Tuscarora and the English colonists; there had been no massacre by the Tuscarora. The English felt that there was no reason to agree to peace.

A year later, British traders from North Carolina encouraged the Yamasee and the Creek to attack the Tuscarora. In addition, the British traders supplied guns to the Cherokee with the understanding that these guns would be used against the Tuscarora.

It was not just the English colonists who were creating problems for the Tuscarora. In 1711, Swiss Baron Christoph von Graffenried founded the colony of New Bern on Tuscarora land in North Carolina without obtaining Tuscarora consent or paying them for it. The Tuscarora, angered by the European land developers who paid little attention to Tuscarora land and to their treaties, captured a surveying party who were laying out the new colony. The captured men were taken to the Tuscarora town of Catechna and tried before a council of chiefs. One of the men, the provincial surveyor-general, was condemned to death and executed.

The Tuscarora attacked the Swiss settlement, killing nearly 200, including 80 children. Concerned about slave-raids from English traders, the Tuscarora expanded the war by raiding frontier farms. A number of other tribes joined with the Tuscarora in their war against the European invaders.

By 1712, the Tuscarora were involved in a full-scale war against the Europeans colonists in Virginia and the Carolinas. The colonists were regularly attacking Tuscarora villages, killing hundreds, and capturing many Indians who were sold into slavery. The colonists also recruited the Catawba and other tribes in their war of Tuscarora extermination. The English were motivated by their greed for Tuscarora land as well as the profits which could be made through the sale of Tuscarora slaves. The newly captured slaves were generally shipped to the Caribbean slave markets.

The Tuscarora sent wampum belts north to the Iroquois Five Nations asking for help in their fight against the colonists. When the governor of New York heard of this request, he warned the Iroquois not to get involved. The Iroquois promised to ask the Tuscarora to stop fighting if the governor would ask the colonists to put down their arms.

In 1713, a unified force of 800 Creek, Cherokee, and Catawba, together with 100 colonial volunteers from South Carolina, attacked the Tuscarora fortified town of Noeheroka. The attacking force took 192 scalps and 392 slaves.

By 1713, the colonists had defeated the Tuscarora, and settlers began taking not only Tuscarora lands, but also the lands of tribes which had aided the colonists in their war against the Tuscarora. As a result, many Tuscarora families begin to move north and seek shelter in Iroquois communities in Pennsylvania. The following year, a group of about 500 Tuscarora families, fleeing from North Carolina and Virginia, sought refuge among the Iroquois in New York.

When the Iroquois met with the colonial governor of New York in 1718 to renew the Covenant Chain (a trading agreement), the Iroquois expressed their concern that the English were planning to take over their lands as they had done with the Tuscarora. The English explained that the Tuscarora lost their land because they attacked the colonists in the Carolinas. To ease Iroquois fears, the governor gave the Iroquois a quantity of gun powder as a gift.

In 1722, the Tuscarora formally joined the Iroquois and the League of Five Nations becomes the League of Six Nations. As a member of the League, the Tuscarora are considered the younger brothers of the Cayuga. Their chiefs were not sachem chiefs within the league and thus the number of chiefs who sat in council did not change. In New York, the Tuscarora maintained their village between the Oneida and Onondaga villages.

The Iroquois Confederacy

Ojibwa — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 16:15:26 GMT

In 1987, the United States Senate passed a resolution which acknowledged the contribution of the Iroquois Confederacy of Nations to the development of the United States Constitution. Furthermore, the resolution acknowledged the historical debt which the United States owes to the Iroquois Confederacy and to other Indian nations for the demonstration of enlightened, democratic principles of government.
The Iroquois Confederacy, also known as the League of Five Nations and as the League of Six Nations, was formed in 1451. Deganawida, a Huron prophet, had a vision for bringing peace to the world and so he crossed the great lake in a stone canoe so that he could tell the people about his vision. However, there was a problem: Deganawida had a speech defect, a serious problem among Indian nations who held oratory in high esteem. Fortunately, he encountered the great Onondaga orator Hiawatha and convinced him to carry the message of peace to the Indian nations.

As a result of Hiawatha's work, five autonomous Indian nations-- the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk-met and buried the instruments of war. Over the hole into which they threw their hatchets, they planted a pine tree of peace. The Iroquois wampum belts recorded:

"I, Deganawida, and the union lords now uproot the tallest pine tree and into the cavity thereby made we cast all weapons of war. Into the depths of the earth, down into the deep underneath currents of water flowing to unknown regions we cast all the weapons of strife. We bury them from sight and we plant again the tree. Thus shall the Great Peace, Kayenarhekowa, be established."

