Proud to be Iroquois

We return thanks to our Mother the Earth which sustains us We return thanks to the rivers and streams which supply us with water We return thanks to all herbs which furnish medicines for the cure of our diseases We return thanks to the moon and stars which have given to us their light when the sun was gone We return thanks to the sun that has looked upon the Earth with a beneficent eye Lastly we return thanks to the Great Spirit in whom is embodied all goodness and who directs all things for the good of Her children Iroquois ßlessing

peace be with you

You have noticed that everything as Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the power of the world always works in circles, and everything tries to be round. The sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nest in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves. ~Black Elk, Oglala Sioux

O Great Spirit, whose voice I hear in the winds and whose breath gives life to the world, hear me. I come to you as one of your many children. I am small and weak. I need your strength and your wisdom. May I walk in beauty. Make my eyes ever behold the red and purple sunset. Make my hands respect the things that you have made and my ears sharp to hear your voice. Make me wise so that I may know the things you have taught your children, the lessons you have hidden in every leaf and rock. Make me strong, not to be superior to my brothers and sisters, but to be able to conquer my greatest enemy, myself. Make me ever ready to come to You with straight eyes, so that when life fades as the fading sunset, my spirit comes to You without shame. native american prayer

'You're a Friend for all the Seasons of my Life' Through the seasons of our lives, friends come and go. Some stay longer than others. Some touch us, and then are gone. But as the seasons change, I am reassured to know You will always be there. Because no matter how busy our lives become, our friendship remains true. And knowing I have the kind of friend I have in you Gives me new hope To face all my tomorrows. by Leslie J. Snodgrass

Sir Toby MacGyver {Mac} our shetland sheepdog

Last words of Tashunka Witko aka Crazy Horse (1849?-1877), Oglala Sioux Chief... to Agent Lee as follows: “My friend, I do not blame you for this. Had I listened to you this trouble would not have happened to me. I was not hostile to the white men. Sometimes my young men would attack the Indians who were their enemies and took their ponies. They did it in return. We had buffalo for food, and their hides for clothing and for our teepees. We preferred hunting to a life of idleness on the reservation, where we were driven against our will. At times we did not get enough to eat, and we were not allowed to leave the reservation to hunt. We preferred our own way of living. We were no expense to the government. All we wanted was peace and to be left alone. Soldiers were sent out in the winter, they destroyed our villages. Then "Long Hair" (Custer) came in the same way. They say we massacred him, but he would have done the same thing to us had we not defended ourselves and fought to the last. Our first impulse was to escape with our squaws and papooses, but we were so hemmed in that we had to fight. After that I went up on the Tongue River with a few of my people and lived in peace. But the government would not let me alone. Finally, I came back to the Red Cloud Agency. Yet I was not allowed to remain quiet. I was tired of fighting. I went to the Spotted Tail Agency and asked that chief and his agent to let me live there in peace. I came here with the agent (Lee) to talk with the Big White Chief but was not given a chance. They tried to confine me. I tried to escape, and a soldier ran his bayonet into me. I have spoken.” Source: First American Forefathers

Many historians differ that the hostility of the Iroquois toward the French was caused by explorer Samuel de Champlain, when in 1609 he accompanied a Huron war party armed with French guns into Iroquois territory. In any case, the Iroquois, firm allies of the British, opposed the French at every step until the French lost control of Canada in 1763. The French, partly in the hope of winning over the Iroquois, sent missionaries to them. Isaac Jogues, a notable Jesuit missionary, was killed by the Iroquois as a sorcerer in 1646, but the missionaries were somewhat successful, and a considerable number of the Mohawk withdrew from the confederacy and founded (c.1670) a Catholic settlement. These Catholic Iroquois, called French Mohawks, took the part of the French against their former brethren. In the early 18th century the Five Nations became the Six Nations when the Oneida adopted (c.1722) the remnants of the Tuscarora Confederacy. British settlers had expelled (1711) the Tuscarora from North Carolina, and by 1712 they had moved north. The British, who had used the Six Nations as a buffer against the advance of the French from Canada in the French and Indian Wars, attempted to retain their favor by accrediting various agents, notably Sir William Johnson (Johnson of the Mohawks).

The American Revolution was disastrous for the Iroquois. The confederacy refused to take part in the conflict, but allowed each tribe to decide for itself. All the tribes, except the Oneida, joined the British. Samuel Kirkland, a Protestant missionary, was largely responsible for winning over the Oneida, who rallied to the side of the colonists after remaining neutral for two years. Cornplanter, Red Jacket, and Joseph Brant (who was educated by Sir William Johnson) led the Iroquois who remained loyal to the British. Brant, the principal leader of the Iroquois troops, participated with the Tory Rangers of Walter Butler in raids in New York and Pennsylvania, particularly the Cherry Valley massacre. The Continental Congress sent out a punitive expedition under John Sullivan, who in 1779 defeated Butler and his Iroquois allies. After the Revolution, Brant, in contrast to the other two chiefs, remained adamant in his hostility toward the United States.

