Gray, Mitchell. ¨Dapper man¨ . September 3, 2021. Personal Photo.
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An Iroquois Lesson: History and Tradition of the Haudenosaunee
Mitchell Edward Gray
Mitchell Edward Gray
Akwesasne Mohawk
Gray, Mitchell. "Thanksgiving Address" February 28, 2022.
Community: “Sharing Ones Skin”
In Jeannette Armstrong’s “Sharing Ones Skin, she talks about Native identity. She says that her identity comes from the river that generations of her family had responsibility for. When talking to her people she says these things because it shows her purpose and responsibilities, to show her connection to her people. What I think she means by sharing one's skin is that If you're a part of a tribe, family lines are identity. People share their tradition like family.
It reminds me of the ties that native people have with their history. The matter of events, history, sacred sites of cultural importance, and survival of capitalism, it all is of great reverence and importance to the people. All tribes can connect when we know each other's history.
When my tribal community gathers, a speaker reads a Thanksgiving Address, giving thanks to all things in nature and oneness with nature. The speaker continues to read in Mohawk the list from mother earth, to the sky, and lastly the creator. At the end of the gathering the speaker says “Now our minds are one.”
The Thanksgiving Giving address is one way the Haudenosaunee people share their cultural Identity. By gathering and expressing one thought of thanks to the things around us, we all come together as one mind.
Armstrong, Jeanette. ¨Community ´Sharing ones skin´¨ Paradigm Wars:
Indigenous Peoples´ Resistance to Globalization. Sierra Books Publication.
2006. Print. Pg 35-39
Native American Identity
Native American Identity
Native American Identity
The “Native American Identity¨ article by Perry G. Horse (Kiowa), is a lesson of Native Americans compelled to American culture in tribal communities. The tribes had taken in American lifestyles, the tribal members shund their Native foods and started intermarrying with white people. They started eating processed foods other than traditional food. Fiftyfour years after natives consume American lifestyle, Perry looks around and sees people losing tradition and embracing American culture.
“Native American identity is multifaceted. Many issues or elements
(such as ethnic nomenclature, racial attitudes, the legal and political status of American Indian nations and American Indian people, cultural change, and one’s sensibility about what being a Native American means in today’s society)” -Perry G. Horse, pp# 61-62
Tribes straying from their communities, the Wichita, Apache, Comanche, Navajo, the Kiowa and a list of five hundred more tribes. The people lost their traditional paths. Spreading consciousness is where Native American identity begins. The Iroquois people have a haudenosaunee lifestyle that differs from the American lifestyle, because of the Two Row Wampum Belt. My people have been fighting European lifestyle ever since white people first roamed Mohawk territory in 1613.
Perry is teaching us that Native American Identity is under attack by American tradition. I would see in the communities of New Mexico that they are teaching the native youth their traditional ways of life. I see pueblo based knowledge in the indian school in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It's time for people to learn more than just of their own communities.
Horse, Perry G. ¨Native American Identity¨. New Directions for
Student Service. no . 109. Wiley Periodicals. Inc. Spring, 2005
Print. Pg 61-68
Gray, Mitchell. ¨Mohawk Brothers.¨ . September 4, 2021. Personal Photograph.
Iroquois Government
Iroquois Government
The American constitution was not the first of its kind in America. The Iroquois Confederacy was a long-standing government with its own laws, the Great Law of Peace. Many historians believe that the American government was deeply influenced by the Iroquois confederacy’s system of government.
The Haudenosaunee considered their origin to be somewhat in the mid-sixteenth century. Before the nations even came together they were constantly fighting. Each tribe is composed of different clans, these clans would constantly be at war with each other. These wars were blood fueled and often met with “revenge and retaliation.” To settle feuds with clans, the tribes would compete in long games of lacrosse, A medicine game given to the Haudenosaunee people.
Cullen, Carol. The Iroquois Confederation, Facts On File, 2018. American Indian History, online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=18626&itemid=WE43&articleId=533908. Accessed 8 Oct. 2021.
Gray, Mitchell. ¨Hoop Dance Performance¨ . February 5, 2021. Personal Photograph.
