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The Iroquois ( or ), who prefer to be known as the Haudenosaunee , are a historically powerful and important northeast Native American confederacy. They were known during the colonial years to the French as the "Iroquois League" and later as the "Iroquois Confederacy", and to the English as the "Five Nations" (before 1722) and later as the "Six Nations", comprising the Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora nations. The Iroquois have absorbed many other peoples into their cultures as a result of warfare, adoption of captives, and by offering shelter to displaced nations. The historic Erie, Susquehannock, Huron (Wendat) and Wyandot, all independent peoples, also spoke Iroquoian languages. In the larger sense on linguistic families, they are often considered Iroquoian peoples because of their similar languages and cultures. But, they were traditionally enemies of those nations in the Iroquois League. In 2010, more than 45,000 enrolled Six Nations people lived in Canada, and about 80,000 in the United States. ==Iroquois Confederacy== The history of the Iroquois Confederacy goes back to its formation by the Peacemaker in the 12th or 15th centuries, bringing together five distinct nations in the southern Great Lakes area into "The Great League of Peace".〔 Each nation had a distinct language within the Iroquoian family, a territory, and a function within the League. Iroquois influence extended into Canada, westward along the Great Lakes and down both sides of the Allegheny mountains into Virginia and Kentucky and into the Ohio Valley. In Mohawk, the official language of the full Council, the overall name was ''Rotinonsionni'' or Hotinonsionni; the Seneca referred to them as ''Goano'ganoch'sa'jeh'seroni''〔Zeisberger, David. ''Indian Dictionary: English, German, Iroquois—The Onondaga and Algonquin—The Delaware''. Harvard University Press, 1887. ISBN 1104253518, pp. 23 and 97. ''Goano'' means "big", ''Ganochsajeh'' means "roof" and ''Eroni'' means "people." As such, "Big-roof-people" or "People-who-live-under-the big-roof", in reference to the longhouse.〕 or ''Ganonsyoni;''〔 and in Tuscarora, they are known as ''(unicode:Akunęhsyę̀niˀ)'' (Rudes, B., ''Tuscarora English Dictionary'', Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999) or the "Six Nations," (the Five Nations and ''Five Nations of the Iroquois'' before 1722). The League is governed by a Grand Council, an assembly of fifty chiefs or sachems, each representing one of the clans of one of the nations. The original Iroquois League (as the French knew them) or Five Nations (as the British knew them), occupied large areas of present-day New York State up to the St. Lawrence River, west of the Hudson River, and south into northwestern Pennsylvania. The League was composed of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca nations. In 1722 the Tuscarora tribe joined the League, having migrated from the Carolinas after being displaced by Anglo-European settlement. Also an Iroquoian-speaking people, the Tuscarora were accepted into what became the Six Nations. Other Iroquoian-speaking peoples, such as the Erie, Susquehannock, Huron (Wendat) and Wyandot, lived at various times along the St. Lawrence River, and around the Great Lakes. In the American Southeast, the Cherokee were an Iroquoian-language people who had migrated to that area centuries before European contact. None of these was part of the Haudenosaunee. Those on the borders of their territory in the Great Lakes region competed and warred with the Haudenosaunee. The Iroquois and most Iroquoian peoples have a matrilineal kinship system; with descent and inheritance passing through the maternal lines, children are considered born into their mother's clan and take their social status from her family. The clan mothers, the elder women of each clan, are highly respected. The women elders nominate the chief for life from the clan, and own the symbols of his office. When Europeans first arrived in North America, the Haudenosaunee were based in what is now the northeastern United States, primarily in what is referred to today as Central New York west of the Hudson River and through the Finger Lakes region, and upstate New York along the St. Lawrence River area downstream to today's Montreal.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=First Nations Culture Areas Index )〕 French, Dutch and British colonists in both Canada and the Thirteen Colonies recognized a need to gain favor with the Iroquois people, who occupied a significant portion of lands west of colonial settlements. In addition, these peoples established lucrative fur trading with the Iroquois, which was favorable to both sides. The colonists also sought to establish positive relations to secure their borders. For nearly 200 years the Iroquois were a powerful factor in North American colonial policy-making decisions. Alignment with Iroquois offered political and strategic advantages to the colonies but the Iroquois preserved considerable independence. Some of their people settled in mission villages along the St. Lawrence River, becoming more closely tied to the French. While they participated in French raids on Dutch and later English settlements, where some Mohawk and other Iroquois settled, in general the Iroquois resisted attacking their own peoples. The Iroquois remained a politically unique, undivided, large Native American polity up until the American Revolution. The League kept its treaty promises to the British Crown. But when the British were defeated, they ceded the Iroquois territory without consultation; many Iroquois had to abandon their lands in the Mohawk Valley and elsewhere and relocate in the northern lands retained by the British. The Iroquois League has also been known as the "Iroquois Confederacy". Modern scholars distinguish between the League and the Confederacy.〔Richter, "Ordeals of the Longhouse", in Richter and Merrill, eds., ''Beyond the Covenant Chain'', 11–12.〕〔Fenton, ''Great Law and the Longhouse'', 4–5.〕〔Shannon, ''Iroquois Diplomacy'', 72–73.〕 According to this interpretation of the scholars, the Iroquois League refers to the ceremonial and cultural institution embodied in the Grand Council, while the Iroquois Confederacy is the decentralized political and diplomatic entity that emerged in response to European colonization. According to that theory, "The League" still exists. The Confederacy dissolved after the defeat of the British and allied Iroquois nations in the American Revolutionary War.〔 Today's Iroquois/Six Nations people do not make any distinction between "The League" and "the Confederacy" and use the terms interchangeably. After the defeat of the British and their Iroquois allies in the American Revolutionary War, Britain ceded most of the Iroquois territory, without bringing their allies to the negotiating table. Many of the Iroquois migrated to Canada, forced out of New York because of hostility to the British allies. Those remaining in New York were required to live mostly on reservations. In 1784, a total of 6,000 Iroquois had to confront 240,000 New Yorkers, with land-hungry New Englanders poised to migrate west. "Oneidas alone, who were only 600 strong, owned six million acres, or about 2.4 million hectares. Iroquoia was a land rush waiting to happen."〔(Richard Brookhiser, "Iroquoia: A land lost in push by British empire and U.S. settlers," Book Review of Alan Taylor's ''The Divided Ground: Indians, Settlers, and the Northern Borderland of the American Revolution'' ), ''New York Times'', 19 May 2006, accessed 16 December 2014〕 In addition to the major cessions of Iroquois land, the Oneida and others who gained reservations in New York faced increasing pressures for their lands. By the War of 1812, they had lost control of considerable property. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Iroquois」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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