Iroquois Nation

Environment: 

 

The Iroquois or Haudenosaunee (People of the Longhouse) are a Northern American tribe. When the Europeans first came to North America the Iroquois were all over the northeastern united states west of the Hudson river in New York State.  Today the Iroquois live in New York, Quebec and Ontario.  The climate for this region is pretty varied.  The average precipitation is about 3 inches a month. The climate can be as cold as 13 degrees in the winters and not often reaching above the high 80’s during the summer months.  The Iroquois live in a woodland type area that  at one time was more rural than it is today.

The environment of the Iroquois’ people is a woodland forest type of ecosystem.  The Iroquois are farmers so these conditions must have proven to be successful for farming.  The major environmental stress that the Iroquois faced was the climate when it dropped down very low or when there was a lot of snow. Since the Iroquois are farmers, their crops were part of their lively hood.  They have had to adapt to the climate in order to keep their food source constant.  Another way the Iroquois adapted to their environment was the building of their longhouses. These were wood frame houses covered with sheets of elm bark. These houses would house an entire clan – which can be as many as 60 people. The longhouse helped protect the Iroquois from the elements as the climate dropped down and the snow started to fall during the winter months.

 Adaptations:

One of the biggest physical adaptations of the Iroquois Indians is their bodily strength and endurance. The Iroquois lived in a forested area and relied on the timber from the tall trees to build their longhouses and other structures in their villages. The structures they built were huge and of course, a lot of lumber was needed.

            The cultural adaptation of the Iroquois people would be the building of the longhouses. These houses provided shelter for their clans during the winter months which helped keep them alive in extreme conditions.

The second cultural adaptation would be the role the women took of farmers while the men went out to do the hunting. This type of arrangement worked the best for the Iroquois because the women would be close to their dwellings to tend to the children and the agriculture while the men went out for days at a time to hunt.

The third cultural adaptation of the Iroquois was that women held high positions in the tribe. Women are treated equally in the tribe which is vastly different than most of society.  This is probably because they figured out it was easier to have everyone happy and working towards the goal of a happy tribe rather than oppressing some people.

Languages:

 

The Iroquois have six different languages in their nations.  They are all very similarly related and are in the same group of Iroquois languages.  Mohawk, Seneca, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Tuscarora. The most common and universal of these languages is Mohawk.  These languages are available in a written form and widely used.

Gender Roles:

There are two specific genders in the Iroquois nation- male and female. Females are highly regarded in the nation. They ruled the clans, elected the chief, took care of all the farming, property and family. The men were primarily in charge of hunting, trading and war. The chief of the clans were always men, but elected by women. Both of the genders had a huge role in medicine, story telling, art and music.

The roles are pretty strict. A woman would never be chief in the nation and it is not too likely that a man would stay at home with the children or deal with the home life. In my research, however I read a couple times that in the modern Iroquois families it is more of a traditional set up where the man takes care of the farming, hunting, etc. and the woman states at home with the children and takes care of the homestead.  I could not find anything regarding repercussions of a gender taking on the roles of the other. It seems as if the Iroquois were pretty content with their roles. I think this has a lot to do with the equality in their nation.  The children were raised from an early age into their gender roles. Girls would help their mother with the farming and household duties and the boys would go with the men to hunt. 

Subsistence:

  

There were three basic subsistence patterns in the Iroquois nation – gathering-hunting, a mixed hunting/horticulture pattern, and the horticulture pattern.  Their diet consisted of game, fish wild plants and corn. All of these were abundant in the northeastern region of the united states. The game and fish were mostly available year round with the exception of animals that would hibernate. The roles were definitely split up. The women were the farmers and preparers of the food and the men were the hunters of the game and fish. By all reports the Iroquois had a pretty well balanced diet.  The fish and game were abundant in the region and the women had a pretty good handle on their crops. They would plant certain things depending on the time of year.

