# Journal of American Folk-Lore/Volume 13/Issue 49/Iroquois Women

IROQUOIS WOMEN.
There are many incidental references to the social and political standing of women among the Iroquoian nations. The summary here to be presented will embrace only those in New York, Canada, and near Lake Erie. In this territory were included the Eries, Hurons, Neutrals, Petuns, and the Five Nations or Iroquois proper.
Although of the same stock, these differed greatly in many ways. In the opinion of the French; Huron and thief might well be convertible terms, such dexterous thieves were they. As among the Spartans, it was disgraceful only to be detected, and this was often thought a good joke. On the contrary, the Iroquois were and are scrupulously honest in this way. Both sexes of the Hurons were notoriously licentious, but Charlevoix says in his journal, "The Iroquois in particular had the reputation of chastity before they had any commerce with the Illinois and other nations in the neighborhood of Louisiana." Somewhat corrupted by these as they were, there is no instance on record of assault on any female captive. In political rights and social influence the women had everywhere much the same high standing.
As in civilized communities, there was a division of work between men and women, and the women's work was often assigned lo men who had become slaves of the Iroquois. They had lost their rank as warriors, unless adopted by some family or clan. The work of the women was to collect fuel, usually only dry sticks gathered in the woods; to cultivate the ground, a very light and rather jolly task; to carry the necessary baggage on the trails, while their husbands held axe and bow ready for defence against any sudden assault; to prepare clothing from the hides and furs the men brought in from the weary hunt; to cook the meat that had been found in the woods. There was lighter and tasteful employment in weaving and embroidery, but the Iroquois woman's daily lot was by no means hard. It was considered light by them. With the use of iron axes, fuel was more easily obtained, but the primitive mode was not very laborious. ​When large pickets were required for a palisade, David Cusick said, "They set fire against several trees as required to make a fort and the stone axes are used to rub off the coals, as to burr quicker; when the tree burns down they put fires to it about three paces apart and burns it down in half a day." With a host of people this became a frolic, and such it is yet. I was recently on the Onondaga reservation on a winter day. The men were busy getting in the year's supply of wood. First they chopped for one family, and then for another. When the logs were drawn home—for they do not cut it in short lengths in the woods—the men met from house to house, and cut it up for the stove. In the woods and at home they had a merry time.
The women carried the burdens, but not in all cases. When Chaumonot and Menard went from Onondaga to Oneida in 1656, at nightfall in the forest the chief addressed his band as usual. "He also made a speech complimentary to the women, who were carrying the provisions of the journey, praising their courage and constancy." On many occasions the men carried quite as much. This depended on circumstances. When the town of Onondaga was removed six miles in 1682, jean de Lamberville said, "This is not done without difficulty; for inasmuch as carts are not used here and the country is very hilly, the labor of the men and women, who carry their goods on their backs, is consequently harder and of longer duration. To supply the lack of horses the inhabitants of these forests render reciprocal aid to one another, so that a single family will hire sometimes eighty or one hundred persons." The burden strap across the forehead, the basket or back frame behind, all aided much.
While wives often accompanied their husbands on the war party or in embassies, this was only when the journey was much of it by water. Ordinarily they were at home, though sometimes helping in the hunting camps. Thus the care of the fields naturally fell to them. Corn, pumpkins, and beans were easily raised, and required no great care at any time. The ears of corn were neatly braided and hung in long festoons, within and without the cabins, as is done to this day. Rushes and corn-husks formed mats, the customary resting-places. "On my mat" was a well known hospitable phrase. Pumpkins were dried, and thus were ready for use at any time. Beans entered into many things, and are yet an ingredient of Indian corn bread. All these gave origin to various phrases applicable to female industry, indoors and out. In the old Mohawk tongue, Asennonte was a little sack attached to the girdle, in which the women carried their seed corn. Onárate was the wooden hoe, to which the poorer Indians long adhered. The native weeds were not hard to subdue, and of many modern pests they knew nothing. ​There are terms for various dishes and their preparation, and the men were cooks when occasion required. The probability is that they often lent a hand in household work.
