The Mohawk are survivors. From the days of their early ancestors to the present day, the Mohawk have dwindled in number but have lived on. This is an exploration of the history and culture of the Mohawk.
In this paper I will attempt to explain the past and present state of the Mohawk nation: its origins and its struggles. I will also explore the beginnings of Iroquoian society, and Mohawk language, arts, and economy.The Mohawk are a part of a group of indigenous North Americans known as the Iroquois. The grouping of cultures under the term "Iroquois" originates in a linguistic distinction. The "Northern Iroquoian languages" and the "Southern Iroquoian Languages" are two language families whose origins can be found in peoples from the broader Appalachian region (an area that extends from Louisiana to New York) (Snow 11, 19). These linguistic groupings correspond with the migrations of peoples north and south from a common origin that was, as mentioned, somewhere in Appalachia. Snow, in his book The Iroquois, summarizes the breakup of these "proto-Iroquoian peoples." Those who migrated north became known as speakers of Northern Iroquoian languages and those who migrated south, of whom the only remaining group is the Cherokee, became the "Southern Iroquoian" speakers (Snow 8-10). Some of the Northern-Iroquoian-speaking groups include the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and the Huron
[...] I will now describe one key, annual ceremony the Midwinter ceremony in order to illuminate some aspects of Mohawk life and the role of ritual in it. Midwinter marked the beginning of the Iroquoian calendar year and the end of the last year. It was celebrated in late January or early February and lasted over a week (Snow 7). Bonvillain writes: “Midwinter was the longest and most complex Mohawk ceremonial. It incorporated elements of thanksgiving, renewal, rejoicing, and preparation for the cycle of natural occurrences and human activities The ceremony involved performance of dances, playing of games, and dream re- enactments. [...]
[...] In general, however, Wallace states that: “Villages differed in the number of such ceremonies and in the details of their execution The Mohawk traditionally celebrated all of these festivals, with the exception of the sun and moon festival. Turning to physical features of Iroquois society, the longhouse was central. Snow writes: “Longhouses were consistently built in the shape of an arbor, with compartments down each side and hearths in the center aisle, spaced so that two families shared each fire Longhouses were made of wooden poles and were covered with bark. [...]
[...] The situation was desperate; without beaver pelts people could not obtain the goods they now needed to perform their daily activities She continues: Mohawk had two alternatives. One was to withdraw from trade. Such a choice was obviously unacceptable it would have meant giving up those items that had improved their life. The second alternative was to try to obtain pelts from those Indian groups that still had beaver in their territory. [But] since these people also wanted to trade animal skins to Europeans, the Mohawk were compelled to obtain the skins by force so began decades of intense intertribal warfare And not only was there fighting amongst tribes, but, by the 18th century, there was also a considerable amount of conflict with European groups. [...]
[...] From the broader picture of Iroquois prehistory, let us now turn specifically to the Mohawk and some aspects of Mohawk cultural life. The Mohawk originally lived in the Mohawk River Valley in New York State, the easternmost nation of the five original nations, all of which existed in present-day New York State. In fact, they were known as the “keepers of the eastern door” (Bonvillain and the westernmost nation, the Seneca, were the “keepers of the western door.” Wallace writes of the meaning of this symbolism in Death and Rebirth : whole area occupied by the Iroquoian confederacy between the Hudson River and Lake Erie was compared by the Iroquois to a longhouse compartmented by tribes; and in this longhouse the Seneca were keepers of the western door (21).'” There were three Mohawk clans. [...]
[...] The turning point for the Mohawk and the Six Nations was the revolutionary war. Many Iroquois fought on the side of the British, despite the League's declared neutrality in the conflict. With the end of the war and American victory, British land was ceded to the Patriots, with no mention made in the (war-ending) Treaty of Paris of 1783 of Indian land rights (Bonvillain 69). The result was that the early 1780s, most of the Mohawk had left their traditional lands in New York to seek safety in Canada (Bonvillain In all, the Mohawk no longer reside in the Mohawk River Valley. [...]
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