Iroquois Indians (1 Viewer)

[mikemiller1955]

The Iroquois, also known as the Haudenosaunee or the "People of the Longhouse", are an indigenous people of North America. In the 16th century or earlier, the Iroquois came together in an association known as the Iroquois League, or the "League of Peace and Power". The original Iroquois League was often known as the Five Nations, and comprised the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca nations.

When Europeans first arrived in North America, the Iroquois were based in what is now the northeastern United States, primarily in what is referred to today as upstate New York. Today, Iroquois live primarily in the United States and Canada.

The Iroquois were enemies of the Huron and the Algonquin, who allied with the French, because of their rivalry in the fur trade.

Beginning in 1609, the League engaged in the Beaver Wars with the French and their Iroquoian-speaking Huron allies. They also put great pressure on the Algonquian peoples of the Atlantic coast and what is now the boreal Canadian Shield region of Canada and not infrequently fought the English colonies as well. The wars were a way to control the lucrative fur trade, although additional reasons are often given for these wars.

In the early seventeenth century, the Iroquois were at the height of their power, with a population of about twelve thousand people. In 1654, they invited the French to establish a trading and missionary settlement at Onondaga (present-day New York state). The following year, the Mohawk attacked and expelled the French from this trading post, possibly because of the sudden death of 500 Indians from an epidemic of smallpox, a European infectious disease to which they had no immunity.

In 1664, the French sent the Carignan regiment to New France under Marquis de Tracy with the orders "to carry war even to their firesides in order totally to exterminate them". Out of fear, the Iroquois signed a peace treaty with the French. In 1666, the French invaded Iroquois territory. The Iroquois avoided battle; the French burned their villages.

By 1677, the Iroquois formed an alliance with the English through an agreement known as the Covenant Chain. Together, they battled the French to a standstill who were allied with the Huron.

With support from the French, the Algonquian nations drove the Iroquois out of the territories north of Lake Erie and west of present-day Cleveland, which had been conquered during the Beaver Wars.

 

[mikemiller1955]

Jacques-Rene de Brisay de Denonville, Marquis de Denonville, Governor of New France from 1685 to 1689, set out with a well-organized force to Fort Frontenac. There they met with the 50 hereditary sachems of the Iroquois Confederation from the Onondaga council fire, who came under a flag of truce. Denonville recaptured the fort for New France and seized, chained, and shipped the 50 Iroquois Chiefs to Marseilles, France to be used as galley slaves. He then ravaged the land of the Seneca. The destruction of the Seneca land infuriated the Iroquois Confederation.

On August 4, 1689 they burned Lachine, a small town adjacent to Montreal, to the ground. Fifteen hundred Iroquois warriors had been harassing Montreal defenses for many months prior to that. They finally exhausted and defeated Denonville and his forces. His tenure was followed by the return of Frontenac, who succeeded Denonville as Governor for the next nine years (1689–1698). Frontenac had been arranging a new plan of attack to mollify the effects of the Iroquois in North America and realized the danger of the imprisonment of the Sachems. He located the 13 surviving leaders and returned with them to New France that October 1698.

During King William's War (North American part of the War of the Grand Alliance), the Iroquois were allied with the English. In July 1701, they concluded the "Nanfan Treaty", deeding the English a large tract north of the Ohio River. The Iroquois claimed to have conquered this territory 80 years earlier. France did not recognize the validity of this treaty, as it had the strongest presence within the area in question. Meanwhile, the Iroquois were negotiating peace with the French; together they signed the Great Peace of Montreal that same year.

After the 1701 peace treaty with the French, the Iroquois remained mostly neutral even though during Queen Anne's War (North American part of the War of the Spanish Succession) they were involved in some planned attacks against the French. Four delegates of the Iroquoian Confederacy, the "Indian kings", traveled to London in 1710 to meet Queen Anne in an effort to seal an alliance with the British. Queen Anne was so impressed by her visitors that she commissioned their portraits by court painter John Verelst. The portraits are believed to be some of the earliest surviving oil portraits of Aboriginal peoples taken from life.

During the French and Indian War (North American part of the Seven Years' War), the Iroquois sided with the British against the French and their Algonquian allies, both traditional enemies of the Iroquois. The Iroquois hoped that aiding the British would also bring favors after the war.

