Iroquoian peoples
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Iroquoian peoples are Iroquoian speaking Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands and Great Lakes of North America whose territories stretched from southeastern and southern Ontario in Canada along the shores of Lake Huron and Georgian bay, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario to New York state, northern Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Historical Iroquoian people were the Five nations of the Iroquois or Haudenosaunee, Huron or Wendat, Tionontati or Petun, Neutral or Attawandaron, Erie people, Wenro, Susquehannock and the St. Lawrence Iroquoians.
The Cherokee are also an Iroquoian-speaking people.
There is archaeological evidence for Iroquoian peoples "in the area around present-day New York state by approximately 500 to 600 CE, and possibly as far back as 4000 BCE. Their distinctive culture seems to have developed by about 1000 CE.
List of Iroquoian peoples
- Haudenosaunee of New York, Quebec and Ontario, Canada.
- Huron (Wendat): Georgian bay, Ontario, Canada.
- Petun (Tobacco or Tionontati): Georgian Bay, Ontario, Canada.
- Neutral Nation: southwestern and south-central Ontario.
- Nation du chat (Erie) of Upstate New York, Ohio, and Northwest Pennsylvania, United States.
- Conestoga (Susquehannock) of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York, and Maryland (United States).
- St. Lawrence Iroquoians: St. Lawrence River, Quebec, Canada, and New York, United States.
- Monongahela: Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio, United States.
- Scahentoarrhonon: Wyoming Valley, Pennsylvania.
- Nottoway of Virginia, United States.
- Senedo: Virginia, United States.
- Westo of Virginia and South Carolina, United States.
- Wenrohronon (Wenro): New York, United States.
- Cherokee: North Carolina, southeastern Tennessee, edges of western South Carolina, northern Georgia and northeastern Alabama.
- Meherrin: North Carolina.
History
Iroquois mythology tells that the Iroquoian people have their origin in a woman who fell from the sky, and that they have always been on Turtle Island.
Archaeology
The Hopewell tradition describes the common aspects of an ancient pre-Columbian Native American civilization that flourished in settlements along rivers in the northeastern and midwestern Eastern Woodlands from 100 BCE to 500 CE, in the Middle Woodland period. The Hopewell tradition was not a single culture or society, but a widely dispersed set of populations connected by a common network of trade routes. This is known as the Hopewell exchange system.
There is archaeological evidence for Iroquoian peoples "in the area around present-day New York state by approximately 500 to 600 CE, and possibly as far back as 4000 BCE. Their distinctive culture seems to have developed by about 1000 CE."
The Point Peninsula complex was an indigenous culture located in Ontario and New York from 600 BCE to 700 CE (during the Middle Woodland period). This culture, perhaps in interaction with other complexes eventually developed into the several Iroquoian-speaking nations of Pennsylvania and New York.
Culture
The Iroquoian peoples had matrilineal kinship systems. They were historically sedentary farmers who lived in large fortified villages enclosed by palisades thirty feet high as a defence against enemy attack, these settlements were referred to as “towns” by early Europeans and supplemented their diet with additional hunting and gathering activities. Longhouses were also common.