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Political-Economic-Military alliances between Iroquoian speaking peoples

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THE HURON CONFEDERACY

destroyed and disperced by 1650s; some nations, especially those which moved further west, became known as the Ouendat or Wyndot

  1. Attignawantan (Bear nation)
    • the largest nation in the confederacy including the Ataronchronon, now thought to be an eastern division of the Bear Nation
  2. Attigneenongnahac (Cord nation)
  3. Tahontaenrat (Deer people)
  4. Arendaronon (Rock nation)


Other Iroquoian speaking nations, NOT members of either the Huron or 5 Nations alliances (ie. neutral)

  1. Tionnontate (Petun) were not members of the Huron confederacy but spoke the same language and were very similar to other Huron nations, although in the past they had been at war with the Huron; In the period after the arrival of the French, the Petun were allies of the Huron confederacy
  2. Neutral: to the south between the Grand R and the Niagara river, another confederacy composed of bands of the Neutral
  3. Erie, closer to Lake Erie in the south-western part of what is today Ontario


ST. LAWRENCE IROQUOIS or LAURENTIAN IROQUOIS

These were a group of about 7 different villages along the St. Lawrence R. who were living there when Cartier made his visits in 1534, 1535, and 1541-42. When Champlain arrived there half a century later in 1608 (Kebek), these people where gone as where the considerable villages at Stadacona and Hochelega. Scholars do not agree and what exactly happened to these people (warfare? epidemics? migration?)

  1. Stadaconans
  2. Hochelegans
  3. 5 other villages


5 NATIONS IROQUOIS or IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY or Great League of Peace and Power

The Haudenosaunee or Rotinonshón:ni"people of the longhouse" formed this politico-economic-cultural alliance sometime prior to direct contact with Europeans, initially to ensure peaceful relations among themselves and with their neighbours. Throughout most of the 17th century, they were at war with the French (who had allied themselves with their enemies, the Huron and the Algonkian speaking groups along the St. Lawrence), but in the 18th century they became the allies of the French against the British. The League/Confederacy was destroyed through factionalism during the American Revolutionary wars (mid-1770s to early 1780s) but many of its elements were rebuilt and reorganized in subsequent generations

  1. Seneca ("the great hill people")
  2. Cayuga ("people at the mucky land")
  3. Onondaga ("the people of the hills" also called the "firekeepers" or the "wampum keepers")
  4. Oneida ( "the people of the standing stone")
  5. Mohawk ("the possessors of flint")
  6. joining in 18th century (1722) to make the 6 Nations: Tuscarora ("hemp gatherers" or "shirt wearing people")