Iroquois Family Structure and Its Effects on Politics, Economics and Gender Expectations

 

     Historically, the Iroquois in North America had been thought to be a matriarchal, political society consisting of warmongering or danger seeking men. With memorable notoriety many of the Iroquois men walk at extreme heights seemingly without fear. Through study, information about political, economic and gender expectations have been corrected or added too; the corrections and additions are bringing forth a more detailed and honest picture of the whole. Family, kin and marriage affects the gender expectations, political and economic structures within the Iroquois culture; and the Iroquois survival is due to the pliable yet traditional culture.

 

     The Iroquois have been known by several names: the Iroquois, the Iroquois League, the Iroquois Confederacy, the Five Nations, and the Six Nations. The names indicate who was speaking of them and at what time period, for the nation of the Iroquois tribes changed with the course of time. For instance, the Iroquois was known as the Five Nations before an addition of the Tuscarora which made them the Six Nations. Various governments called them by the names politically known to them.

 

     The Iroquois are not the matriarchal society they were once thought to be. The political leaders were men, although women did have a certain amount of say within the tribe. However according to Oswalt in the textbook This Land was Theirs (2009), the amount of power women had in the Iroquois society was usually directly related to context of survival such as when disease or war wiped out large portions of the tribe.

 

     Historically, women have had a large influence on society, but the men were chosen by the women to stand in leadership positions. The men were chosen from the matriclan groups within the tribes. The men were often influenced by the women to commit mourners wars. This is where the men go and wage war to gather replacements for loved ones killed by enemies. The Iroquois were known to have taken groups, killing all but the ones up for adoption. This influence by the women did help the tribes to survive loss of their numbers.

 

     The Iroquois are a matrilineal society. Their cousin terminology, the way kin are addressed, has become known as the Iroquois type. Within the Iroquois type, a person refers to their father and father's brothers by the same word, and called the mother the same as the mother's sisters; yet there is different words for the father's sisters and the mother's brothers. The words for parallel cousins is the same as for a sibling, but cross cousins is called “cousins” (Oswalt, 2009).

 

     While the Iroquois are not matriarchal as they were at first thought to be, the society is matri-centered. The matrilines is the force of the political structure despite women not holding positions of power. An example is stated in the book This Land Was Theirs (2009) when speaking on the Good News of Peace and Power: “This led to the formation of a Grand Council of some fifty leaders, sachems selected by females representing leading matrilineages within the matriclans of the Five Nations.”

 

     The article War and Culture: The Iroquois Experience gives us insight into what life as an Iroquois man was like. It states: “ His prospects for an advantageous marriage, his chances for recognition as a village leader, and his hopes for eventual selection to a sachemship depended largely-though by no means entirely-on his skill on the warpath, his munificence in giving war feasts, and his ability to attract followers when organizing a raid.” (Ritcher, 1983)

 

     So, war was a complex and integrated system of gaining and maintaining status within the tribes. The Iroquois men were expected to wage war, and were expected to draw followers for war parties. This expectation led to many men dying, many people being brought into the tribe to replace fallen tribesmen, and a continuation of a warlike culture. The feasts, a social event, surely helped to give a sense of community or oneness to those participating, much like social events do today in our society.

 

     The economic structure also shows a complimentary gender expectation relatable to marriage and kin relations. Women were the main cultivators and foragers, food preparers, etc. The men provided meat from hunting and fishing, furs to sell and trade, and booty from war raids. However, the women influenced a man's activities from almost every moment. Men spent extra time on ceremonies, council meetings and warfare, and often mourners war which women directly persuaded men to carry out.

 

     Men were expected to be fearless and aggressive. The Iroquois men were known for having no fear of heights. This is apparently not accurate, as the men did have a fear and several came back to the clan leaving high working jobs. The reason why they seemed to have no fear was the expectation of them to never show fear, not in battle or any other time. Therefore, the men generally trained themselves to be courageous with a 'do it or literally die trying' attitude. It is of amazing note that Iroquois men did not rape women (or men). Rape was not part of the society. (Beauchamp. 1900) It could be said that the society held sex and war in different non-combinatorial categories, but the possibility that women held a powerful and respected place in the culture could be the determining factor.

 

     Woman were expected to be more emotional and are allowed infrequent moments of tears or anger, but are also expected to be smart, wise and clever at most times. This is shown in how women has political influence, especially in terms of mourning war or peaceful political attempts. Women as well take on newer roles as become shamans or other community minded tasks after menopause. However, women are restricted in a few ways. An example is that during the only planned meal, breakfast, the wife is expected to let the husband eat first. (Oswalt, 2009)

 

     According to the article The Position of Women among the Iroquois, women were not given differential treatment. Morgan made the following statement without adequate knowledge of power structures: “The Indian regarded woman as inferior, the dependent and servant of man, and from nurture and habit, she actually considered herself to be so”. (Brown, 1970) This small tidbit of misinformation plagued the view of the Iroquois until it was corrected with further investigation. In the article Iroquois Women in The Journal of American Folklore (Beauchamp, 1900) we are told Iroquois women had male slaves to help with chores and tasks, however, the women worked just as hard has the men.

 

     So the Iroquois is not matriarchal, but they were matrilocal. A matrilocal culture is built upon the idea that women within a family line stay with in the same locality as her family when she marries. The result is men must leave their family line and locality. In the Iroquois and the Iroquois kinship type, cross-cousin marriage is common and encouraged, whereas parallel-cousins are considered incest.

