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Example research essay topic: League Of The Iroquois Iroquois Indians Tribes - 1,262 words

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Before the white man the story of Iroquois Indians began long before the white explorers, traders, and settlers reached the shores of the New World. The Iroquois originally lived in some unknown part of the North America. According to legend, these Indians were instructed by the Great Spirit to move into the Northeast. There they carved a territory for themselves in the middle of a rival group of Indians, the Algonquins.

The Iroquois settled in beautiful and rich lands of northern New York State. We know this territory today as the area surrounding Lake Ontario, the Five Finger Lakes, and the Saint Lawrence River. The lakes and rivers provided abundant fish, thick woods offered game of many kinds. It was an ideal location but the Iroquois had to fight their neighbors to maintain this new homeland. Fighting became a way of life for the Iroquois in those centuries before the arrival of the white man.

In fact the word Iroquois is the Algonquin word meaning rattlesnake. That name tells how the enemy viewed the Iroquois. The Iroquois called themselves Hodenosaunee (Ho-de-no-saw-ne), meaning the people of the long house. The Iroquois Indians are not one tribe but several; the group includes the Mohawk, the Seneca, the Onondaga, the Oneida, and the Cayuga tribes.

Today these names mark well-known areas of the New York and the northeast. The Iroquois became a Nation of the six tribes after 1715 when the Tuscarora Indians relocated from the south to join them. The Iroquois Indians were constantly fighting; they fought to defend themselves from their enemies. They fought to gain more land or more power. They also fought to avenge themselves in intertribal feuds; they fought as often with each other as they did with unrelated tribes.

The Seneca and the Mohawk tribes were the fiercest among the Iroquois Nation. Their warriors conducted many raids upon other Iroquois tribes as well as upon the rival Algonquin and the Huron. As raiders they could approach like foxes, fight like lions, and disappear like birds. They were masters of the silent ambush in the woods. The League of the Iroquois Nation after centuries of continuous family warfare, the Iroquois were finally united in a great peace. So according to the legend, a holy man named Deganawidah conceived the idea of a union of the five Iroquois tribes.

He had a vision of the tribes united under the sheltering branches of a great tree. At the top of the tree rested a gigantic eagle that would warn the Iroquois of approaching enemies. A Mohawk Indian by the name of Hiawatha heard of Deganawidahs vision and he strongly believed that peace could happen. This Hiawatha traveled from village to village, from tribe to tribe, spreading the message of peace. It took several years, but he was finally successful in his mission. Do not confuse this Hiawatha, with the Indian in Longfellow's poem, that Hiawatha was a fictional character.

In 1570, the Mohawks, Seneca, Onondaga, Oneida, and Cayuga tribes formed a confederacy called the League of the Iroquois, or the League of the Five Nations. This was the first form of democracy in the New World. This was fifty years before the pilgrims landed in Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts. Under the rules of the league, each of the five tribes continued to govern itself.

The task of the Great Council of the league to confer about problems with outside tribes. This governing body made up of 50 members from each tribe, that number has remained the same to this day. After Hiawatha died, another Mohawk on the council never filled his seat. None felt they were worthy to take his place.

People of the Longhouses, the Iroquois Indians are famous for the style of the house they developed. They were called the Longhouse, because is was a long and narrow building that could be from 50 to 150 feet long and from 18 to 25 feet wide. The roof was arched, the walls formed by curved poles, were covered with sheets of bark, these houses had no windows. Many families of a clan lived in one a small space, not much more than a large bunk bed of today. This families bunk was part of two continuous platforms, one above the other and built along each wall. The lower platform is where the whole family slept together under a blanket of bearskin.

The upper level, the family stored its possessions, pots, cradle boards, and weapons. A central hallway ran the length of the longhouse. Small fires burned at many sites along this open space, two families shared each fire for cooking, as well as warmth and light. The smoke from these fires curled upward and out of the building through smoke holes in the roof. If it rained, or snowed these holes were closed. A woman governed each Longhouse.

When an Iroquois couple married, they went to live in the longhouse of the wifes family. All the property belonged to the Iroquois woman, and all power came from her. Each village had many longhouses, depending on the number of people living in the village. A village, usually located high on a riverbank, surrounded with a palisade, a high fence made of pointed, and slender tree trunks. Warriors would stand guard on the palisade day and night. A village had a life of about 10 years.

After the farmlands around the village were no longer fertile, then the people would move on to a new location. On land that was cleared, the Indian woman planted crops of corn, squash, beans, tobacco, and sunflowers. The Iroquois woman also collected wild nuts, fruits, and berries; they made teas from herbs, plants and some trees. They would dry foods by hanging fish, corn, meat, and strips of pumpkin from the ceiling of the longhouse. For the long winter months, vegetables were placed in deep pits that were lined and covered with bark and a final cover of earth secured to store vegetables. Meat was stored in similar ways, except deer skins were used to line and cover the pits.

The men of the tribes were the hunters, in the late fall and early winter, they would spend weeks hunting for game to supply the village with meat for the year ahead. The forests were abundant with deer, bear, wild fowl, and other small animals. They used blowguns, and bows and arrows to hunt. The Staple of life Corn Most Indians of the east, the Iroquois, depended upon corn as their main source of food. They ate corn in soups, breads, and even puddings. Corn and beans made succotash, a favorite food, and corn was served with greens and nuts, flavored with berries or maple sugar.

A pot of food was always on the fire for when they got hungry, but they usually ate once a day, about mid-morning. Reminds me of my grandmothers house, she always had things cooking on her stove. The Iroquois made crafts and canoes. Their canoes were made from elm bark, which was to thick to make swift-running boats. The canoes were ugly and heavy, although the Iroquois were surrounded by waterways; they never made great use of water transportation.

One craft that seemed to be unique to the Iroquois was a burden carrier, it was a frame made of hickory and bass wood fibers. The woman usually carried it on her back and secured it by long straps around her head or shoulders. Mothers to carry a baby used variations of this carrier, and then the carrier was called a cradleboard...


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