 

[wadepat]

Hi Mike,

Thanks so much for posting this interesting summary of Native American history. Your narrative expands my knowledge of the Iroquois people and their role in the early history of the United States. Please do not hesitate to share more such information as I would very much enjoy reading it.

Warmest personal regards,

Pat

 

[mikemiller1955]

Hi Mike,

Thanks so much for posting this interesting summary of Native American history. Your narrative expands my knowledge of the Iroquois people and their role in the early history of the United States. Please do not hesitate to share more such information as I would very much enjoy reading it.

Warmest personal regards,

Pat

thanks Pat...

they were such an interesting group of people...

alliances made...alliances broken...they seemed to be fiercely loyal to their own...

the Battle of Chippewa...was the first time Iroquois fought against Iroquois...

I understand that after that battle...they lamented the deaths of their brothers that they had killed and never raised arms against the League again...

I want to do some more on their role in the French Indian War...

 

[wadepat]

thanks Pat...

they were such an interesting group of people...

alliances made...alliances broken...they seemed to be fiercely loyal to their own...

the Battle of Chippewa...was the first time Iroquois fought against Iroquois...

I understand that after that battle...they lamented the deaths of their brothers that they had killed and never raised arms against the League again...

I want to do some more on their role in the French Indian War...

Hi Mike,

Great! I am eagerly looking forward to another installment of the history of the Iriquois. They are, indeed, a very interesting group of people.

Warmest personal regards,

Pat

 

[mikemiller1955]

page 1...

The Beaver Wars...

also called the Iroquois Wars or the French and Iroquois Wars,
commonly refer to a series of conflicts fought in the mid-17th century in eastern North America.

Encouraged and armed by their Dutch and English trading partners, the Iroquois sought to expand their territory and monopolize the fur trade and the trade between European markets and the tribes of the western Great Lakes region.

The conflict pitted the nations of the Iroquois Confederation, led by the dominant Mohawk, against the French-backed and largely Algonquian-speaking tribes of the Great Lakes region.

The wars were brutal and are considered one of the bloodiest series of conflicts in the history of North America. The resultant enlargement of Iroquois territory realigned the tribal geography of North America, destroying several large tribal confederacies—including the Hurons, Neutrals, Eries, and Susquehannocks.

When Samuel de Champlain landed at Tadoussac on the St. Lawrence, he and his small company of French adventurers were almost immediately recruited by the Montagnais, Algonquin, and Huron to assist in attacking their enemies, the Iroquois.

Before 1603, Champlain had formed an offensive alliance against the Iroquois.

His rationale was commercial; the Canadian Indians were the French source of valuable fur and the Iroquois interfered with that trade. The first battle
in 1609 was fought at Champlain's initiative.

He wrote, "I had come with no other intention than to make war".

In the company of his Algonquin allies, Champlain and his forces fought a pitched battle with the Iroquois on the shores of Lake Champlain. Champlain killed three Iroquois chiefs with an arquebus. In 1610, Champlain and his arquebus-wielding French companions helped the Algonquins and Hurons defeat a large Iroquois raiding party. In 1615, Champlain joined a Huron raiding party and took part in a siege on an Iroquois town, probably among the Onondaga in present-day New York. The attack ultimately failed, and Champlain was injured.

In 1628 the Mohawks had established a monopoly of trade with the Dutch at Fort Orange, New Netherland. The Iroquois, particularly the Mohawk, had come to rely on the trade for the purchase of firearms and other European goods for their livelihood and survival. By the 1630s, the Iroquois had become fully armed with European weaponry through their trade with the Dutch. They began to use their growing expertise with the arquebus to good effect in their continuing wars with the Algonquins, Hurons, and other traditional enemies. The French, meanwhile, had outlawed the trading of firearms to their native allies, though arquebuses were occasionally given as gifts to individuals who converted to Christianity. Although the initial focus of the Iroquois attacks were their traditional enemies (the Algonquins, Mahicans, Montagnais, and Hurons), the alliance of these tribes with the French quickly brought the Iroquois into fierce and bloody conflict directly with the European colonists.

The introduction of firearms had enabled overhunting and accelerated the decline of the beaver population. By 1640 the animal had largely disappeared from the Hudson Valley. Some historians have argued that the wars were accelerated by the growing scarcity of the beaver in the lands controlled by the Iroquois in the middle 17th century.