Women dressed sumptuously when they could afford it, and they naturally had the first choice of materials. Our early chronicles often speak of the beauty and costly nature of their apparel. Colonel Thomas Proctor visited the Onondagas at Buffalo, in 1791, and said that some of the women were "dressed so richly with silken stroud, etc., and ornamented with so many silver trappings, that one suit must have been of the value of at least thirty pounds. Quite as costly were their earlier dresses, though made of native materials. One is tempted to enlarge on this; so curious and beautiful was their holiday attire.
It must be remembered that all were not equally rich, nor did all women rank alike. Some were brought up delicately. In the Relation for 1670 we have an account of the recent death of a young Seneca woman of high rank who had been baptized. To the comforting words of the missionary the mother replied, "Thou wast not acquainted with her; she was mistress here, and commanded more than twenty slaves who are still with me. She knew not what it was to go to the forest to bring in wood, or to the river there to draw up water. She was not able to trouble herself with all that which concerns housekeeping-. Now I doubt not but that being now the only one of our family in Paradise, she may have much trouble to accustom herself to it; for she will be obliged to do her cooking herself, to go to the wood and the water, and to prepare all with her own hands for eating and drinking." If only one of her slaves could go to the same place it would be all right.
Colden said the Iroquois had no slaves, but they not only frequently appear but are classified in the Relation for 1657. There were three kinds. The first were admitted into families, and sometimes became chiefs, though still considered slaves. The second were given to the richer Indians, and had food and shelter, but nothing more. The third were young women and girls, continually exposed to every danger. Often, however, they were saved from death to become wives. As slaves the treatment of these girls depended on the temper of their mistress, and this was often cruel. In 1656 an Erie girl displeased her Onondaga mistress, who hired a young man to kill her. The life of the slave was absolutely in the power of the owner.
Mr. Horatio Hale rather strangely says in his "[[Iroquois Book of Rites]," page 97, "The Iroquois never burnt women at the stake," and considers this but an occasional death for their male prisoners. He looked at their character through his own benevolent eyes. The ​instances of their both burning and eating women in the seventeenth century are so many that it is hardly worth while to discuss this. Four Andastes women were burned at Oneida alone in 1663, and another was burned and eaten at Cayuga the same year. Jogues' account of the burning and eating of a female prisoner in sacrifice, by the Mohawks, is well known. She was first burned all over the body, then thrown into a great fire, taken out in due season, and then "her body was cut up, sent to the various villages and devoured." Similar things were common.
I do not now remember any instance of polygamy among the Iroquois, though it was common among other races. Marriages could be dissolved at pleasure as they yet are, but in early days this seems to have been rarely done. Informal as Indian marriages usually were, there were some points more definitely observed by the Iroquois. Among the Mohawks Gakwarinna was the portion of the woman who gets married; Gakwarinnionton the ceremony of carrying her into the cabin at this time. For the time being, at least, she then had reserved rights. The union was arranged by mutual friends, and wife and husband lodged together at his home. During the day they were with their respective relatives, the husband not daring to enter his wife's cabin until she had children. At Onondaga, in 1657, it was observed that for the time being "the only community of goods there is between the one and the other is that the husband gives all the fruits of the chase to his wife, who renders him some services in recompense, and is obliged to cultivate his fields and make his harvest."
Men and women of the same clan might not marry, all these being esteemed near relations. For a long time clan burial prevailed, so that husband and wife were not interred together but in the grounds of their respective clans. The children were of the mother's clan and nation. Thus the noted Logan was a Cayuga because his mother was one, though his father was a distinguished Oneida chief. This feature of Iroquois life is a great bar to the division of their lands in severalty. Marriage into another clan or nation might bring personal advantages to a man if he desired them. Two of the leading framers of the Iroquois League were reputed Onondagas by birth, but Dekanawidah or his father and Hiawatha married Mohawk wives and became chiefs of that nation. In 1637 a young Seneca was displeased because his people had made peace with the Hurons. He "married among the Onondaga, in order always to have liberty to bear arms against them."
