Iroquois Religious Traditions
IROQUOIS RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS. The League of the Iroquois consisted, at the time of contact with Europeans, of five "nations" (the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca). In 1724, these groups were joined by the Tuscarora to form the Six Nations of the Iroquois. These tribes form part of a larger complex of Iroquoian-speaking peoples. The northern language group of which the members of the league are a part also includes the Saint Lawrence Iroquois, Huron, Wyandot, Susquehanna, Nottoway, Erie, Wenro, and Neutrals. The Cherokee form the southern language group. The separation between the northern and southern groups probably occurred between three and four thousand years ago, with further dialects developing over time.
Geographically, the early-seventeenth-century Iroquois inhabited the area from 42° to 44° north latitude and from 74° to 78° west longitude. In the late seventeenth century, the League of the Iroquois controlled territory from the Mohawk Valley in the east to Lake Erie in the west, and from Lake Ontario in the north to the mountains of western and south-central New York State and northwestern Pennsylvania in the south.
At contact the Iroquois were a matrilineal and matrilocal people living in clusters of longhouses situated on hilltops.
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