In the early 1640s, the war began in earnest with Iroquois attacks on frontier Huron villages along the St. Lawrenc River; their intent was disruption of the trade with the French. In 1645 the French called the tribes together to negotiate a treaty to end the conflict. Two Iroquois leaders, Deganaweida and Koiseaton, traveled to New France to take part in the negotiations. The French agreed to most of the Iroquois demands, granting them trading rights in New France. The next summer a fleet of eighty canoes carrying a large harvest of furs traveled through Iroquois territory to be sold in New France. When the Iroquois arrived, the French refused to purchase the furs and told the Iroquois to sell them to the Huron, who would act as a middleman. Outraged, the Iroquois resumed the war.

The French decided to become directly involved in the conflict. The Huron and the Iroquois had similar access to manpower, each tribe having and estimated 25,000–30,000 members. To gain the upper hand, in 1647 the Huron and Susqehannock formed an alliance to counter Iroquois aggression. Together their warriors greatly outnumbered those of the Iroquois. The Huron tried to break the Iroquois Confederacy by negotiating separate peaces with the Onondaga and the Cayuga, but the other tribes intercepted their messengers, putting an end to the negotiations. The summer of 1647 saw several small skirmishes between the tribes. In 1648 a more significant battle occurred when the two Algonquin tribes attempted to pass a fur convoy through an Iroquois blockade. Their attempt succeeded and they inflicted high casualties on the Iroquois.

 

[mikemiller1955]

page 2...

In 1648, the Dutch authorized selling guns directly to the Mohawks rather than through traders, and promptly sold 400 to the Iroquois. The Confederacy sent 1,000 newly armed warriors through the woods to Huron territory. With the onset of winter, the Iroquois warriors launched a devastating attack into the heart of Huron territory, destroying several key villages, killing many warriors and taking thousands captive, for later adoption into the tribe.

With the Hurons' withdrawal, the Iroquois controlled a fur-rich region and had no more native tribes blocking them from the French settlements in Canada.

European diseases had taken their toll on the Iroquois and neighbors in the years preceding the war, however, and their populations had drastically declined. To replace lost warriors, the Iroquois worked to integrate many of their captured enemy by adoption into their own tribes. They worked to keep their captured enemies happy.

In the early 1650s, the Iroquois began to attack the French. Some of the Iroquois Nations, notably the Oneida and Onondaga, had peaceful relations with the French but were under control of the Mohawk. The latter were the strongest nation in the Confederacy and were hostile to the French presence. After a failed peace treaty negotiated by Chief Canaqueese, Iroquois war parties moved north into New France along Lake Champlain and the Richelie River. They attacked and blockaded Montreal.

Typically a raid on an isolated farm or settlement consisted of a war party moving swiftly and silently through the woods, swooping down suddenly, and wielding a tomahawk and a scalping knife to attack the inhabitants. In many cases, prisoners, especially women and children, were brought back to the Iroquois homelands and were adopted into the nations.

Using a strategy of stealth attacks similar to those described above, the Iroquois launched an attack on the Neutral in 1650. By the end of 1651, they had completely driven the tribe from traditional territory, killing and assimilating thousands.

In 1654 the Iroquois launched a similar attack against the Erie, but with less success. The war between the Erie and the Iroquois lasted for two years. By 1656 the Iroquois had almost completely destroyed the Erie confederacy, who refused to flee to the west. The Erie territory was located on the southeastern shore of Lake Erie and was estimated to have 12,000 members in 1650. Greatly outnumbered by the tribes they had subdued, the Iroquois had been able to achieve their victories through the use of firearms purchased from the Dutch.

With the tribes to the north and west destroyed, the Iroquois turned their attention southward to the Susqehannock. 1660 marked the zenith of Iroquois military power, and they were able to use that to their advantage in the decades to follow. The Susqehannock had become allied with the English in the Maryland colony in 1661. The English had grown fearful of the Iroquois and hoped an alliance with Susqehannock would help block the northern tribes' advance on the English colonies. In 1663 the Iroquois sent an army of 800 warriors into the Susqehannock territory.

