Eastern Woodland Natives

Where do they live?

All of NorthAmericaview

Just OntarioAnd some USA view

The people of the Eastern Woodlands are classified into two main groups, the Iroquois (Eastern Woodlands farmers) and the Algonquians (Eastern Woodlands hunters). This division is based on the roots of their languages and their main source of food.Our study will focus mainly on the Eastern Woodland farmers since this is the region where we live today. There are many similarities between the two, yet many differences as well.Like the Plains Natives, a large percentage of this Native region is in the United States. Of course, hundreds of years ago, there was no Canada or USA so no barrier divided the region.

Who live in the area?

Tobacco plants

Cured tobacco leaf

Huron - Even though they were called the Huron, The Huron actually had a different name for themselves. They called themselves the Wyandot or the Wendat. However, when the French arrived in Canada, they couldn’t distinguish the different sounds, so they named the nation the Huron, derived from French word Hure meaning ‘rough’ or ‘uncultured’.Neutrals - Samuel de Champlain called these Natives Neutrals because they were peaceful and didn’t fight other Natives. Today, we use the same word for not being on one side or the other; you are in the middle…neutral.Petun – Tobacco – This Native group called themselves Petun, yet they were called Tobacco by the French because they traded Tobacco with the French.

Iroquois NationThere wasn’t one Iroquois group of Natives. Instead, the word Iroquois was a name for a union of five fairly small Native groups who banned together to form one group. They maintained some individuality, yet they were usually known as one group called the Iroquois. Iroquois was the common language that they all spoke.The five groups that joined together to form the Iroquois Nation were the Seneca, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, and the Mohawk. Together, the Iroquois were about the same population as the Neutral Natives yet less than half the population of the Huron.

The EnvironmentDeciduous trees like maples, poplars, birches, elms, and oaks grew along side coniferous trees like pines, the spruces and the firs. Especially important to the Natives were the sugar maples, from which they got syrup; The early French settlers learned to tap the tree and make maple syrup from watching the Natives. Elm tree bark was used to cover their houses and canoes, or to make pails. In the meadows, berry bushes, like blueberries, strawberries and raspberries grew in abundance. There were squirrels, bears, rabbits, moose and deer. Fresh water was in abundance with lakes, rivers and streams. These waters were full of many varieties of fish that the Natives caught and ate.Because their environment was so productive, they decided to stay put and become farmers. In fact they were the only Canadian native people to live mostly by farming.

Moving the farm!New villages were moved and resettled every 10 to 20 years. Every ten or twenty years, the soil would become drained of nutrients from constant farming. Also, fish and animals became scarce from over hunting. When this happened, it was time to relocate the entire village. Everyone would work together to move their village to a new place where the soil was richer in nutrients and the fish and animals were plentiful. Men looked a few kilometers away for a new place for the village. It had to be near suitable water and on a hilltop or higher ground for better defense. The higher ground also meant good drainage during heavy rain. The new village location also had to be near a forest that could be partly cleared for planting crops.

Settlements and housingA couple years before the village moved, a field was cleared near the new village.A palisade (wooden protective wall) was built around the new village site and longhouses were built using wood from smaller trees and saplings, along with some materials from the old village. One village could have as few as 20 or as many as 200 longhouses. Each family or clan would construct their own longhouse. Among the Eastern Woodland farmers, 60 villages were identified that provided shelter for 60,000 people and 50,000 acres being used as farmland.

The LonghouseLonghouses were homes for extended families, grouped by matriarchal lines (relatives of the female, like the mother, grandmother, aunt etc.). After marriage, each female brought her husband to live with her in her family’s longhouse. As she had children, her daughters grew up knowing that they would always live in their parent’s longhouse with their husbands and families. Her sons would grow up knowing that they would get married and live in their wives’ longhouses. The eldest women in the longhouse were the masters of the longhouse. They made the rules and everyone followed them.