Men might change their nationality in order to build up a nation or clan. This is sometimes done now by both men and women. In the Relation for 1645 it appears that nearly all the Oneida men were ​at one time slain by the Hurons. The Oneidas had made peace with the Mohawks, and sent to them "for some men to be married to the girls and women who had remained without husbands, that the nation should nor. perish. This is why the Iroquois name that village their child."
Charlevoix said, "Among the Iroquois the woman never leaves her cabin, she being deemed the mistress, or at least the heiress of it; in other nations she goes at the expiration of a year or two after her marriage to live with her mother-in-law." This must be understood with some reservation, but in all marriages the woman was the principal person concerned, the one after whom the cabin was usually named.
In Canada the Hurons had an annual custom of marrying two young girls to their fishing nets, or rather to the genius of the nets. The reason for this custom was by no means creditable to the character of the Huron women, and it was found nowhere else. The girls were but six or seven years old, and the ceremony is described in the Relation for 1636. "The seine is placed between these two virgins; this is to make it lucky in taking fish." In general the women had less to do with the unseen world than the men, but they sometimes were given to magic arts, and have some share in medicine societies yet.
If they had no great prominence in magical arts at an early day it was not because they were undervalued. They might belong to the Iroquois Agoianders, or nobility. In 1671 a Christian Mohawk woman left her country to live in Canada. On this her family "degraded her from the nobility, in an assembly of the chiefs of the town, and took away the name and title of Oiander, that is to say, esteemed, a quality which they much esteem and which she had inherited from her ancestors, and deserved by her own good spirit, her prudence and wise conduct, and at the same time they installed another in her place. These women are much respected; they hold council, and the Ancients complete no affair of consequence without their advice."
Lafitau said, "There is nothing more real than this superiority of the women. It is they who constitute the tribe, keep up the genealogical tree and the order of inheritance, and perpetuate the family. They possess all real authority; own the land and the fields, and their harvests, they are the soul of all councils, the arbiters of peace and war; they have care of the public treasury; slaves are given to them; they arrange marriages; the children belong to them, and to them and their blood is confined the line of descent and the order of inheritance." He believed that the council simply aided woman in matters in which it was not becoming for them to act.
​Charlevoix expresses a much more moderate opinion. In speaking of the right of the Huron women to name counsellors, who were sometimes women, he adds, "The women have the chief authority amongst ail the nations of the Huron language, if we except the Iroquois canton of Oneida, in which it is in both sexes alternately. But if this be their lawful constitution, their practice is seldom agreeable to it. In fact, the men never tell the women anything they would have to be kept secret; and rarely any affair of consequence is communicated to them, though all is done in their name, and the chiefs are no more than their lieutenants." He mentioned an instance to show "that the real authority of the women is very small. I have been assured, however, that they always deliberate first on whatever is proposed in council, and that they afterwards give the result of this to the chiefs, who report it as a matter of form. On some occasions the women have an orator, who speaks in their name, or rather acts as their interpreter."
The story of the peculiar Oneida government was a fable told the French by the Neutrals in 1640. They said, "The men and the women there manage affairs alternately, so that if there is a man who governs them now, after his death it will be a woman who, during her lifetime, will govern them in her turn, except in what pertains to war; and after the death of the woman it will be a man who will take anew the management of affairs."
One woman of rank has been mentioned, and in the Relation for 1656 another several times appears. Teotonharason was an Onondaga woman who went with the ambassadors to Quebec, and was highly esteemed for her nobleness and wealth. She may have been the one mentioned in the Relation for 1671. "It was one of these principal persons who formerly first brought the Iroquois of Onondaga, and then the other nations, to make peace with the French. She descended to Quebec for the purpose, accompanied by some of her slaves." The influence of the Iroquois women was of great use to the missionaries. In the Relation for 1657 we read, "The women having much authority among these people, then virtue produces as much fruit as anything else, and their example finds as many more imitators."
