Native Americans Tribes and Regions

Native Americans were often grouped into

tribes or nations. These groupings were
generally based on peoples that shared the
same culture, language, religion, customs,
and politics. There are over 1000 Native
American Tribes in the United States.

Great Plains - One of the largest areas and perhaps most famous group of American Indians, the Great
Plains Indians were known for hunting bison. They were nomadic people who lived in teepees and they
moved constantly following the bison herds. Tribes of the Great Plains include the Blackfoot, Arapahoe,
Cheyenne, Comanche and Sioux.
Northeast Woodlands - Includes the Iroquois Indians of New York, the Wappani, and the Shawnee.
Southeast - The largest Native American tribe, the Cherokee, lived in the Southeast. Other tribes included
the Seminole in Florida and the Chickasaw. These tribes tended to stay in one place and were skilled
farmers.
Southwest - The southwest was dry and the Native Americans lived in tiered homes made out of adobe
bricks. Famous tribes here include the Navajo Nation, the Apache, and the Pueblo Indians.

IROQUOIS NATION

The Iroquois were a League or Confederacy of tribes in the Northeastern part of America. Originally they
were formed by five tribes: the Cayuga, Onondaga, Mohawk, Seneca, and Oneida. Later, in the 1700s, the
Tuscarora tribe joined. The French named them the Iroquois, but they called themselves the
Haudenosaunee, which means People of the Longhouse. The British called them the Six Nations.
Culture and religion
The Iroquois had a type of representative government. Each tribe in the Iroquois League had its own
elected officials called sachem. These chiefs would attend the Iroquois council where major decisions were
made regarding the Six Nations.

The Iroquois lived in longhouses. These were long

rectangular buildings made with wood frames and covered
with bark. They didn't have any windows, just a door at each
end and holes in the roof to let smoke from cooking fires
out. Many families would live in a single long house. Each
family would have its own compartment that could be
separated from the others for privacy using a partition made
of bark or animal skin.

Women have always enjoyed an equal status with men in Iroquois society. Women were in charge of
property, agricultural land holdings including houses and horses. The women chose to work as they
pleased and in the event of a divorce, the man was asked to leave the house, with his possessions.
Children were educated by matriarchal members of the tribe. There have never been instances of domestic
violence against women.
Iroquois tribesmen took up various occupations like farming, gathering of forest products, fishing and
hunting.

The Iroquois ate a variety of foods. They grew crops such as corn, beans, and squash. These three main
crops were called the "Three Sisters" and were usually grown together. Women generally farmed the
fields and cooked the meals. The men hunted wild game including deer, rabbit, turkey, bear, and beaver.
Some meat was eaten fresh and some was dried and stored for later. Hunting animals was not only
important for meat, but for other parts of the animal as well. The Iroquois used the skin for making clothing
and blankets, the bones for tools, and the tendons for sewing.

Iroquois clothing was made from tanned deerskin. The men wore
leggings and long breechcloths while the women wore long skirts.
Both men and women wore deerskin shirts or blouses and soft shoes
made of leather called moccasins. The wampum was a very
important spiritual accessory. It was used to create belts or bracelets
where each bead represented an important event. Wampums could
also be used as money.

The Iroquois believed in an omniscient 'Great Spirit', who they believe was also their creator. They
strongly believed in nature and seasons. The Iroquois people thought that humans could communicate
with the Great Spirit by burning tobacco, which carried their prayers to the spirits of Good. Dreams were
regarded to be important supernatural signs which expressed the desire of the soul, they paid serious
attention to dream interpretation. They also believed in an afterlife: their spirit would join the Great Spirit in
the place where the Great Spirit lived, provided the Iroquois honored the Great Spirit and lived a good life.

The Iroquois were allied with the British Crown, but during the American Revolution War, when the
United States declared their independence from England, they got defeated by the Americans of George
Washington (1779), who ordered his soldiers to destroy every village of the natives.
Some of the Iroquois who survived those cruel battles managed to escape to the reservations in Canada
lead by a woman of the Mohawk tribe, Molly Brant. She is still considered one of the symbols of Canada
today because of all the lives she saved.