A Very Brief History Of The Iroquois Indians

The country I chose to do my ceramics presentation and paper on is North America. The reason being is because I wanted to focus on Native Americans. My great-great grandmother was Native American. She was a month old and was left in a little basket on the Saint Mary’s Catholic Church in Elmira New York with a little piece of paper saying Nightingale. She was adopted in 1867 and never knew anything about her Indian family. My mother is very interested in genealogy and we are still learning, but through research on my great-great grandmother, she found that my great-great grandmother was part of the Iroquois Indians that lived and still live in New York. There were six nations of the Iroquois Confederacy and my great-great grandmother was

These tribes were the Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, and Seneca people. These five tribes were known as the League of the Five Nations after agreeing to live peacefully together. In the early 1700’s, the Tuscarora nation- originally lived in North Carolina- decided to unite with the Five Nations, and the Iroquois Confederacy became known as the League of the Six Nations ((Roza, 2003).
The Seneca tribe, which my great-great grandmother belonged too was the biggest tribe, made up of seven thousand people. Many people believe to think most Indians were scalp hunters, but the Iroquois people were said to be very peaceful people (Morgan, 15).
The Indians of the six nations were practical people. They supported themselves by the cultivation of the soil, lived in good houses, and built walls to protect their towns. Their diet mostly consisted of beans, corn, and squash, with venison and fish in season. Their clothing was modest and suitable. In war their skilled leadership and discipline made up for the lack of people they had. Everyone got along well with one another and they excelled in political

When used, they were suspended over a fire, or put in the fire and propped up with rocks placed around the bottom. The Iroquois also filled clay pots with dried corn, meat, or vegetables. The clay pots were lined with bark, which kept the mice out and then were buried in bark lined storage pits inside or near the longhouse they lived in. Storing food was very important at that time, because they did not have modern day machineries like we do today (Food).
Early pottery was strong, fine, and unglazed. The typical Iroquois clay pot had a round body with a curved bottom, a slender restricted neck, and a prominent edge or neck decorated with carved triangular designs. Each pot was coiled, hand pinched, and fired in an outdoor pit, using hardwoods that left a smoky finish. Later on they glazed the inside of most of their pieces with a different color. To get texture, they used whatever they could find on the land. They often used dried berries, broken twigs, fish and animal bones, buds, flowers, and cord. Each piece was unique in either design or size and hand-stamped by the maker, even at that time! Clay pots were also often found in Indian burial-places besides the remains of the