If the women could not or would not always prevent war they often caused it to stop. At a conference at Niagara in 1767, the commissary "was informed that the old women of the Sinecas had stopt their young men from going to war." They are credited with more power of this kind than they probably had, but they always claimed a share in public affairs. At a council in Albany in 1788, Good Peter an Oneida chief, after speaking for the men, delivered the women's message. "You have heard our voice; we now entreat ​you to open your ears and hear a speech from our sisters, the governesses.
"Brother, our ancestors considered it a great offence to reject the counsels of their women, particularly of the female governesses. They were esteemed the mistresses of the soil. Who, said our forefathers, bring us into being? Who cultivate our lands, kindle our fires and boil our pots, but the women? . . . They entreat that the veneration of their ancestors, in favor of women, be not disregarded, and that they may not be despised; the Great Spirit is their Maker. The female governesses beg leave to speak with the freedom allowed to women, and agreeably to the spirit of our ancestors. They entreat the great chief to put forth his strength and preserve them in peace, for they are the life of the nation."
A later instance occurred in May, 1802, which is described in Stone's "Life of Brant." The Mohawk women held a council, called the chiefs to it, and spoke by strings of wampum. They said, "Uncles, some time ago the women of this place spoke to you, but you did not answer them, as you considered their meeting not sufficient." They remonstrated against the use of ardent drinks, and also against domestic feuds and dissensions. Brant's reply to the latter refers to woman's influence in the past: "Nieces, with respect to your request to bury all differences, we heartily comply with it, and thank you for the wisdom you showed in here interfering. It was the custom of our ancestors for the women, by their moderation, to heal up all animosities."
At a council at Grand River, June 30, 1804, "the sachems and principal war chiefs, warriors and principal women of the Six Nations," carefully considered some matters, and signed a report. Four of the signers were women, out of twenty-four in all. Names of the governesses and principal women appear in some New York land sales, but not in all alike.
At Canajoharie, in 1758, the chief women came to Sir William Johnson with a belt of wampum, the principal chiefs saying they had a message for him, apparently delivered by the chiefs. They wished him not to risk his life in going to Onondaga, and said, "We flatter ourselves you will look upon this our speech, and take the same notice of it as all our men do, who, when they are addressed by the women, and desired to desist from any rash enterprise, they immediately give way, where, before, everybody else tried to dissuade them from it and could not prevail."
The elders of the Indian women at Buffalo, May 14, 1791, came to Colonel Proctor, and said through their speaker, "You ought to hear and listen to what we women shall speak, as well as to the sachems, for we are the owners of this land, and it is ours. It is ​we that plant it for our and their use. Hear us, therefore, for we speak of things that concern us and our children, and you must not think hard of us while our men shall say more to you. for we have told them."
One right the Iroquois women always had, though inclined to relinquish it now. As children were theirs especially, following their nation and clan, so it was and is their business to nominate the chiefs. Lafitau said the chief matron of the clan conferred with these of her own cabin, and nominated the new chief from among the children of the aunts, sisters, or nieces on the maternal side. It is much the same now, but some changes have already come, and others will soon follow. In one of the condoling songs woman's importance in perpetuating a noble line is recognized. The dead chief is bewailed, "but it is still harder when the woman shall die, because with her the line is lost."
On this was founded one remarkable Huron and Iroquois custom. There are some notes on atonement for murder among the Hurons, in the Relation for 1648. "For a Huron killed by a Huron thirty gifts are commonly deemed a sufficient satisfaction. For a woman forty are required, because, as they say, the women are less able to defend themselves; and, moreover, they being the source whence the land is peopled, their lives should be deemed of more value to the commonwealth, and their weakness should have a stronger support in public justice." Loskiel said, "For the murder of a man 100 yards of wampum, and for that of a woman 200 yards must be paid by the murderer."
