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Christa Van Allen
The Iroquois Confederacy—Story and Significance
Through this topic I will explore the
oral origin stories of the Iroquois Confederacy, key players within its
establishment and how the story impacts Native American tradition even today. I
will give a brief overview of each of the original five tribes, their roles in
the confederacy and in later history some of the document confirmed interactions
with Europeans. I will address the traditional oral version of things and then
the factual evidence of the Iroquois political alliance. I feel it’s important
to study the Native American culture beyond their eventual designation of
displaced minorities.
My first source is the
Encyclopedia of the Haudenosaunee.
Mind you, it is just a surface level examination of specific individuals and how
their names have been passed down through history as roles of responsibility.
One person of particular focus will be Jigonsaseh, the Seneca woman and main
clan mother of the foundational Haudenosaunee. Her crossroads-located longhouse
was a place of sanctuary where she would host travelers from any of the five
tribes and feed them from the same bowl as by tradition that made them kin and
prevented fighting. Some versions of the oral tradition have her confronting the
leader of the Onondaga, Tadodaho, when he was approached to lead the council.
She demanded he change his warlike ways and household cruelty.
The source also contained a lot of
information on Hiawatha and his contributions. He invented Wampum and carried
with him an overall message of compassion for human suffering which made him an
appropriate partner in the Peacemaker’s goals to unite the Iroquois Confederacy.
Additional info from American Indian
Biographies revealed that Hiawatha was Mohawk, and created with some
guidance from the Peacemaker a consolatory ceremony for ritual grief. He was the
first chief to believe in and promote the Peacemaker’s practice of diplomacy and
national council to the other tribes.
The
American Indian History provided the
basics for the social constructs of the Haudenosaunee. They lived in fortified,
agricultural villages and passed down inheritances from mother to daughter.
Power was placed in the hands of Clan mothers, older sensible women. The center
of the culture was the hearth which was a mother and her children. They were
part of an extended family called an Owachira. Two of those made a clan and
eight clans made up a tribe. The League
of Five Nations emerged as early as 1500, but possibly before then, and was
created to pacify the Iroquois speaking tribes and unite them against
neighboring Huron and Algonquin speakers.
I
believe that the topic of the Native Americans deserves more information on
their various coalitions. The Iroquois are but one potential avenue for this.
All too often history only bothers to connect as far as when the Europeans made
land fall and interacted with the Indians, but the culture goes further on then
creation myths and trade deals. To truly understand the loss of a culture, you
must study what they had. Doing so prevents misconceptions, and delivers the
false scribes of history to the judgement of modernity. This understanding is
the first step to proper unity within the United States.
Works Cited
Barrett, Carole A. American Indian History. Salem Press,
2003. Magill's Choice. EBSCOhost.
Encyclopedia of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), Greenwood
Publishing Group, Incorporated, 2000. ProQuest Ebook Central.
Markowitz, Harvey and Carole A. Barrett. American Indian
Biographies. vol. Rev. ed, Salem Press, 2005. Magill's Choice. EBSCOhost.