Ne Gayaneshagowa or the "Great Binding Law" became the constitution for the Haudenosounee or League of Five Nations. The new League was essentially a non-aggression pact among the five nations. The great law is based upon three great double doctrines or principles (six principles in all). The first principle stresses: (a) health of mind and body, and (b) peace among individuals and groups. The second principle stresses: (a) righteousness in conduct, including advocating this righteousness in thought and speech, and (b) equality in the adjustment of rights and obligations. The third principle stresses: (a) physical strength, power, and order, and (b) spiritual power (orenda).

The council for the League is based upon the concept of representational democracy. There were originally 50 offices filled from the member nations: 14 from the Onondaga, 10 from the Cayuga, 9 from the Oneida, 9 from the Mohawk, and 8 from the Seneca. The men who fill these offices are known as sachems.

It was the women who first accepted the message of Deganawida,. Therefore the women had a great deal of authority. The sachems were to be selected by the clan mothers. Women also had the right to initiative, recall, and referendum.

Power in the League was seen as flowing upward, from the families to the council, rather than from the council to the families. With regard to the sachems, Deganawida is said to have advised the sachems that their skin should be seven thumbs thick so that no outrageous criticism or evil magic could pierce them.

At the meetings of the League, each of the delegates from the Five Nations sat at assigned places in accordance with their position in the confederacy. As firekeepers, the Onondaga would give the topic for discussion first to the Mohawk and Seneca. The Mohawk would then discuss the matter among themselves and then refer it to the Seneca. After discussing the issue, the Seneca would return the item to the Mohawk who would hand the item across the fire to the Younger Brothers. It would then be discussed by the Oneida and then by the Cayuga. The Oneida would then hand it back across the fire to the Mohawk who would announce the combined opinion to the Onondaga.

While speaking, the speaker would hold a wampum belt which would then be handed to the tribe being addressed. The wampum belt was a sacred substance and thus confirmed the earnest importance of a message. Without accompanying wampum, words were considered frivolous.

Traditionally, an issue would be introduced at the council on one day, but not discussed that day. At some later time it would be discussed. It is tradition that the issued be slept with prior to discussing. In practice, this allowed the sachems, who were men, to discuss the issue with their clan mothers. When they met again in council, they would speak words that reflected the wisdom of these clan mothers.

One important Iroquois custom was to document their words with wampum belts. All agreements were accompanied by wampum belts which symbolized the important points of the agreement. At later times, the belts would be brought out and "read" if the agreement needed to be discussed again.

In order to record what was said in council, the Sachem presiding over the meeting would have a handful of small sticks. A stick would be given to one of the Sachems present so that the person with the stick would be responsible for remembering what the speaker said.

In 1722, the Tuscarora petitioned the Iroquois Confederacy for membership and the League of Five Nation thus became the League of Six Nations.

During the 18th century, the English-speaking colonists were very aware of the Iroquois form of government. In 1744, representatives from the Iroquois League of Six Nations met with Pennsylvania government officials to discuss a number of matters of mutual concern. At this conference the Onondaga sachem Canassatego told the colonists, including Benjamin Franklin, that the colonies should form a confederacy similar to that of the League of Six Nations. Canassetego told them:

"Our wise forefathers established union and amity between the Five Nations; this has made us formidable, this has given us great weight and authority with our neighboring Nations. We are a powerful Confederacy, and by your observing the same methods our wise forefathers have taken, you will acquire fresh strength and power."

In 1751, Benjamin Franklin, in an attempt to encourage a union of the colonies, noted the success of the Iroquois League of Six Nations and suggested that this might be the governmental model for the colonies. Franklin wrote:

"It would be a very strange thing if Six Nations of ignorant savages should be capable of forming a scheme for such a union, and be able to execute it in such a manner, as that it has subsisted for ages, and appear indissoluble; and yet that a like union should be impracticable for ten or a dozen English colonies, to whom it is more necessary and must be more advantageous, and whom cannot be supposed to want an equal understanding of their interests."

Again in 1754, Benjamin Franklin pleaded with the American colonists to emulate the Iroquois and form a government based on representational democracy.

In 1775, as the war broke out between the American colonists and the English, the Iroquois again advised the colonists to form a union similar to their League. The Continental Congress later referred openly to the Iroquois ideas of government. In a letter to the Iroquois from the Congress signed by John Hancock:

"The Six Nations are a wise people. Let us harken to their council and teach our children to follow it."

The Iroquois gave John Hancock the name of Karanduawn which means "Great Tree."

In 1781, the United States adopted the Articles of Confederation which called for a weak central government and powerful states. Benjamin Franklin envisioned the new country's structure as being modeled on that of the Iroquois League. In 1787 the U.S. Constitution was adopted which was loosely inspired by the Iroquois concept of representational democracy.