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An essay about Iroquois
An essay about Iroquois
An essay about Iroquois
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The Iroquois includes many Indian tribes speaking a language of the Iroquoian family, such as the Huron, Mohawk, Onondaga, and Seneca among others. However, the Huron is often spoken of separately. The Iroquois differs from the Iroquois Confederacy, also known as the Iroquois League. All of them were affected by the arrival and colonization by Europeans. While Iroquois have a reputation of being violent, they were at times peaceful and were employed by different European companies; they also spread their culture and some European ideas with them. The Iroquois League has been said to have influenced the Founding Fathers, but is that true? Another question is whether the Iroquois were cannibals. They believed in witchcraft, but witchcraft …show more content…
They were warlike and went out on expeditions to places in New Brunswick, Massachusetts, parts of Maine, and the north shore of Lake Huron. Excursions have been documented all the way to Ohio-Mississippi valley. “’The character of all these [Iroquois] Nations is warlike and cruel,’ wrote Jesuit missionary Paul Le Jeune in 1657.” (Richter, 528) They had different purposes for war than Europeans did. Thus, since the Europeans did not understand the similarities and differences, they were called savage. The Iroquois did not wage war all the time though. The Hudson Bay Company and the Northwestern Fur Company employed Iroquois as canoe men; they were also employed by private enterprises connected with the fur trade or exploration. The Iroquois employed by the Hudson Bay Company “are reputed to have been the most expert in the country, and many stories are told of their skill and spirit of adventure.” (Chamberlain, 460) They also hunted beaver for corporations, sometimes with their families with them. Iroquois were employed as “canoe men, guides, carriers, and voyagers in the service of the Hudson Bay Company.” (Chamberlain, 460) Some of the Iroquois went as far as the Rocky Mountains, where they stayed and brought their culture with them. As time passed though, they mixed cultures until one could hardly tell they were part Iroquois. They did bring dug-outs, the crossbow, and teaching of the Jesuit fathers to …show more content…
It has been thought that they were cannibals, and, though some have tried to challenge that claim, there is evidence that supports it. Thus, “the Iroquois practiced ritual cannibalism in the 17th century.” (Abler, 309) In 1967, archaeologist James Tuck discovered a roasting platform with fragments of human bones showing cut marks. This, though, was not the only find. There have been several archaeologists who have reported evidence of cannibalism dating about 1300 and forward. Of course, it is difficult to prove that the flesh was, in fact, eaten. Iroquois speeches have references of cannibalism, though it could have been metaphorical. There are accounts of cannibalism from supposed eye-witnesses. “Some confirmation is provided for this story [the story of a Christian Huron] by the careful examination of the bodies which confirmed the details of torture and mutilation, even though such an examination cannot prove that missing portions of the body were eaten.” (Abler, 313) In the end, French, Dutch, and English sources, both secular and religious, allege that the Iroquois were
The Sioux Indians are a tribe of Native Americans that have endured persecution, segregation, and isolation. Though they suffered greatly, they stuck together and fought for their beliefs and religion. They are a diverse people ranging from warriors to holy men to farmers. The Sioux were a culturally rich and kindhearted people who were not afraid to stand up for what they believed in.
In Marianne Mithun and Wallace L. Chafe’s article “Recapturing the Mohawk Language”, the two authors focus on an important aspect of language that I strongly agree on. Mithun and Chafe demonstrate how native Mohawk speakers acquire unconsciously all necessary rules of the Mohawk language. I find that their discovery can be used as an argument to prove professor Ray Jackendoff’s first fundamental rule: mental grammar.
The Choctaw Indians is a tribe of Musksgean stock .The Choctaws were once part of a larger tribe that included the Greeks and Seminoles and are considered one of the five civilized tribes (Cherokees , Greeks, Choctaws , Seminoles, and Chickasaws) . At one time Choctaw territory extended from Mississippi to Georgia, but by the time Europeans began to arrive in North America they were primarily in Mississippi and Louisiana.
1.Iroquois Confederacy— confederation of five indigenous North American peoples, or nations, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca; founded c.1570.
The Iroquois tribe was part of an alliance with five other tribes throughout New York that banded together against enemies, talked about land, and traded with each other. These peaceful people operated in a democracy, one of the first seen in the early world. Much is known about these tribes due to the missionaries which were sent out in the 1600’s. The Jesuits, an order of the Catholic Church devoted to teaching, spent the time to move out into the unknown world, live with these people, and teach them the ways of Catholicism. In doing this, they documented everything they saw and provided accurate accounts of the building of these structures.
Before this settlement by the Europeans, Indian tribes lived on the land now known as Pennsylvania. Some Indian tribes included Erie, Huron, Honniasont, Iroquois, Leni Lanape, Shawnee, and Susquehannock. Penn was informed of the Indians that lived on the land...