A longhouse is just what it sounds like, a long house built of thin bendable wood, with branches woven in and out of the support poles. On the outside, people used slabs of bark to make a waterproof covering. The Iroquois built their houses out of wood because the area where they lived was heavily forested, but it didn't have very good building stone or clay for bricks. So wood was the most appropriate choice for the Iroquois. Many families lived together in one longhouse. Each was assigned their own section. Fireplaces and fire pits ran down the middle of the longhouse for heat and for people to share as a place to cook food. Longhouses were not measured by feet. They were measured by camp fires. A longhouse might be referred to as 10 fires long, or perhaps as 12 fires long. It doesn't sound like much when you count by fires. But longhouses were really long - they could be over 200 feet long, 25 feet wide, and 25 feet high. That's huge!

Making a longhouseYou can imagine something that big took a lot of work to build. And it did. It took work and teamwork. First, they made a frame out of long poles of wood. Then, they tied young cut trees to the frame, trees young enough to bend and shape. Once they had the shape of the longhouse in place, they covered the house with bark. The bark allowed water to run off as well as adding insulation. They added a few smoke holes and two doors - one at each end. The top was round so water and snow would run off. The Natives rigged a flap on the smoke holes. When it snowed or rained, the holes could be opened and closed as needed. When finished, a longhouse looked a lot like an upside down basket!

Inside the longhouseThe inside of a longhouse was divided by 20-foot-compartments with two families living in one compartment. Each family lived on fur and mat-covered platforms, five to six feet wide, and 15 feet long. In the middle aisle of the longhouses were fires which families shared for heating, cooking and light. There could be 18 families in one longhouse up to 220 feet long. Dried food was hung from the rafters. Above a family’s compartment was a storage shelf where extra animal skin robes, blankets, reed mats, baskets, and clay pots were kept.

Farming

corn plant

Bean plant

squash plant

Native agriculture (growing plants as a crop) originally came from the Natives, mostly the Mayans, who lived in areas in and around what is now Mexico. They planted corn, beans, squash, pumpkins and melons. About 1 000 years ago, farming moved north, and tribes in the Eastern Woodlands started farming in their area. Eastern Woodland Farmers grew three main crops. The Natives called them ‘the three sisters’: Corn, Beans and Squash. How it worked – the three plants were all planted in the same hole in the soil at around the same time. As they grew, each plant helped the other plant grow better and stronger.

The Three SistersThe Natives realized that each plant had characteristics that helped the other plants. The tall and strong cornstalks provided a place for bean vines to wind around and grow. The beans helped the soil by adding nitrogen, so the other plants grew better. The wide leaves of the low growing squash plant shaded the ground. This kept moisture in the soil and prevented weeds from growing.

To the Natives, The Three Sisters were more than just crops; each plant had a personality based on what they looked like and how they grew!

According to Natives’ myth, the Corn, standing straight and tall, was righteous (really good character). The Bean, in contrast, clung to the Corn’s ‘legs’ and was shy. The Squash, which spread about the ground, was the wild troublemaker.

Native fieldsNative fields of corn, beans and squash did not look like the corn fields we have today. Today, our fields are completely cleared with only the crops growing in nice straight rows.The Natives were not able to clear away all of the trees that naturally grew almost everywhere that there was good soil. So instead, the Natives used a technique of clearing their fields called ‘slash and burn’. In this method, the trees were cut down and left on the ground to dry. Later, much of the wood and plants growing on the ground were burned. The burning helped clear the ground of weeds and other plants and also added nutrients to the soil which helped the three sisters grow.The three sisters were planted between the trees wherever there was open land. The trees would eventually rot, but never disappear completely. You wouldn’t find nice neat rows, just plants growing everywhere there was space.

The real farmersThe crops grew in fields as large as 12,000 acres in an area located about one hundred meters away from the village. Women were the workers in the fields. The Natives believed that women, who produced children, were best suited to work with the crops to produce food. Farming took up most of the day for the women. Their crops of corn and other vegetables attracted lots of birds and animals who were looking for a free meal.The women would have to do anything they could to protect their crops. They would even stand on platforms in the fields and act as live scare crows and beat pots to scare the crows and other birds away. Other animals had to be chased back into the woods!

The harvest

corn husk rope

corn meal

The majority of the corn was harvested in Autumn when the corn was very dry. Up to 150,000 bushels were harvested every season. The corn husks were folded back and braided into rope. The corn was hung from longhouse rafters along with squash slices. Dug out pits located beside the longhouses stored and insulated the extra food. Burying it in the ground kept the corn and other food at a consistent temperature and stopped it from rotting. It also kept it safe from animals who may want some!Cornmeal is flour made from dried and crushed corn. The dried corn kernels were crushed using a mortar (bowl) and pestle (grinding stones).