They repulsed the army, but the invasion prompted the colony of Maryland to declare war on the Iroquois. By supplying Susqehannock forts with artillery, the English made it impossible for the Iroquois to triumph by superior arms. The Susqehannock took the upper hand and began to invade Iroquois territory, where they caused significant damage. This warfare continued until 1674 when the English changed their Indian Policy, negotiated peace with the Iroquois, and terminated their alliance with the Susqehannock. In 1675 the militias of Virginia and Maryland captured and executed the chiefs of the Susqehannock, whose growing power they feared. The Iroquois made quick work of the rest of the nation. They drove the warriors from traditional territory, and absorbed the survivors in 1677.

During the course of this conflict, in 1670, it appears the Iroquois also drove the Siouan Mannahoa tribe out of the northern Virginia Piedmont region. The Iroquois claimed the land by right of conquest as their private hunting ground. The English acknowledged this claim in 1674 and again in 1684, but finally acquired it from the Iroquois by a 1722 treaty.

 

[mikemiller1955]

page 3...

I'll finish this tomorrow...

 

[nasirkasmani]

good read. thanks

 

[mikemiller1955]

page 4...

The Iroquois continued to control the countryside of New France, raiding to the edges of the walled settlements of Quebec and Montreal. In May of 1660 an Iroquois force of 160 warriors attacked Montreal and captured 17 colonists.

The following year, an attack by 250 warriors yielded ten captives.

In 1661 and 1662 the Iroquois made several raids against the Abenakis, who were allied with the French. With such danger in the heart of New France, the French Crown ordered a change to the governing of Canada.

They put together a small military force made up of Frenchmen, Huron, and Algonquin to counter the Iroquois raids. When the militia ventured into the countryside, they were attacked by the Iroquois. Only 29 of the French survived and escaped. Five were captured and tortured to death by the Iroquois in retaliation for the attack. Despite their victory, the Iroquois also suffered a significant number of casualties. Their leaders began to consider negotiating for peace with the French.

The tide of war in New France began to turn in the mid-1660s with the arrival of a small contingent of regular troops from France, the brown-uniformed Carignan-Salières Regiment—the first group of uniformed professional soldiers to set foot on present-day Canadian soil.

A change in administration led the New France government to authorize direct sale of arms and other military support to their Indian allies. In 1664, the Dutch allies of the Iroquois lost control of the New Netherland colony to the English in the south. In the immediate years after the Dutch defeat, European support waned for the Iroquois.

In January 1666, the French invaded the Iroquois homeland. The first invasion force was led by Daniel de Remy, Sieur de Courcelle. His men found themselves greatly outnumbered by the Iroquois and were forced to withdraw before any significant action could take place.

The second invasion force was led by the aristocrat Alexandre de Prouville the "Marquis de Tracy" and viceroy of New France, they encountered little resistance while invading Iroquoia as many of their warriors were engaged fighting the Susqehannocks. Although the invasion was abortive, they took Chief Canaqueese prisoner. With their immediate European support cut off, the Iroquois sued for peace to which France agreed.

 

[mikemiller1955]

page 5...

Once peace was established with the French, the Iroquois returned to their westward conquest in their continued attempt to take control of all the land between the Algonquins and the French.

As a result of Iroquois expansion and war with the Anishinaabeg Confederacy, eastern Nations such as the Lakota were pushed across the Mississippi onto the Great Plains, adopting the nomadic lifestyle for which they later became well known.

Other refugees flooded the Great Lakes area, resulting in a conflict with existing nations in the region. In the Ohio Country the Shawnee and Miami tribes were the dominant tribes. The Iroquois quickly overran Shawnee holdings in central Ohio forcing them to flee into Miami territory. The Miami were a powerful tribe and brought together a confederacy of their neighboring allies including the Pottawatomie and the Illinois tribe who inhabited modern Michigan and Illinois. The vast majority of the fighting was between this Anishininaabeg Confederacy and the Iroquois Confederacy.

The Iroquois improved on their stealth attack techniques as they continued to attack even farther from their home.

They would man a large fleet of canoes and speed down river in the darkness, they would sink their canoes and hold them to the bottom with rock to conceal them and proceed into the woods around their target. Then at the appointed time they would burst from the wood in all directions to cause the greatest panic among their enemy. They could then return quickly to their boats and return from where they came before any significant resistance could be put together.

Without firearms the Algonquin tribes were at a severe disadvantage. Despite their larger numbers, they were unable to withstand the Iroquois. Several tribes ultimately fled west beyond the Mississippi River leaving much of Indiana, Ohio, southern Michigan, and southern Ontario depopulated, although leaving in place several large Anishinaabe military forces, numbering in the thousands to the north of Lakes Huron and Superior, which would later prove to be decisive in rolling back the Iroquois advance. From west of the Mississippi, displaced groups continued to arm war parties and attempt to retake their homeland.