People have been living in America for countless years, even before Europeans had discovered and populated it. These people, named Native Americans or American Indians, have a unique and singular culture and lifestyle unlike any other. Native Americans were divided into several groups or tribes. Each one tribe developed an own language, housing, clothing, and other cultural aspects. As we take a look into their society’s customs we can learn additional information about the lives of these indigenous people of the United States.
One band of Native Americans, the Cherokee Indian tribe is a renowned tribe that is still widely recognized today. “The word ‘Cherokee’ is believed to have evolved from a Choctaw word meaning ‘cave people’” (everyculture). The location of the Cherokees ranged anywhere from Georgia to Virginia. They mostly resided in the Southeast. Many Cherokees still exist today.
The Iroquois had very strong beliefs and traditions centered around war. They create art on their longhouses and they also paint faces to represent a war. They believed the paint held magical powers for protection, and made them more ferocious. They believed that their spirits would help them get through war and help them become ferocious so other tribes would be fearful of them. The Iroquois were made up of six nations, meaning they spread or expanded throughout the region. The nations were Oattwa, Mipissing, Algonquin, Malisect, Mi’kmay and Abenaki. All six nations were spread out and were hard to find. However, the Ottawa nation could be found in Ontario. They also had a different name before they were called the Iroquois. They were called Agunchion, which meant that they were “the builders”. The name was picked due to the way they constructed their houses. The Iroquois actually built them from scratch with the resources around them. As you can see the Iroquois have many differences from the Haida and Inuit tribes.
The Algonquians on the other hand had tried to take over the Iroquoian territory. The Iroquois had fought and won a battle with the Algonquians for the territory they had lost for 20 years. Other than these two main groups, the Iroquois people were well rounded. All of the many families in a clan, many clans in a tribe, and many tribes make what is known as the one Iroquois Confederacy. Some of the famous people who were a big part of the Iroquoian culture were Deganawida and Hiawatha. Deganawida along with Hiawatha were the two founders of the Iroquoian Confederacy. They both organized a few of the Native American tribes and made it into a political and cultural confederacy. Another famous Iroquoian person is Dina A. John, who was a resident of the Onondaga tribe and survived the Van Shaik Expedition. She had also served in the War of 1812 and became an artist and entrepreneur in New York. These famous people are representing for what the Iroquois Confederacy has become. Contrary to what many historians believed, based on the narratives of this essay one would unequivocally conclude that indeed Native-Americans were never impoverish nor culturally
The Iroquois Confederacy, an association of six linguistically related tribes in the northeastern woodlands, was a sophisticated society of some 5,500 people when the first white explorers encountered it at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The 1990 Census counted 49,038 Iroquois living in the United States, making them the country's eighth most populous Native American group. Although Iroquoian tribes own seven reservations in New York state and one in Wisconsin, the majority of the people live off the reservations. An additional 5,000 Iroquois reside in Canada, where there are two Iroquoian reservations. The people are not averse to adopting new technology when it is beneficial, but they want to maintain their own traditional identity.
...ly, the Iroquois nation was never to come to a point where they could have gained enough ground to deal with their European foes.
In old, but not so ancient times, native americans populated our land widely with different tribes diverged. One of the most widely known and popular tribes was named the Cherokee tribe and was formed as early as 1657. Their history is vast and deep, and today we will zone into four major points of their culture: their social organizations and political hierarchy, the tribe’s communication and language, a second form of communication in their arts and literature, and the Cherokee’s religion.
In the United States, an emphasize in learning the dominant language, English for example, can inevitably put other languages within the country in extinction. In reality, there are many other spoken languages in the United Sates, like those spoken by Native Americans, that are becoming endangered because of the immensity of more used languages. One may ask, what is an endangered language? According to Michael Cahill (Bonvillain), who has studied and researched many different endangered languages around the world, a language is endangered when "it is in fairly eminent danger of dying out." Cahill states two ways to quickly identify when a language is on its way to becoming endangered. One is when the "children in the community do not speak the native language of their parents, and the other is when there are only a small number of people left in the ethnolinguistic community" that know how to speak the language (Bonvillain). In specific, the Cherokee language fits into the category of an endangered language in the United Sates because less and less speakers speak it and because it is taught less often to younger generations as well. Although Cherokee, a language containing its own rules in grammar, morphemes, syntax, and phonetics, was once a language spoken in vast areas around the United States by native peoples, the language struggles to survive albeit historical foreign attack and current domination of other languages such as English.
Why is it significant that the Pueblo tradition of story telling makes no distinction between types of stories, such as historical, sacred, or just plain gossip?