The History of the Iroquois
The History of the Iroquois
The Iroquois is a band of tribes that formed together to make the Iroquois Confederacy. The Confederacy consisted of the Mohawks, Cayuga, Seneca, Onondaga, Oneida, and soon after the Tuscarora would be adopted. The Haudenosaunee, “People of the longhouse” were called the Iroquois during the arrival of the Europeans. The British happened to call them five nations, after the Tuscarora were included the British called them six nations
The tribes had their own names when they were all together. The Mohawks were the Kanienkehaka, which means "people of the flint country,” the Onondaga, “People of the hills,” the Cayuga, “where they land the boats,” the Oneida, “people of the standing stone,” and the Seneca, “the people of the big hill” The north east part of America is where they all are located. The Tuscarora was adopted into the Iroquois confederacy in 1722. They called them, “People of the shirt.”
Johansen, Bruce E. “Great Law of Peace.” The Iroquois, Second Edition, Chelsea House, 2017. American Indian History, online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=18626&itemid=WE43&articleId=413509. Accessed 7 Oct. 2021.
Gray, Mitchell. ¨Condolence Cane.¨ . October 28, 2021. Personal Photo.
Hiawatha and the Peacemaker
Hiawatha and the Peacemaker
Hiawatha had suffered the tragic loss of losing his family to war, the evil chief Tadodaho is the only man capable of such a tragedy. While grieving for his loved ones, Hiawatha was approached by a man paddling in a stone canoe. The man's name was Deganawidah and he greeted Hiawatha with a wampum belt. Deganawidah was the one that told Hiawatha of the Great Law of Peace, which spoke of the wars between the Haudenosaunee and how they must stop war within the tribes. “They all must come together in one body, one heart, one mind. The peacemaker said. “Peace and power would be the new way of life for the Haudenosaunee.”
Whitley, Patrick, director. Hiawatha and the Peacemaker Read Along | Powwow Times. YouTube, YouTube, 16 May 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmjCbLM8oi4&t=322s. Accessed 19 Oct. 2021.
Gray, Mitchell.¨Condolence Cane Ray Fadden¨. March 4, 2022. Book Photograph.
Great Law of Peace
Great Law of Peace
The great law of peace system of governing laws constitution. It was the law that the league of six nations used before the arrival of the Europeans on Plymouth rock. The tribes of the Iroquois formed a government with complex ways of decisions. In the woodlands, the use of wampum and pine trees was an important part of the story of the great law of peace.
The tribal councils were divided into parties led by tribal statesmen. No decisions in the council are legal unless all the statesmen are present. Tekanawida appointed all the Mohawk statesmen to start the Great Peace, to make sure the law is not protested against by other nations when presented to the grand councils.
This system of government was the foundation of American democracy. The American government's system of checks and balances was heavily influenced by how the statesmen discussed and passed laws. The Iroquois people had a big influence on American history.
Fadden, J. K.-H.-H., Notes, A., & Fadden, R. T. (1999). Kaianerekowa Hotinonsionne = The Great Law of Peace of the Longhouse People. Oyate.
Gray, Mitchell. "Statesmen" March 1, 2022. Book Photograph.
Iroquois Council
Wolf clan belt is a friendship Alliance. One person represents French and the other Akwesasne (Saint Regis), Caughnawaga. Owned once by Chief Running Deer. Wolf clan belt is a friendship Alliance. One person represents the French and the other represents the Wolf Clan of the Mohawks and the Senecas. The two are joining hands in friendship. Akwesasne (Saint Regis) and Caughnawaga, and Oka. The Mohawks and Senecas traded with the French, this did not mean they were allies.
The Mohawk chieftainship wampum strings are used to keep a record of all the mohawk leaders. The keeper of the records is the Sarehowane. There are similar records to the other four nations of the original Iroquois states. The mohawks have nine chiefs, nine wampum strings in the record. There are 3 chiefs in each clan.
For Turtle Clan, Chiefs Tekarihoken (The Mediator), Ayonwatha (Hiawatha, He who combs), and Satekariwate (The Clear Thinker). For Wolf Clan, Chiefs Sarenhowane (Majestic Tree), Teyonhekwen (He Who Has Two Lives), Orenrekowa (Great Limb On A Tree. And for Bear Clan, Tehanakarine (He Who Draga Horns), Ostawenserentha (He Hangs Up The Rattles), Soskoharowane (A Great Bush).
Wampum belts and strings have a big role in the Iroquois way of government, The Great Law Of Peace. decisions, treaties, and alliances are not met upon without using wampum belts and wampum strings. The chiefs and war chiefs have their roles in governments that the American government was shaped by. The government of America is using the system of governance and war that the Iroquois has been using since the formation of the Great Law.
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