Economic Systems:

They did save food in surplus for the months when it was harder to grow crops. This ensured that they had a little bit of stock should their crops freeze over or it was just too cold for anything to grow.  The surplus was dried and stored in clay pots – something the Iroquois are famous for. The meat was dried and also stored in pots. Each clan was responsible for their own storage and drying of food. The Iroquois did have a type of currency.  Their money was called “wampum”. They were used as a currency but also in art.  Which means that their art is valuable because it contains these beads.

 Marriage:

The Iroquois had a very equal attitude about marriage. There is a stigma with other cultures that they aren’t able to choose who they marry or that they are forced into it. With the Iroquois, marriage is by mutual consent. The man had no authority over his wife. In fact, a woman could leave her husband at any time.  When a man and a woman married, the man would come and live in the longhouse where the woman lived. Each longhouse belonged to a clan. All of the women in the house were in the same clan. When a man married, he would move to the woman’s clan’s longhouse. As far as incest, it was forbidden to marry anyone in your own clan.  A few of these questions didn’t have answers as far as I could tell. Using some reasoning skills, I would imagine that there wasn’t really a dowry involved in their marriage. Everything seems very equal with the Iroquois.

 Kinship: 

 

As I stated before, the women in a longhouse all belong to the same clan.  When a man and a woman married, the man would move into the family with the wife and her clan. Their family lines run through the maternal side.  The most authority in a family would be had by the oldest maternal relative. Possessions are passed through the female side of the family. When a man joins the clan, he only brings a few possessions. A weapon and some clothes were about the extent of what he would bring with him in the move.

Social Organization: 

The Iroquois social structure is stratified and egalitarian, I believe.  There are different roles for the different genders. However, both genders are equal. They just have different positions.

Political Structure:

Both genders play a big role in the political system of their tribe. The women elect the chief and can also essentially fire the chief from his position. Women deal with property, as well.  Only a man can be the chief of the tribe. Men also are the only ones to deal with war.  In the case of the chief, he is elected by a team of women from the clans in the tribe.

Role of Violence:

The Iroquois are generally described as a peaceful people. However, they have waged war with other tribes or European settlers. They are known for being very muscular and well built – one of their physical adaptations. So when they did fight, they were a tough enemy. Another way violence occurred with them was with opposing viewpoints on social and political decisions.

 Religion: 

According to several articles I have read a lot of the Iroquois mythology has been lost. However, there are some of their religious stories have been preserved. The Iroquois have a very interesting religion that they follow. They have a creator god who planted corn in his mother as a gift to man. There is even an evil party in their religion. The creator god’s name is Hahgwehdiyu. His mother who he planed the maize seed in to give the gift to man is Atahensic. The evil character which is Hahgwehdiyu’s twin is Hahgwehdaetgan. They had several different ritualistic ceremonies. They would hold a ceremony to cure illness, help with farming and everything in between. They had six major ceremonies that would be preformed year after year. Maple, Planting, Green Maize, Harvest and New Year’s festivals. These festivals and ceremonies were a big part of their lives and culture. Sure, I think they could get up in the morning and function. However, I think that these things were very important to the people and provided a lot of unknown answers or helped them find comfort.

 Art:

One of the most known forms of art in this culture is mask carving. They are known for carving amazing, intricate masks. Outsiders (people not from the tribe) are not allowed to view these masks. Beadwork is another art form that  is very common. They would use wampum beads in their artwork which were also used as a currency. Their beadwork would tell a story or represent a family or clan.  The Iroquois were known for their beautiful clay pots as well, they were both functional and decorative. The same with their basket weaving. They would use these beautiful hand-woven baskets for food preparation, medicine storage and other functional uses.

The music of the Iroquois people is very rhythmic. It is made up of mostly drumming and singing. This music was used as a big part in their ceremonies as well as for entertainment. A fun fact I came across was that the Iroquois man would play the flute outside of a woman he liked’s longhouse to try and romance her.

Performance art would definitely be their ceremonies for healing, planting or festivals. They would dance and play music during it and put on a big show for their creator god. They would also use it for entertainment at their festivals.

Religious art was semi common. They would tell their mythology stories through bead work or represent the stories in their art or music.

