People Of The Long House Summary

Cyrstyn Hornung
Mr. Thompson
Article Summary
American History
9/26/13

This article “People of the Long House” is about the life of the Iroquois people. These people are very interesting; they were independent and very smart. They had a remarkable form of a government. Their lives were good, but of course like everyone else in this world they were not perfect. They made really bad decisions and tried to solve them by war. This is never a good idea. The men and woman were treated differently than what you would expect. These three men came into the Iroquois’ lives and changed a lot of things. The way Iroquois lived was very different from history ever.

The Iroquois have five nations, basically what we call states. They are the Mohawk, Cayuga, Seneca, Oneida and Onondaga. They lived a matrilineal society, which means that their descent was trace through their mother. The mothers were the leaders of their families. The men were in charge of the government. The men thought their job was most important, but the women had a bigger role. They work on the farm harvesting crops, for the food that feeds their families.
The Iroquois life as a man was not all that good.
Each nation had ten men stand up for them creating laws. They discussion the laws and listen carefully to each. Men are very good at persuading their point and getting what they want. They make a unanimous decision. When they don’t agree on the law they want they fight. Fights are terrible rounds of anger and revenge. Some warriors practiced cannibalism. They would throw their enemies into a pot and eat
them. The Iroquois life as a woman was tough; they had a lot of work. Women were the head of their family clan. Women were much more respected during this time period. The men depend on the woman for their food. Woman did all the hard work of harvesting plants and sometimes hunting or gathering other foods. The woman also voted on the men that went into the government. The women were the most important part of the Iroquois people.

The three men that entered the Iroquois’ lives were good and bad. Two men who were known as being good and harmless were Deganwidah and Hiawatha. The third man was a man named Tadodaho who was known as being very evil and so horrible. Hiawatha was sick of all the killing and the cannibalism. Hiawatha spoke of peace. He wanted to end the bloody wars, but the terrible Tadodaho opposed him. People of Iroquois followed the ways of Hiawatha and wanted peace and not war. Tadodaho was so furious that he killed Hiawatha’s three daughters. Hiawatha was devastated, but he didn’t give up. He started a unity to have peaceful tribes of Iroquois. Hiawatha was an amazing speaker everyone was on his side. Hiawatha eventually converted Tadodaho to be peaceful. After that life was good for the Iroquois people.

Most of things happened in the 16 century, but no one knows for sure when Tadodaho took over. What we do know is that it was not to long the first Europeans came to the land of the People of the long Houses. No one knew what was going to come out of this world. The Iroquois thinking they were the most powerful. The Europeans thought they were even more powerfully until they realized there was another side of the world China and Japan