ANIMAL CLANS
The precontact Iroquois had to kill animals to live. Without the life of the animals, they would have had none of their own. This led to a mix of admiration and pragmatism. Life was revered, even as it was taken. It was not to be taken needlessly. It was also believed that each animal in the woods had something vital to teach every human.
All Iroquois nations have animal clans, and everyone born among them or adopted into them belonged to a clan. All Iroquois nations have three clans in common: wolf, bear, and turtle. Other clans varied by nation, with the Onondaga having the most (nine), and the Mohawk and Oneida having just the basic three. The animals are based on their domains: the earth (bear, wolf, and deer), the water (beaver, eel, and turtle), or the air (snipe, hawk, and heron). Clan affiliation is always matrilineal, determined by the mother; if you don’t know your ancestry, or no one knows it, you are automatically one of the turtles, sort of the default-clan for the Iroquois. As if the spiritual bond between human and animal could even be physical, it was considered a sort of incest to marry within a clan, even of another nation. Eel Clan Cayuga were uncomfortable with the idea of marrying an Eel Clan Onondaga.
Undoubtedly, this clan affiliation was another bond of unity among the Iroquois nations. Seneca Turtle Clan members would fall in quickly among Oneida Turtles. It also encouraged good behavior. Showing cowardice or scurrility was letting down one’s clan, as well as one’s family, village, and nation.
There was, of course, a lighter and highly imaginative side to this. Members of these clans were thought to represent or take on some of the traits of the totem animal. This led to a host of associations and supplied the lifelong fodder for quips and routines. “Come in if you’re fat,” a member of the Wolf Clan might call at a door upon which someone had knocked.
This clan thing is still a factor. Most Iroquois even living off the reservation know their clan, and they act accordingly. Mohawk members of the Bear Clan do not kill bears. The fine Buffalo State College scholar Bill Englebrecht (author of Iroquoia) heard of a Turtle Clan member who stopped his car on the shoulder of a highway to carry a turtle safely across.
While the Iroquois we’ve interviewed don’t directly believe in reincarnation, so strong was the theme of identification with the clan animal that it might be presumed to go on into another life.
Ron Schenne of West Falls remembers visiting the Canadian Six Nations Reservation as a kid in the 1940s. His dad had become friends with Chief Jamison, and whenever they visited him, they brought him American coffee and hot dogs, which he much preferred to what he could get locally. The chief ’s son Arnold was about Schenne’s age, and the pair used to hunt together. The shooting could get a little wild. “You know, when you’re a kid with a gun, you shoot at anything,” said Schenne.
At his Erie County home raptors were considered a nuisance, and Schenne was paid to shoot them. It was a reflex to pop one in a tree. While he and Arnold were out hunting, they spotted an owl in a nearby tree. Before he could fire, the son of the chief reached over and flipped the barrel up into the air. The shot soared into the sky.
“That could be my grandfather up there,” said Arnold. His father’s father was of the Owl Clan.
THE TENDER OF THE FLAME
The old Iroquois hunted to live. They loved life, though, and had a code by which they took it. Their tales tell us that living according to this code both took and gave great virtue and displayed such respect that even animals destined to lose life were grateful to humans.
If there was a single thing that set mythologist Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) on his course, it was an Iroquois story often called “The Grateful Animals.” Campbell was spellbound by the theme of the hunter chief killed by humans and rallied to life by animals. Though he had killed many of their brethren, each animal of the wood mourned him like a sibling, each giving something of its nature to bring his body back to life. Maybe they still have their ways of showing appreciation.
A Story in Himself
Every spring, the men of a western New York family fish and camp in Quebec above the Kahnawake Reservation. By 1998, their guide had become a trusted friend. He’s a story in himself.
A completely self-sufficient woodsman, he lives only with his pet companion, apparently a full-blood wolf. He makes the money he has by leading tours and selling tools and jewelry made from natural products. He barters for all else. When he takes people on tours, they abide by his almost religious code: Take only what you’ll eat or wear; leave nothing but footprints. It isn’t for everybody. Many a tour he cuts short because some high-rolling slickers can’t learn respect. Once he pointed a raft of them toward land and told them to take their money and get lost.
Every day of this trip, a father and son went out with their guide on the lake in kayaks, catching their dinners and brooding into water and sky. Often they were so far apart as they fished that they couldn’t see each other. Always they left a huge, slow-burning fire by their campsite so they could find it. This beacon was vital. Evening comes early that far north, and even April is winterlike. A night without shelter was a life-or-death situation.
As they met in their kayaks at the end of one day, they realized that they could hardly see the fire they had left as a beacon. A faint snow in the air was almost a mist, and the fire seemed likely to go out before they reached their cabin. They paddled desperately toward their last