 

     One must consider the statement by Pasternak, Ember and Ember in the book Sex Gender and Kinship in which they state that women's statuses are closer to men's statuses in societies focused in war and hunting. (1997) The Iroquois is a war and hunting society, so they are a great example for support of the idea that the physical strength theory is not as strong a force as it is with agriculture based societies. The theory of matrilocal societies versus patrilocal ones could also be supportive of the type of society being determined by warfare and women's contributions. Pasternak, Ember and Ember states “That is, matrilocality is the consequence of purely external war and high contribution by women to subsistence”. (1997)

 

     The article Imperial Entanglements: Iroquois Change and Persistence on the Frontiers of Empire states:

The disruptions of the war and the flood of new settlers into Iroquois that followed left the Iroquois, particularly the Mohawk and Oneida, unable to survive through traditional economic pursuits. Most Iroquois, however, “found a viable way to live in this new transitional order” through commercial trade and agriculture, wage labor, careful land sales, and participation in a cash economy (p. 210). As material changes transformed their cultural world, “new gendered, ethnic, and racial identities evolved that were partially self-created but also partially imposed” (p. 246). In the end, “economic dislocation, hastened by the Seven Years’ War, undermined Iroquois ability to maintain their parity with the larger colonial world” (p. 245), although “they did not become any less Iroquois; they simply reconstituted the meaning of that term. The Iroquois persisted as a people because of their ability to change” (p. 246).

 

     The ability to change is a valuable trait in cultures. The Iroquois have adopted not only people from other cultures and tribes to replace their losses, the Iroquois adapts remarkably to changes coming from outside cultures, such as to a cash economy or to colonization. The Iroquois still maintain political presence as a Native American nation in the US and is considered an ally to Canada rather than subjects of Canada. (Oswalt, 2009) The Iroquois have title to their lands in Canada, and leaders have successfully maintained their nation's rights and laws against the Canadian government while allowing mediation and trade deals, such as the deal that allowed the highway easement on Iroquois land in exchange for other lands.

 

     However, a small bump in the road is that Canada does appear to want the Iroquois to be reclassified to subjects and this is seen in a couple of ways, such as when the Indian Act and Indian Act Council was forced upon the Iroquois in 1924 (Mohawk Nation News, 1998) and the proposed replacement of the Indian Act with the First Nations Governance Act in 2002 which is explained in detail in the article Reforming the Indian Act: First Nations Governance and Aboriginal Policy in Canada. (Provart, 2003) The Indian Act undermines full political control that is structured within the Iroquois culture.

 

     Iroquois elders and political matters are linked. The female elders, especially the longhouse matrons, have the power to make the initial selection for clan chief from the pool of eligible sons from their lineage (Stockard, 2002) The intrusion of the crown upon the Iroquois culture has made an impact, yet the Iroquois have maintained their cultural identity and traditions.

 

     The Iroquois are not like traditional American culture. Political structure, economics, and gender expectations are drastically different. American families are nuclear, neolocal structures with political power not being directly connected. Political power is a complex system of voters, politicians, lobbyists and corporations. Currently, corporations have been deemed to be people, and money equates political votes. Citizens United is an example of such, and Overturn Citizens United has become a rallying point for American voters.

 

     American culture is less observant of elder wisdom, and elder care is often left to paid professionals as in home care and group home care, and the decisions in taking care of elder parents may fall to any of the children. Elders are politically seen as a voter category rather than wise advisers and primary contributors to the process. Wisdom is no longer perceived as something exclusive to the elderly, but exclusive to anyone that can use internet search or other technological advancements. It is also common to find that the elderly are overlooked for jobs in favor of younger applicants.

 

     America is a capitalistic society, and while the country is at war, the war does not effect Americans' daily lives unless a personal connection is active such as a family member is on active duty or has been killed. Women also compete in warfare and actions connected to it alongside men. American war is political war instead of mourner's wars and captives are not brought home and killed or made family, but are sometimes imprisoned and tortured.

 

     Women's rights are often violated by the political system, such as over pregnancy and conception topics. Furthermore, rather than the family determining the political structure, the political structure determines the family in American culture. For instance, marriages and resulting family structures are restricted by the state's political laws, as in cases of same sex marriage. Reproduction is also restricted by laws, such as in cases of surrogacy, abortion, and access to birth control and medical care. The only birth control that does not have laws or require medical access is the condom, which can be bought by anyone in a pharmacy, convenient store, or even from a vending machine in a public bathroom.

 

     The differences between the Iroquois and the American cultures highlights the richness and humanity of the Iroquois culture. The Iroquois tribes have survived disasters and changes in economics due in part to the matrilineal and matrilocal structures. The gender expectations for Iroquois men and women is more complex than at first thought, and the perception of them as strong willed and clever emerges from the ashes of old thought. Family, kinship and marriage is tightly being formed and knitted into a fabric that pulls economics, politics and gender expectation threads together.

 

 

 

 

References

 

Beauchamp, W. M. (1900). Iroquois Women. The Journal of American Folklore, (49). 81. Retrieved

from the Ashford library.

 

Brown, J. K. (1970). Economic Organization and the Position of Women among the Iroquois.

Ethnohistory, 17(3/4), 151. Retrieved from the Ashford Library.

 

MNN (1998) Justice for the Iroquois?: Did Canada Slip Up and Accidentally Return the Iroquois

Confederacy to Power at Six Nations? Mohawk Nation News. May 25, 1998. Retrieved online at http://sisis.nativeweb.org/6nations/may2598mnn.html

 

Oswalt, W. (2009) This Land was Theirs. New York, New York. Oxford University Press.

 

Pasternak, B., Ember, C. R., & Ember, M. (1997). Sex, gender, and kinship: A cross-cultural

perspective. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall, Inc.

 

Richter, D. K. (1983). War and Culture: The Iroquois Experience. The William and Mary Quarterly, (4).

528. Retrieved from the Ashford Library.

 

Stockard, J. E. (2002). Marriage in culture: Practice and meaning across diverse societies. Belmont,

CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.