MOHAWK NATION


The Mohawk are Iroquoian-speaking North American Indian tribe, the easternmost group of the Iroquois League (; Iroquois Confederacy); they occupied three villages west of what is now Schenectady, N.Y., U.S. Like the other Iroquois tribes, the Mohawk were semisedentary.

Women practiced corn (maize) agriculture while men hunted during the fall and winter and fished during the summer.

Related families lived together in longhouses, the symbols of Iroquois society.

According to traditional accounts the Mohawk leader Hiawatha was the first to accept the principles of peace preached by the prophet of peace, Peacemaker, who founded the Iroquois League.

The Mohawk had nine representatives in the league, three from each of their clans of the Turtle, Wolf, and Bear.

Each Mohawk community also had a local council that guided the village chief or chiefs.

The Mohawk frequently warred against neighbouring Algonkian tribes; the Dutch introduction of firearms in trade for beaver skins increased the number of Mohawk victories.

After contact with Europeans, however, their population decreased rapidly. Most Mohawk took the part of the British in the French and Indian War, but some Catholic converts (the "praying Indians of Quebec") at mission settlements on the St. Lawrence River, principally at Caughnawaga, espoused the French cause and guided expeditions against their former brothers of the league.

Later, during the American Revolution, the Mohawk were pro-British, under their leader Joseph Brant and followed him to Canada, where they have descendants at the Bay of Quinte and Six Nations Indian Reserve at Brantford, Ont.

Their total number in the late 20th century was about 5,000. Some are successful farmers, and others are workers in structural steel in the United States and Canada, traveling from city to city to find jobs.

The danger of this work seems to constitute part of its attraction for the Mohawk.





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