Beginning in the 1670s the French began to explore the Ohio and Illinois Country. There they discovered the Algonquin tribes of that region where locked in warfare with the Iroquois. The French established the post of Tassinong to trade with the western tribes, but it was destroyed by the Iroquois who insisted on controlling trade between the tribes and the Europeans.

In 1681 René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle negotiated a treaty with the Miami and Illinois tribes. The same year France lifted the ban on the sale of firearms to the native tribes. They were able to quickly arm the Algonquin tribes, evening the odds between the Iroquois and their enemies.

During a raid into the Illinois Country in 1689, the Iroquois took a large number of prisoners and destroyed a sizable Miami settlement. The Miami were able to quickly call for help from others in the Anishinaabeg Confederacy and a large force was put together to track down the Iroquois. Using their new firearms the Confederacy laid an ambush near modern South Bend, Indiana where they attacked and destroyed most of the Iroquois army.

Although a large part of the region was left depopulated, the Iroquois were unable to establish a permanent presence. Their own tribe lacked the manpower to colonize the large area. After their setbacks, and after the local tribes gained firearms, the Iroquois' brief control over the region was lost and the former inhabitants of the territory began to return.

 

[mikemiller1955]

page 6...

As the English began to move into the former Dutch territory they began to form close ties with the Iroquois and sought to use them in much the same way the Dutch had, as a buffer and force to hinder the French colonial expansion.

They soon began to supply the Iroquois with firearms much as the Dutch had and encouraged them to disrupt French interests. With the renewal of hostilities the local militia of New France was stiffened after 1683 by a small force of regular troops of the French navy, the Compagnies Franches de la Marine.

The latter were to constitute the longest-serving unit of French regular force troops in New France. The men came to identify themselves with the colony over the years, while the officer corps became completely Canadianized. Thus in a sense these troops can be identified as Canada's first standing professional armed force.

Officers' commissions both in the militia and in the Compagnie Franches became much coveted positions amongst the socially eminent of the colony.

The militia together with members of the Compagnie Franches, dressed in the manner of their Algonquin Indian allies, came to specialize in that swift and mobile brand of warfare termed la petite guerre, that was characterized by long and silent expeditions through the forests and sudden and violent descents upon enemy encampments and settlements—the same kind of warfare that was practiced against them by the Iroquois.

In September 1687 another invasion was launched with three thousand militia and regulars.

They proceeded down the Richelieu River and marched through Iroquois territory a second time. Unable to find an Iroquois army, they resorted to burning their crops and homes, destroying an estimated 1.2 million bushels of corn.

Many Iroquois died from starvation in the following winter In 1689 the Iroquois moved into New France to launch a series of reprisal attacks, including what became known as the Massacre of Lachine.

The Iroquois where able to breach the gates of Montreal and killed several colonists and burned large stores of goods before escaping into the countryside.

The war between the French and Iroquois resumed in 1683 after the Governor Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac, attempted to enrich his own fortune by pursuing the western fur-trade with a new aggressiveness, which adversely affected the growing activities of the Iroquois in this area. This time the war lasted ten years and was as bloody as the first.

During King William's War, the French urged the Indians to attack the English colonial settlements in the same way that the English had been encouraging the Iroquois. Some of the most notable of these raids in 1690 were the Schenectady massacre in the Province of New York, Salmon Falls, New Hampshire, and Portland, Maine. As in the Iroquois raids, the inhabitants were either indiscriminately slaughtered or carried away captive.

 

[mikemiller1955]

page 7...

Great Peace of Montreal


Finally in 1698, the Iroquois began to see the English as becoming a greater threat than the French.

The English had begun colonizing Pennsylvania in 1681, the continued colonial growth there began to encroach on the southern border of the Iroquois territory.

The French policy began to change towards the Iroquois. After nearly 50 years of warfare, they began to believe that it would be impossible to ever destroy them. They decided that befriending the Iroquois would be the easiest way to ensure their monopoly on the northern fur trade and help stop English expansion.