 Cultural Change: 

(hangin on the Rez) 

I enjoyed learning more about the Iroquois people. The Iroquois Nation is made up of several different tribes of Indians.  Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Tuscarora and Seneca.  One of the reasons why I chose the Iroquois for my project is because I have spent some time first hand with the Onondaga. I have a friend who is actually a full Onondaga indian. I went to New York with him and stayed on the reservation for a week.  My project is more focused on the past Iroquois and not them in the present day. If I was to write about their culture in present day, it would practically mirror our culture with the exception of a few ceremonies and such that they still do.  Based on my first hand experience on the Reservation with amazing people, I can matter of factly tell you that they have been affected by other cultures.  The Onondaga kids are all walking around with iPods, cell phones and talking about Facebook!  The Onondaga are pretty “Americanized” but they do still hold on to their ceremonies and traditions. It’s like how on Christmas we do certain “rituals” (ie- put a tree up, open gifts, sing carols, etc).  I think that they still have their cultural identity but they are definitely not where they were hundreds of years ago.  They ARE in the modern world. They just live on a Reservation. A lot of the Onondaga don’t even live on the Rez (as they call it). They are pretty much just every day people. There is a little bit of a stigma with the older people, however. My friend told me once that some of the elders on the Rez would call him an apple  (red on the outside, white on the inside) because he liked to play sports with the kids outside of the Rez. (according to him, Indian kids don’t really like to play sports- or at least the Onondaga’s).  I wouldn’t say that they had a strong influence on the modern world. They’re pretty much just getting up, going to work, coming home and paying the bills like everyone else. 

Bibliography: 

http://www.bigorrin.org/iroquois_kids.htm

http://nativeamericans.mrdonn.org/northeast/iroquois/familylife.html

http://www.wisegeek.com/who-are-the-iroquois-people.htm

http://www.everyculture.com/multi/Ha-La/Iroquois-Confederacy.html#b

http://www.usnavyoilers.com/Indian-History.html

http://www.mingolanguage.org/iroquoianlanguages.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iroquois_mythology

http://www.iroquoismuseum.org/

http://www.iroquoismuseum.org/ve2.htm

http://www.cabrillo.edu/~crsmith/noamer_newoodlands.html

http://www.canadiangenealogy.net/aboriginal/iroquois.htm

Art

1.

a. What were the cave artists trying to say?
The cave artists were depicting animals that were around their environment at the time. One of the interesting things that I read was that there were no reindeer depicted in the cave drawings and that was the main source of food for the artist.

b. Why do you think that there were so many animals and not as many people in the 
paintings?
The paintings were probably more geared towards animals because that was their source of life. Meaning that the animals were what was feeding the population so they were pretty important to the people. One other theory is that the sections where animals are more clustered together meant that hunting was more bountiful in that area.


c. What can the paintings tell us about other aspects of the life of cave dwellers or 
Paleolithic people?
The paleolithic people's art skills were a little more advanced than other humans. It also shows the resources they had available to use for the cave drawings at the time.


d. What difficulties did these early humans navigate in order to paint these pictures?
There was a river in the cave at one point, possibly when these early humans were there. They would have had to navigate the river, its current, any "sea life" in the cave and of course the soft mud. There is a possibility of an unstable structure, as well.


e. Speculate as to three (3) possible functions of this art to early humans.

a trophy wall of sorts - maybe these paintings depicted kills in the same way hunters today stuff and mount their kills.

To tell a story

Depending on what type of religion these people hd it could maybe be an "offering". a lot of art that is widely famous in society today is religion based, so maybe it is their function for art as well.