Allusion has been made to the fact that Iroquois women, however influential politically and socially, did not speak in their councils. Early writers take notice of this, and the custom continued. In 1791 Colonel Proctor attended a Seneca feast, where he saw a wooden, statue before which they danced. "Under this statue were placed two chiefs, termed the women's speakers. . . . The old and the young women danced around in a circle," etc. The same gentleman went to a council in Buffalo that year, to "hear what would be said by the women speaker, the young prince of the Turtle tribe (Red Jacket). . . . Being arrived, the first, matter unusual that presented itself were the elders of the women seated near the chiefs." Red Jacket gave their plea for peace.
Miss Powell gave an account of an Indian council at Buffalo in 1785. She probably exaggerated the number of chiefs, of whom she said 200 were seated in proper order, representing the Six Nations. Each nation formed a motionless circle under its own tree, against which its speaker stood. The women walked in one by one, and seated themselves behind the men. They are often quiet attendants ​at councils now. At one to which I was invited in Canada last year, there was a goodly number of women present, but only chiefs spoke.
Perhaps from this pacific influence may have come the story of a peaceful female monarch, usually much changed from the form in which David Cusick gave it. The ultimate origin was in the relation in which the Neutral nation stood to the Iroquois and Hurons, freely sheltering both alike. According to Cusick, "a queen, named Yagowanea, resided at the fort Kauhanauka," now on the Tuscarora reservation. She had much influence, and the war between the Five Nations and Missasaugas "was regulated under her control. The queen lived outside the fort in a long house, which was called a peace house. She entertained the two parties who were at war with each other; indeed, she was called the mother of the nations. Each nation sent her a belt of wampum as a mark of respect," but she betrayed the Iroquois, was herself conquered, and sued for peace. There have been fanciful additions to this.
In one notable instance a woman caused a war, instead of preventing it, by a stubborn assertion of her rights. The Onondaga chief, Anñenraes, had been taken by the Eries in 1654. Hoping to avert war, they gave him to the sister of one who had been slain, thinking she would gladly accept him. She came home while they were treating him handsomely; and demanded that he should be put to death. In vain did the chiefs plead with her and show the terrible consequences to her nation. She wept and protested, and insisted on his torture. Public safety yielded to her woman's right. The captive died and the Eries perished.
While Iroquois women rarely restrained their children, they had much affection for them. One story told of them by the Hurons has no foundation. In 1640 the latter said that the Iroquois "sometimes take a new-born child, pierce it with arrows, and cast it into the fire. The flesh having been consumed, they take the bones which they grind to powder; and when they wish to go to war, they drink a little of this powder, believing that this beverage increases their courage. They.also make use of these ashes for their lots and other superstitions." The mother was rewarded for her patriotic sacrifice. The only truth in this is the ceremonial use of ashes.
The Onondagas have always used vegetable poisons, and the poisoning was sometimes ascribed to witches, but the venom was as often taken intentionally. The Relation of 1657 takes note of this. "They kill themselves by eating certain venomous herbs that they know to be a poison, which the married women much more often use to avenge themselves for the bad treatment of their husbands, leaving them thus the reproach of their death." Pursh said that in 1807 Cicuta maculata was much used by the Onondagas as a poison.
​On ordinary occasions now men and women eat together, but when there is company, the women eat last. When Le Moyne left Onondaga in 1654, the principal men and women were invited to his feast of adieu, according to their custom, but this custom seems to have changed at a later day.