As soon as the English heard of the treaty they immediately set about to prevent it from being agreed to. It would result in the loss of Albany's monopoly on the fur trade with the Iroquois and without their protection the northern flank, of the English colonies were be open to French attack. Despite English interference the treaty was agreed to.

The peace treaty, Great Peace of Montreal was signed in 1701 in Montreal by 39 Indian chiefs, the French and the English.

In the treaty, the Iroquois agreed to stop marauding and to allow refugees from the Great Lakes to return east.

The Shawnee eventually regained control of the Ohio Country and the lower Allegheny River. The Miami tribe returned to take control of modern Indiana and north-west Ohio. The Pottawatomie to Michigan, and the Illinois tribe to Illinois. With the Dutch long removed from North America, the English had become just as powerful as the French.

The Iroquois came to see that they held the balance of power between the two European powers and they used that position to their benefit for the decades to come. Their society began to quickly change as the tribes began to focus on building up a strong nation, improving their farming technology, and educating their population. The peace was lasting and it would not be until the 1720s that their territory would again be threatened by the Europeans.

Also in 1701, the Iroquois nominally gave the English much of the disputed territory north of the Ohio in the Nanfan Treaty, although this transfer was not recognised by the French, who were the strongest actual presence there at the time. In that treaty, the Iroquois leadership claimed to have conquered this "Beaver Hunting Ground" 80 years previously, or in 1621.

 

[mikemiller1955]

page 8...

related...

When Christopher Columbus stepped off his ship in the western hemisphere for the first time, he undoubtedly wore on his head a felt hat made of beaver fur. In many famous paintings from that time, rich and powerful men are shown wearing beaver felt hats.

The felt hat became stylish in the late 1300s. By 1550 it was the hottest style in Europe and it remained a hot style until the 1880s over 330 years. The demand for beaver felt was so extreme that by the end of the 1500s the European beaver was destroyed in much of it's natural range by over harvesting.

With the decline of the European beaver population interest in the North American beaver grew. The N.A. beaver, while related to the Eurasian beaver, is different. The American beaver is larger and has significantly better fur for felting. Because of the colder North American climate the undercoat of the beaver, which is what felt is made from, grows thicker and more luxurious than that of it's European cousin. The manner in which the American Indian population used the beaver also contributed to their desirability.

The beaver, when harvested by the Native populations of the Americas was primarily used as a clothing and food source. To the Haudenosaunee people these uses had significant social implications, eating beaver tails is specifically mention in the great law of the Haudenosaunee.

"The Chiefs of the Confederacy shall eat together from one bowl the feast of cooked beaver's tail. While they are eating they are to use no sharp utensils for if they should they might accidentally cut one another and bloodshed would follow. All measures must be taken to prevent the spilling of blood in any way."

The most common use was for Oneida women to make robes by sewing several beaver hides together. Then there husbands or children would wear them. These hides are called castor 'gras' or "made beaver" skins. The other kind are those hides just collected and cleaned, not worn, they are called castor sec.

The beaver trade had a significant impact on every American Indian nation involved in it. It brought many physical and social changes to traditional American cultures, some good, but many not so good. The significance of the beaver in the history of the Oneida and the other Haudenosaunee nations cannot be overestimated.

The trade and the goods it brought changed the technology of the Oneida people. Significant traditional technologies felt into disuse and were almost forgotten. It created an imbalance in the fabric of Oneida social system as well. The social system or the Oneida was based on equality, with both men and women bringing equal value to it.

The beaver trade changed that. The value of the goods brought in by trade, which was male dominated, were soon seen as more valuable than the agricultural products contributed by the women.

A political imbalance was created as well. The chiefs system, that existed to promote the peace, was at least partially pushed aside as men interested in only trade went to war with other nations over trade. These wars, including wars with Europeans, lasted over 100 years and changed the Oneida and the Haudenosaunee forever.


The Beaver Wars were not an actual war. This term refers to the fighting between tribes and Europeans for the best places to hunt beaver.

Early on Europeans had a demand for beaver skins. The skins were very warm and water proof. They also made a beaver hat that was very popular and fashionable in Europe for many years.

The Natives would hunt beaver and then trade with Europeans for many other supplies like beads and metal tools. This trade greatly changed the Natives technology. One of the first trade items were beads.

Metal tools were also in high demand. Metal blades did not break and did not dull as quickly. Trade lead to a great shift in technology that changed native lifestyles forever. The beads are known as Chevrons and they were valued like diamonds. The Chevrons were highly valued and passed down from mother to daughter.

