The fabled Peace Queen was a Seneca, as was the hero-trickster Skunni Wundi. The warrior Cornplanter (1736?–1836), Prophet Handsome Lake, and the orator Red Jacket (1750–1830) were illustrious Revolutionary-era Seneca. Mary Jemison (1743–1833), “White Woman of the Genesee,” was an adopted Seneca who declined several chances to return to the white culture. Attorney Ely Parker (1828–1895) was an aide to Union General Ulysses Grant and drew up surrender terms at Appomattox. His polymath grandson, Arthur C. Parker, was a scholar, folklorist, historian, translator, author, and the first New York state archaeologist.
Among recent Seneca spiritual leaders are the author and teacher Twylah Hurd Nitsch (1920–2007) and author and storyteller DuWayne “Duce” Bowen (1946–2006)—one of the few writers of any origin who has published still-living Iroquois folklore. But the image the Seneca may always leave to the world is that of the scrapper. In April 2007, Seneca Nation President Maurice A. “Moe” John was asked if things might turn rough if the state tried to collect taxes on reservation tobacco sales. “I hope and I pray every day that there will be no violence,” John said. “I can’t guarantee it. We are a nation of warriors.”
The Cayuga
The Cayuga have a penchant for picking up nicknames. Sometimes called People of the Pipe or Keepers of the Great Pipe, the Cayuga call themselves something similar to the name by which history knows them: Kayoknonk, or Gayogohono. The term might have meant “Where the Boats Are Taken Out” or “People of the Landing.” Others take it to mean “People of the Great Swamp,” since, according to the late chief Jacob Thomas, most Iroquois who visited the Cayuga came in canoes and looked for their settlements by following the marshy ground along the lake. The Cayuga (with the Oneida and Tuscarora) are sometimes called the Younger Brothers, probably to distinguish their position in the grand Longhouse that symbolizes Iroquois territory. The Cayuga’s turf lay between the central hearth (Onondaga lands) and the western (Seneca) door.
The Cayuga lived on both sides of Cayuga Lake, and today’s city of Auburn is the nucleus of their territory. They hunted north all the way to Lake Ontario and south to the Susquehanna River. Conflict was common, too, during the Cayuga’s cultural birth. Many early Cayuga sites are high fortifications.
In the Cayuga’s own origin legend, they followed their prophet Hiawatha from Oswego to Cayuga Lake, wandering the upstate woodlands like Aeneas after Troy. They had many adventures, including clashes with other nations and fearsome giant beasts. They surely impressed the Jesuit fathers, who described the Cayuga as the boldest, fiercest, most political, and most ambitious “savages” the American forest had ever produced. Memorable Cayuga include John Logan, the Revolutionary-era warrior whose monument stands today in Auburn, New York, and Peter Mitten, the twentieth-century medicine man mentioned a number of times in these pages.
We wish the Cayuga had more to show for the grandeur of this legacy now. Approximately 450 Cayuga live on reservations, mostly in western and central New York. There may be 2,000 or so more across the United States. The Cayuga Nation still holds the traditional Council of Chiefs and Clan Mothers. Their chiefs sit on the Haudenosaunee Grand Council that meets regularly at Onondaga. The Cayuga own only two tiny pieces of their former land. They’re still pursuing their claims with New York state, in which we wish them luck. On second thought, though, they’ve had a lot of luck, and little of it’s been good. Let’s wish them justice.
The Mohawk
The folk we call the Mohawk call themselves Kanyukehaka, “People of the Flint,” maybe because of the abundance of tool-making flint in their core area of the Mohawk and upper Hudson river valleys. Whatever its source, the name is a suitable description of the Mohawk character: ancient, unbending, sharp, with glittering highlights and hidden depths.
The name Mohawk, as with the origins of the name Seneca, is a slur, bestowed by their northeastern rivals, who probably figured they could tell white people anything. The name might mean “people eaters,” in short, cannibals. We take this more as a sign of their foes’ dread than any direct proclivity.
In the hairstyle named for the Mohawk, you have a hint of their reputation. Peeling a fully haired scalp off a corpse could be awkward. The ideal leverage, it was said, was given when a head was shaved but for a single narrow strip from forehead to nape—like a horse’s mane or the plume of a Corinthian helmet. The coif of choice for Mohawk warriors was a standing challenge: Come and get it. The tough part of getting the scalp, of course, was getting its owner dead.
The Mohawk are also called the Elder Brothers, possibly because they were the first nation to accept the Great Law of Peace. Indeed, the Mohawk language was the first one learned by important Iroquois of other nations, since it may have been the language used at the Great Council and at important pan-Iroquois religious events. Another Mohawk nickname is Keepers of the Eastern Door, since they protected the Confederacy from trouble at the eastern entrance to the heartland. The Mohawk River was the spine of their territory. Their conquest of the Hudson Valley inspired James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking tales.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the British and French fought over control of North America. Mohawk land lay between French outposts at Quebec and British ones at Albany. The Mohawk were generally skilled at working political situations, though they picked the wrong side in the Revolution, and the cards fell from there. Most Mohawk moved to Canada after the war.
Mohawk war parties distinguished themselves in the War of 1812. In 1813, Mohawk, British, and French-Canadian forces defeated Americans near Montreal during a small campaign some Canadians like to call “the American invasion.” At the 1813 skirmish at Beaver Dams on the Niagara Frontier, the Mohawk contingent was credited with beating the Americans single-handedly.
The great Peacemaker who unified the Iroquois tribes is generally
