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Native american iroquois tribe essay
Iroquois tribe
Essay about iroquois tribe
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In ancient times nature surrounded everything. The Iroquois Indians only knew nature, it is what they were taught. Their storytellers used myths or traditional stories explaining a phenomenon and fables or stories using animals to convey a moral. In the Iroquois nation’s creation myth “The World on the Turtle’s Back” and the fable “ Coyote and Buffalo” by Mourning Dove, both use cultural beliefs, a series of supernatural events, and colorful archetypes to prove to origin of the earth.
Creation stories have profound effects on humans. Those associated with ancient cultures/civilizations aim to ensure the successful survival or well-being of themselves and that particular culture/civilization of their association, but not all are beneficial, prosperous, or fortunate. Mesopotamia’s “The Gilgamesh Epic”, Egypt’s “Hymn to the Nile-Documents”, and Mesoamerica’s Mayan and Aztec creation stories/religion are influential to establishing significant relationships within society, whether that is between humans and nature or humans and their “god(s).”
Have you ever wonder how the universe was created? Some people believe in the Earth creation by the Supreme Being, some believe in the scientific explanation of Big Bang explosion theory. Every civilization in the world has its own story of how things are created. Each story reflects how people see and think the world at their time. In this essay, I am going to compare two myths of how man was created – the creation tale of Mohawk Tribe and the Hebrew Bible creation story. There are a lot of similarities as well as differences between these legends. While some differences between the two tales are the development of the stories and the meaning behind the stories, the similarities between them is the concept of creationism.
Many oral traditional stories have been told and passed down from person to person and family to family for thousands of years. Almost every story that has been told has either been altered or told in a different way so after 100 years of one story being told someone will decide to create their own version of it.
The Native American’s way of living was different from the Europeans. They believed that man is ruled by respect and reverence for nature and that nature is an ancestor or relative. The Native American’s strongly belie...
This philosophy was at the core of the powerful Iroquois League of Five Nations. The League of Five Nations, or Iroquois Confederacy as it is more commonly called, was a thriving and well-functioning form of government very similar to that of the United States Government. Hundreds of years before "civilized" man arrived in the New World -- historians think as early as 1400 A.D.-- the Iroquois had created a radically new and well-organized form of government unlike any other before it. This new form of government was the idea of two peaceful men named Hiawatha and Deganawida (McClard 47). Hiawatha and Deganawida realized that the five Iroquois tribes were constantly fighting with one another resulting in many innocent deaths and ongoing tribal wars. As a solution to the constant stream of violence between the Iroquois people, they proposed a union between the five tribes that would make the Iroquois nation as a whole stronger and more powerful, while uniting their "brothers" together in friendship. The Iroquois Confederacy was a lasting union between the five Iroquois tribes: the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca. This union of five Iroquois tribes would prove to have a great deal of impact on the founding fathers of the United States. The grounding principles of unity, freedom of the people, and democracy that defined the Iroquois Confederacy very much impressed certain men who were charged with designing the new government of the United States.
After analyzing each of the three documents, the Navajo in the southwest, the Cherokee in the southeast, and the Iroquois in the northeast, I saw that they each have similarities and differences. The Navajo’s are the biggest tribe in the United States, consisting of many Indian’s. Cherokee in the southeast are located in Georgia, Missouri, and Alabama. Iroquois were not only one group; they were a group of five. They were hunters and farmers that grew many different crops such as, corn, beans, and squash. These three tribes are all different in each of their ways but some may remain with some similarities.