In 1990, an estimated 50,000 Iroquois live in the United States and Eastern Canada. Some 17,000 Mohawk; 11,000 Oneida; 10,000 people of Seneca or mixed Seneca-Cayuga heritage. Close to 10,000 Mohawk live in Canada, many on the St. Regis and the Six Nations reserves in Ontario and the Caughnawaga Reserve in Quebec. Many Cayuga, who were strong allies of the British, also live on the Six Nations Reserve, which is open to all members of the confederacy. Most of the remaining Iroquois, except for the Oneida of Wisconsin and the Seneca-Cayuga of Oklahoma, are in New York; the Onondoga reservation there is still the capital of the Iroquois Confederacy. Large numbers of Iroquois in the United States live in urban areas rather than on reservations. Many Mohawk and Oneida work as structural steelworkers, and the Oneida opened a large gambling casino near Syracuse, New York in 1993. Most Iroquois are either Christians or followers of Handsome Lake, a Seneca prophet of the 18th century who was influenced by the Quakers. Source: encyclopedia.com

One of the most complete single source of evidence for Haudenosaunee views in the late nineteenth century, survives in the Whipple Report published in 1889. Just two years before the census takers visited the Haudenosaunee, the Whipple committee sought their opinions and published more than eight hundred pages of testimony. The transcripts record the tension felt by some Haudenosaunee witnesses, and even their reluctance to speak frankly. The accuracy of the transcripts is important, and fortunately a brief description of actual methods survives. Andrew S. Draper, an advocate of the Whipple Report who was superintendent of public instruction for the State of New York, stressed how thorough the committee had been, using "all the modern improvements and appliances, stenographers, counsel, and power to subpoena witnesses and administer oaths." The Whipple Report includes important if constrained interviews with some of the Iroquois leaders on whom Henry B. Carrington would depend. It also provides insights into attitudes held by some white New York State leaders in the 1880's. For example, J. S. Whipple, the chairman of the committee, had especially strong interests in seeing the Haudenosaunee assimilated. He was the assemblyman who represented the city of Salamanca, built on lands leased from the Senecas.

The Interview given here is from the book, Six Nations of New York: The 1892 United States Extra Census Bulletin [Documents in American Social History] by Robert W. Venables At the Tuscarora reservation north of Buffalo, near Lewiston in Niagara County, the Whipple Committee questioned Iroquois Chief Ta-wer-da-quoit (Two Boots Standing Together) aka Luther W. Jack, regarding the political structure of the Tuscarora Nation and the Confederacy as a whole. The counsel for the committee, Judge 0. S. Vreeland, began: Q. What is your age? A. Twenty-nine. Q. You are a Tuscarora Indian? A. Tuscarora Indian. Q. Born on this reservation, were you? A. Yes, sir. Q. Have you a family? A. Yes, sir. Q. Wife and children? A. No wife. Q. No children? A. No children. Q. You are one of the chiefs of the nation? A. Yes, sir. Q. What are the duties of the chiefs, what do they do? A. They regulate the nation? Q. They are the government of the nation? A. Yes, sir, they are the government of the nation. Q. To which clan do you belong? A. Wolf Q. How long have you been a chief? A. Fifteen years. Q. Then you were how old when you were chosen chief? A. About thirteen. Q. About thirteen when you were chosen chief? A. Yes, sir. Q. You don't have to be 21 years of age, or 18 to be a chief? A. No, but I never acted until I was 21. Q. Until you were 21? A. No, until after, until the last five years or so off and on, the last two winters regular. Q. When did you have a right to act, when you were 21? What is the age of the majority [that is, no longer a minor] of your nation, 18 or 21? A. Well, we have no regulation about that, but it is by the chiefs, if they see fit to have a man under 21 act, they let him act. Q. The chiefs have control of that? A. The chiefs have the control of that. Q. You began to act when the chiefs allowed you to? A. No, I began to act when I thought I was fit for it. Q. How did you get to be a chief? A. Well, they choose by my clan, by the women of my clan. Q. The women of your clan chose you? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many women belong to your clan? A. Well, at the time they chose me, I could not recollect. I don't remember. Q. Mr. [Barnet H.] Davis [committee member]. Don't the men choose the chiefs? A. No. Q. Judge Vreeland: The women choose the chiefs? A. Yes, the women choose the chiefs; the women of my clan. Q. Do they meet together somewhere, these ladies? A. Yes, sir. They meet together. Q. And vote? A. Yes, sir. They vote. Q. And they chose you? A. Yes, sir. And after they chose me they referred to the chiefs in council for adoption, for approval. Q. After they appointed you then it was referred to the chiefs? A. To the chiefs for approval. Q. And they approved it? A. They approved it. Q. Would they have a right to disapprove it? A. Yes, sir. Q. If the chiefs didn't want you they could say so, and then you could not be a chief? A. Yes, sir. Q. Then someone would have to be picked out, somebody else? A. Yes, sir. Then it would be referred back to the women to reconsider about it. Q. When you were chosen, was there somebody else that wanted to be chief besides you? A. I don't know. I was not there. Q. Mr. Davis (again): Wouldn't you like to be a citizen? A. I am a citizen now of the nation here. That is, the Tuscarora Nation. Q. Wouldn't you like to vote? A. No, I wouldn't like to vote. Q. Mr. Whipple: Would you like to become a citizen, if it was so fixed that you would not be taxed, and you could not alienate your land-could not get rid of it, and then have the right to vote? A. No, I don't think that... Q. Don't think that would be a good thing? A. No. There will be some scheme in regard to it, and in few years we would be compelled to pay taxes. Q. Judge Vreeland: Is your objection to becoming a (U.S.) citizen, for fear of some scheme by which you will be taxed or your land sold or something of that kind? A. Well, as soon as we become citizens the land will be divided, and by so doing I think there is a curse to the nation. Q. You don't think the land ought to be divided? A. No. I don't think it ought to. Q. What objection would you have to dividing the land, giving every man his fair share, and fix it so he could not sell it? A. Well, the nation, it seems to me, is contented as they are, and then I was to say about dividing the lands; I don't think it would be fair for us. It will amount to about twelve acres apiece; divided up into twelve-acre lots, about 408 shares, and we have got to have outlets to it, and there will roads all over it, it will be all roads.