Some things may be summarized. Women were represented on bark with braided hair and waist cloths. The Mohawks sometimes called them Te hondatkentiogen, because the hair was divided above the forehead, but braiding was always a custom. Lahontan said, "The hair of the Iroquois women is rolled up behind with a sort of ribbon, and that roller hangs down to their girdle." When the Iroquois came to the Lancaster council in 1744, "several of their squaws or wives, with some small children, rode on horseback, which is very unusual with them." It became quite customary a hundred years ago. Circumstances changed clothing also. I still see blankets over the head, but shawls are more common, and these are drawn down over the face in anger or grief. Old women delighted in men's hats, and all wore moccasins and leggings.
Indians in general reckoned "the paying of tribute becoming none but women and children." The Iroquois gave none, but their women made the tasteful council belts. They were experts in star gazing, and they now have a place in medicine societies, and some relations to the False Faces. Some dances and games belong to them. Bruyas assigns to them the game of the eight bones or buttons. In 1656 we have an account of their prominent part in a medicine dance at Onondaga. L. H. Morgan assigns 14 out of 32 dances to men and women, and seven for women alone.
The French at Onondaga in 1657 said that "the children there were docile, the women inclined to the most tender devotion." Their funeral rites were as important as those of the men. A woman buried in 1762 had new garments, "set off with rows of silver brooches, one row joining another. Over the sleeves of her new ruffled shirt were broad silver arm spangles," etc., and wampum. and silver ornaments appeared elsewhere. Their part in funerals is now less conspicuous than in earlier days. David Zeisberger described an Onondaga funeral in 1752. The female friends of the dead man gathered at sunrise and sunset to bewail him before burial. Old squaws dug the grave, which was lined with loose boards. Suitably prepared, he was borne to the grave amid the howls of the women, who wept there morning and evening for some time longer. Rev. Mr. Kirkland saw a Seneca warrior's funeral in 1764, an hour after sunrise. No man was present but the grave-digger, but 150 women and girls sang a mournful song as they here the body in their procession to the grave. Some screamed and yelled. At the primary ​burial among the Hurons, in 1656, "the mother or the wife will be at the foot of the tomb, calling the deceased in singing, or rather complaining in a lugubrious tone." This kind of mourning lasted a year with them. Condolences were made for distinguished women as well as men.
Father Poncet has left us one pretty episode of his captivity among the Mohawks in 1653. Some Mohawk women had paid his captor several thousand beads, and one wished to adopt him in place of her dead brother. "So soon as I entered her cabin, she began to sing the song of the dead, in which she was joined by her two daughters. I was standing near the fire during these mournful dirges; they made me sit upon a sort of table slightly raised, and then I understood I was in the place of the dead, for whom these women renewed the last mourning, to bring the deceased to life again in my person, according to their custom."
Clan names are the rule among nations of Iroquois stock, and in some. the women have the sole right of bestowing these. In adoption they often have a prominent part, and this was a characteristic feature in early days.
One curious thing appears in a change of language, as when an uneducated Iroquois attempts to speak the English tongue. In most cases he will speak of a man as she, and a woman as he. There seems no reason for this beyond that of custom, but a custom it is. I have before spoken of a teacher's experience with the fifth com-mandment, where the children persistently said "thy mother and thy father." Female influence is the controlling newer. A widower with children has no title to them among those who observe the old ways, if his wife's mother is living. They belong to her.
Girls marry young. In 1866 a missionary's wife among the Green Boy Oneidas spoke in her diary of Garrentha. "Falling Bark." "She is considered an old maid; people say, 'Oh, Garrentha will never marry now; she is too old!' She is in fact nineteen, but the Oneida girls are married so early, at fourteen or fifteen, that nineteen is considered an advanced age." It often happens, however, among the Onondagas, that young men marry elderly women, with the idea that their experience may be valuable to those who have little, and the rule works both ways. This early wisdom is less shown new than in times of old, nor do the older people now. have so much to do with match-making.
W. M. Beauchamp.
Note.—On the general subject, see also Lucien Carr, "The Social and Political Position of Women among the Huron-Iroquois Tribes," in the Sixteenth Report of the Peabody Museum of American Archæology and Ethnology. Cambridge, Mass., 1883. Pp. 207–232.