Considering historical evidence, the notion: Native –Americans was not the first inhabitant of America is a complete false. For centuries, history kept accurate and vivid accounts of the first set of people who domiciled the western hemisphere. Judging by those records, below are the first set of Native-American people who inhabited America before the arrival of another human race; the Iroquois: The Iroquois of Native Americans was one of the tribes that lived in America before other people came. Based on historical evidence, it is believed that the Native Americans came from Asia way back during the Ice Age through a land bridge of the Bering Strait. When the Europeans first set foot in America, there were about 10 million Native Americans
The Iroquois includes many Indian tribes speaking a language of the Iroquoian family, such as the Huron, Mohawk, Onondaga, and Seneca among others. However, the Huron is often spoken of separately. The Iroquois differs from the Iroquois Confederacy, also known as the Iroquois League. All of them were affected by the arrival and colonization by Europeans. While Iroquois have a reputation of being violent, they were at times peaceful and were employed by different European companies; they also spread their culture and some European ideas with them. The Iroquois League has been said to have influenced the Founding Fathers, but is that true? Another question is whether the Iroquois were cannibals. They believed in witchcraft, but witchcraft
The Iroquois Confederacy, an association of six linguistically related tribes in the northeastern woodlands, was a sophisticated society of some 5,500 people when the first white explorers encountered it at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The 1990 Census counted 49,038 Iroquois living in the United States, making them the country's eighth most populous Native American group. Although Iroquoian tribes own seven reservations in New York state and one in Wisconsin, the majority of the people live off the reservations. An additional 5,000 Iroquois reside in Canada, where there are two Iroquoian reservations. The people are not averse to adopting new technology when it is beneficial, but they want to maintain their own traditional identity.
The earth was created by the use of many animals. The Native American myths explain their beliefs through stories passed down from generation to generation. One of the myths they passed down is called, “How Coyote Stole Fire.” This myth is about how a coyote found a tribe that uses fire to keep warm, but he wants to help another tribe that is cold and lots of people are dying. So coyote decides to steal the fire and bring it to the tribe of Native Americans. Another myth passed down is called, “Coyote Finishes His Work.” This myth is about how a coyote was sent by a god to oversee the problems of the earth and fix them if needed. They all all similar but different, they are similar because they all have to do with some type of animal that contributed to the creation of earth, they are also different because all the myths tell it in a different way.
The Native Americans have used turtle’s back as a sort of calendar to explain the moon cycles in every year. The thirteen large scales on the turtle’s back shows the thirteen moons in each year, and the twenty-eight smaller scales stand for the twenty-eight days between each new moon. This reminds the Iroquois people that they must try to live in balance and that all things all connected. Additionally, the Iroquois people have used animals to meet their needs. They have used buckskin to make men’s summer clothing,
Every ancient society and civilization has creation myths that were passed down and keep alive throughout the passing of time by word of mouth. These myths are the world’s oldest stories and are vital to these cultures because they explain their beginnings and give purpose to their existence. By analyzing and interpreting different creation myths it becomes easier to understand different cultures and their connections and relationships with heir beliefs and god(s).
Gods. Earth. Animals. These three things make are sacred in the Native American culture. Whether it's in "When Grizzlies Walked Upright" (Source A) showing that god should not be messed with because the grizzly never told him about his daughter. Or in the story "The Earth on the Turtle's Back" (Source B) when the animals helped the woman live because they cared about her. These things have a symbolic meaning to them because in each of the stories it uses all three of these things . Even in the "Navajo Origin Myth" (Source C) it shows these symbols because the gods made the first people shelter and had plants and animals there too. These stories show us symbolism because of the interactions of the gods, animals, and the earth.
In Native American culture, myths were very important in teaching lessons. These lessons were taught through characters, one of them being “coyote”, who was very influential. Coyote plays a key role in many myths, 3 of those myths are, “Coyote & the Buffalo”, “Fox, Coyote & whale”, and “Coyote finishes his work”. In these myths he is used as a tool to give reason to natural phenomena and send valuable messages to the audience.
I would choose to be in Iroquois Nation because I like how both genders harmoniously work together. In the Born for Liberty, Evans writes " Sometimes men and women performed separate ,but complementary tasks...In other cases men and women performed the same tasks but the work was still segregated on the basis of sex." (8) Here I see equality despite of segregation, both genders have tasks to fulfill and both have the freedom to interchange it. Males and females being able to perform the same tasks, but segregated on the basis of sex, still shows that the Iroquois nation has no discrimination for females. The harmonious cooperation boosts solidarity between the genders. It shows how they value not only men but also women in their nation; Iroquois