2. Commonalities in Function:  Compare the possible functions of the art from the Lascaux Caves to 
modern art, in all of its various forms.  What are some commonalities in function you can find in 
how the art of early humans and modern humans? (10 pts)


Their art could be used for communication as well as what I said previously - it  could be used in their religion or faith. Also, maybe they use it just as someone in more modern times would paint a picture of a horse or something - just to have it to look at


3. Introduce Us to Your Favorite Art:  Include in your post at least one image and/or a link (5 pts) to 
a video depicting an art form you would like to explore. This could be a specific type of art (i.e., 
ceramics, photography, etc.), music (classical, blues, grunge, etc.), performance art, or any other 
type of art you might want to present.  Then answer the following questions:


My favorite type of art is surrealist photography. I really enjoy it.

a. For those who practice this form of artistic expression, what function does it serve?  What 
are they trying to communicate? (5 pts)

This type of art is very interesting because it has no bounds. it takes the ordinary and turns it into the unordinary with interesting juxtapositions of different elements. Sometimes it is to convey a message or feeling in the viewer- sometimes the artist just thinks it looks cool.

b. Is there a complete culture surrounding this art form, i.e., a language, a set of behaviors, 
form of dress, etc.?  Describe and identify the features of this culture. (10 pts)

Photographers are usually their own kooky bunch of people with an eclectic style all their own. Their individuality is what produces their great styles of art. The main type of culture surrounding photography is the everlasting battle of canon versus nikon.  Photographers are usually very die-hard regarding their favorite brand. I am personally a Canon fan.

c. How does this art form (and its culture) benefit society?  Are there any detrimental 
affects? (5 pts)

This art form benefits society because it helps people think outside the box and maybe start thinking in different perspectives than what they are used to . Sometimes, this art upsets people because it shows everyday things in different situations that people could and might possibly find to be offensive.

Violence

1) In the Yanomamo culture, if someone is killed there is a revenge killing as their form of justice. Here, we would definitely frown upon that. When I was reading the article it reminded me a lot of the show "Sons of Anarchy". When a member of the motorcycle gang The Son's of Anarchy was killed- the first thing they spoke about was "waging a war" and getting revenge. The Yanomamo use vengeance to legitimize their killings.

2) The Yanomamo split into two groups. Essentially people who agree with the killing (the article said they were usually fueld by sexual issues) and people who do NOT agree with the killing. There is a retaliation which was described by the article to be a 'tit for tat" act. For example: you killed my brother so now i am going to kill yours.

3) Unokais are members who have killed and then been "cleansed' of their killing and released from the haunting of the person they killed's spirit. Unokais also have a higher rate of probability in finding a mate than un-unokais. The article stated that they are found to be more suitable mates than un-unokais.

4)

The Yamomamo political structure is an interesting one. Each group has a one or two leaders and then the leader of all the groups who is the headman or chief of the villiage.

The social status of the Yamomamo would probably be the Unokais. From the article it sounds liek they have an easier time gtting mates and stuff because their status is seen as desireable.

The kinship relationship with the Yamomamo is based off of the Unokais status. The family members of the Unokais is more protected than the family members of people who arent. Again because their status is considered to be more prestigious than someone who is un-unokais.


Unokais are more attractive to women because of their higer and more prestigious status. It is common for these men to have more than one wife (up to a dozen wives) at one time...also resulting in an a LOT of offspring and therefore a larger kin group to be more "protected" by the males status in the tribe or culture.



5) The revenge killings just sound insane. If that was happening here, no one would be able to leave their house half of the time. This is obviously why we have laws and run our society in a different manner than they do. It seems like it would be a never ending cycle of vengeance and revenge.

Kinship

The person I interviewed is my father. He was born in Rushden, England. He was not at all close with his dads family, infact, his father had been out of the picture since he was 5 years old. He is still alive, however, my father and my family have very little - almost next to no- contact with him. However, his mothers family (from Rome, Italy) was around more and therefore he grew up in a situation with more Italian culture and influence than British. He is not sure on the background of his father. He believe's that he is English and possibly French - but he's not too sure. His siblings aren't sure either. They don't know any of his family members that they could ask this question to. And his mother (my grandmother) is dead. 