 

[mikemiller1955]

page 9...

Beaver Bundle Medicine Mythology...The Legend...

One version only will be sufficient to give an idea of the legend, and is taken from Wissler and Duvall’s Blackfoot Mythology.

BLOOD VERSION.

“You say you have heard the story of Scabby-Round-Robe; but he did not first start the beaver-medicine, because it is said in the story that there was such a medicine before his time. The story I now tell you is about the origin of beaver-medicine.

“Once there was a man and his wife camping alone on the shore of a small lake. This man was a great hunter, and had in his lodge skins of almost every kind of bird and animal. Among them was the skin of a white buffalo. As he was always hunting, his wife was often left alone. One day a beaver carne out of the water and made love to her.

This went on for some time, until finally she went away with the beaver to his home in the water. Now when the man came home, he looked all about for his wife, but could not find her anywhere. As he was walking along the shore of the lake, he saw her trail going down into the water. Now he knew what had happened. He did not break camp, but continued his hunting. After four days, the woman came up out of the water and returned to her lodge. She was already heavy with child. When her husband returned that evening, he found her in her usual place, and she told him all that had occurred.

“In the course of time the woman gave birth to a beaver. To keep it from dying she put it in a bowl of water, which she kept at the head of her bed. In the evening her husband came in as usual, and after a while, hearing something splashing in water, he said, ‘ What is that? ‘ Then the woman explained to him that she had given birth to a beaver. She brought him the bowl. He took out the little beaver, looked at it, and put it back. He said nothing. As time went on he became very fond of the young beaver and played with him every evening.

“Now the beaver down in the water knew every*thing that was going on in the lodge. He knew that the man was kind to the young beaver, and so was not angry with him. He took pity on the man. Then the father of the young beaver resolved to give the man some of his medicine-songs in exchange for the skins of birds and animals the man had in his lodge. So one day, when the woman went down to the lake for water, the beaver came out and instructed her to request of her husband that whatever he [the beaver] should ask in his songs, that should be done. He also stated the time at which he would come to the lodge to be received by her husband.

“At the appointed time the beaver came out of the lake and appeared before the lodge, but, before he entered, requested that the lodge be purified [a smudge]. Then he entered. They smoked. After ‘ a while the beaver began to sing a song, in which he asked for the skin of a certain bird. When he had finished, the man arose and gave the bird-skin to him. Then the beaver gave another song, in which he asked for the skin of another bird, which was given him. Thus he went on until he secured all the skins in the man’s lodge. In this way the man learned all the songs that belonged to the beaver-medicine and also the skins of the animals to which the songs belonged.

"After this the man got together all the different kinds of bird and animal skins taken by the beaver, made them up into a bundle, and kept the beaver-medicine.”

 

[mikemiller1955]

page 10...

The Huron...David Wright...

The Shawnee...David Wright...

The Seneca...David Wright...

The Ottowa...David Wright...

The Ojibwa...David Wright...

The Deleware....David Wright...

The Cherokee...David Wright...

]

The Algonkian...David Wright...

 

[mikemiller1955]

page 11...

The Cherokee...Robert Griffing...

Mowhawk Morning...Robert Griffing...

Iroqouis Totem Pole in Pennsylvania...built to replace the decaying original totem pole...it actually resembles one of John's figures...

War Chief of the Mohawk...Robert Griffing...

 

[wadepat]

Hi Michael,

My compliments for some truly outstanding work! Your narrative is most interesting and highly educational. The paintings you posted add a great deal of realism to the topic. Thank you for expending so much effort. I am really enjoying your presentation!

Warmest personal regards,

Pat

 

[mikemiller1955]

page 12...

Iroquois territories...

 

[mikemiller1955]

Hi Michael,

My compliments for some truly outstanding work! Your narrative is most interesting and highly educational. The paintings you posted add a great deal of realism to the topic. Thank you for expending so much effort. I am really enjoying your presentation!

Warmest personal regards,

Pat

thanks a lot Pat...

I wanted to know a little more about the Iroquois and may be going a little overboard...but I am finding it very interesting...especially The Beaver Wars...I was just going to do a little research for a diorama with Jenkins palisade and longhouses...but found the entire history of the North American Eastern Indians fascinating...