Description
The Iroquois, also known as the Five Nations or the Six Nations meaning "people who are building the longhouse"), are a confederacy of Native Americans and First Nations peoples in northeast North America and Upstate New York. They were known during the colonial years to the French as the "Iroquois League", and later as the "Iroquois Confederacy". The English called them the "Five Nations", including (east to west) the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca. After 1722, the Iroquoian-speaking Tuscarora from the southeast were accepted into the confederacy, which became known as the Six Nations. Until the 1500s, the five tribes of the Iroquois devoted much energy toward fighting and killing each other. Although the tribes began to work together, they surely did not renounce war. They fought and captured other native tribes as well as wave after wave of European immigrants who presented themselves. They fought the early French and British settlers.
Language
"Iroquois" refers to a language rather than a particular tribe.
Culture
Iroquois people dwelt in large longhouses made of saplings and sheathed with elm bark, each housing many families. Men built houses and palisades, fished, hunted, and engaged in military activities. Women produced crops of maize, beans, and squash, gathered wild foods, and prepared all clothing and most other residential goods. After the autumn harvest, family deer-hunting parties ranged far into the forests, returning to their villages at midwinter. Spring runs of fish drew families to nearby streams and lake inlets. Warfare was important in Iroquois society, and, for men, self-respect depended upon achieving personal glory in war endeavours. War captives were often enslaved or adopted to replace dead family members.