This interview was a little awkward only because there are a lot of mixed feelings towards his own father. He has never been close with the family and I believe that his dad sometimes talks to my aunt (my dads sister) but not very rarely. I have met my grandfather once when I went to England to see other family. He did not talk to me or acknowledge me, so I did not really get to know him or what he was like. The interview was okay otherwise. If I was interviewing someone who wasn't related to me, I would not have felt the personal connection to it and therefore would not have felt as awkward or uncomfortable. 

There is definitely an emphasis on maternal lines as they do not really know anyone related to my dads father. When I was telling my mom about this assignment later (my parents are divorced and both remarried) she said that she was trying to do a family tree maybe 20 something years ago and she had written a letter to my grandfather asking him questions about his family. He wrote back telling my mom to mind her own business. My mom told my grandmother about it (my dads mom) and she said that it was because his sister was a prostitute and he and the rest of their family was ashamed by this.  My dad's mothers family is Italian. So they are very stereotypical. I have tons of cousins and "uncles" (ya know, those people who you arent really related to but they've been family friends so long they're practically an uncle. I'm not sure if this happens with really american families). In my dads family everyone is white and italian. So the ethnic differences thing doesn't really come into play. The only thing I could relate to this is that my dad, my uncle and my aunt all have "american" spouses. However, my Step mom's family is also italian so culturally we do the same kind of things that her family does and have the same attitudes about things so it made getting along with them really easy as we were all kind of on the same guido page already. 

I know my dads family pretty well. My mom's family we really only talk to her mom, (her dad ignores everyone and lives in florida), my great grandmother (we just had to get her committed over the weekend because she's 94 years old and going crazy. She's basically trying to kill herself in the hospital. very stressful), and her brothers. I do not see her brothers that often, however. I definitely am closer with my dads family. In typical Italian fashion, we would go to my dad's mothers (my grandmothers) house every sunday for family dinner when she was alive. Often, I would swing by my grandmothers work and take her home when she was off work and have dinner with her and my uncles. My dads sisters kids  and my sister and i are a month apart from eachother so my cousins and i were very close growing up. 

I am not really aware of times when situations have come up where someone needs to be the decison maker in my family. I know when my parents were married they seem to have an equal vote as to what goes on in the household. When my grandother was dying, my dad, his two brothers and his sister seemed to all be involved in the decisions that went on with that situation. This past weekend with my great grandmother drama, my grandmother, mom and great aunt all had equal say in what was happening with that as the three of them are her power of attorney and executors of the trust. 

Family members who marry into the family as opposed to people who are born into it are generally treated the same I suppose. My mom told me once that when her and my dad started dating my grandmother was mean to her but after she started having babies, she became nice. I don't know if this was the case with my aunts husband. I do know that my grandma didn't really like my uncles wife…however, no one really does. So she wasn't alone. She's really hard to get along with. 

I do not believe there are different attitudes in my family that are based in gender. If there are, I have never noticed it. 

I didn't really learn anything I wasn't already aware of. Because I grew up with no grandfathers or anything like that, these kinds of questions had already come up at an early age. My parents were always pretty open with my sister and i on the situation. So I would say that I pretty much knew all of this before diving into this assignment. 

Week 4 Blog Post: Subsistence and Economy

1) The benefits of agriculture would be having a food source local and close where you know exactly what it is. They can grow enough things for the size of their tribe (assuming that everything actually gros. I don't have a green thumb by any means so I am not sure what the ratio of things planted to things that actually sprout is). The benefit of a hunter gatherers is that you if you kill a moose or an elephant - you can feed your entire village or tribe.

2) Hunter and gatherers don't really have a "sure thing" sort to speak. If you go out and find it and kill it - then you're in luck. But if you have a less than perfect hunting day- you might arrive back at your village with nothing.  The same applies to agriculture. If your crop freezes, or is destroyed by a ton of bugs or some other kind of weird nature thing...you're also out of luck

3) I think they could be equally as healthy. A lot of people do the raw vegan thing where they only eat raw fruits and veggies. But on the other hand - you do need protein.

4) I think that some human populations moved into agriculture because of extinction of animals or lack of animals in the area to hunt. If you've killed all the cows, you need to find a new food source.