CornmealCornmeal is really just flour made from corn instead of wheat, which is what our flour and bread is made from. It can be used just like wheat, but it tastes different. Some people like it much better than wheat flour! It was the main food for the Natives who farmed in this region. Even though the Natives ate lots of corn, they didn’t eat it on the cob like we do today, or even kernels. It was always dried and made into flour.Their corn was also different from the varieties we eat today. We are use to seeing the golden yellow kernels that grow on the ears. ‘Indian corn’ was very different. It didn’t look the same or taste the same either. Each cob could be filled with different colours of kernels – yellow, gold, brown, red, white and even black.

Food ceremoniesThere were six annual ceremonies for the Natives, and four related to the corn crops!All included feasting and music produced by rattles and drums.The festivals were: New Year Festival, Maple Festival, Corn Planting Festival, Strawberry Festival, Green Corn Festival and Harvest Festival of Thanksgiving.The ‘Green Corn Festival,’ was a celebration and feast that took place in August when the green corn crop was harvested and eaten. Only some of the corn was eaten; most of it was left in the fields to dry to be harvested later.

Other foodwild tubers

The Natives also ate berries, wild tubers (roots, like potatoes), barks and herbs, and sunflowers. Tobacco was also grown and harvested, but just for smoking. It cannot be eaten.Maple syrup was tapped from trees in March and April. The Natives also made a type of fast food called Trail food that was made by combining maple syrup, grease and cornmeal. Fish, ducks and geese, deer and other wood animals were hunted and eaten. Men were away during the much of winters hunting and trapping animals. Food was always cooking in a pot in the longhouse and available to anyone anytime they wanted it – they could just help themselves.

Tools

Stone axes

arrowheads

Stone Axes - They were used for stripping bark, clearing trees from fields and removing fat from hides. A stone was found, then chipped into shape using a harder hammerstone. It was then ground and polished using a sandstone and then fitted with a handle. The process took many hours, so axes were highly valued and not lent to others. Arrowheads - They were made from flint, which is a type of sedimentary rock. When the rock broke, it left sharp edges. Arrowheads were used for hunting and were shaped like triangles. The smallest ones were for hunting birds, the bigger ones to spear bears or deer. Flint knives were often oval or teardrop shaped. Knives – They were pointed at both ends, so they could be fitted with a handle.

TransportationSnowshoes worn during winter and allowed the Natives to walk swiftly across the snow without sinking. They were made from tree boughs bent into frames and laced with animal sinew. These snow shoes made it easy to walk on top of snow that could be two or three feet deep. This way hunters could easily catch up to a moose or deer that was floundering helplessly in the deep snow. The canoes were made from elm bark which was a common wood. Birch bark could be used making the canoe lighter and faster. The size of the canoe varied between 3 m and 8 m. The bark was stripped in late spring and then soaked in steaming water. The bendable bark was then placed over a frame and then sewn together using a large bone needle and basswood cord and thread made from sinew. Then the canoe was painted with pine gum, making it watertight.

ReligionDuring the long winter nights, Elders in the villages huddled around longhouse fires and passed on the clan stories to the younger generations.Nothing was written down; everything was passed down orally through stories. The stories usually included animals as well as people.Each myth, legend or story had a purpose - to explain a part of nature or creation. Often these stories had morals or lessons that the younger generation was suppose to learn. All creatures of nature- trees, plants, animals, the moon- had spirits of their own that either helped or punished a person. A spirit could be prayed to for help and guidance.

The Iroquois believe in the Great Spirit, the Creator of all things.Next down the line were Good Spirit and Evil Spirit. Both of these spirits had many little spirits to help them. The Good Spirit made all the good things on earth. The Evil Spirit, the twin, was responsible for all the bad things on earth.The Iroquois believed in an afterlife. They believed their spirit would join the Good Spirit in the wonderful place where the Good Spirit lived as long as the Iroquois honored the Good Spirit (and all the good spirit little helpers) and lived a good life. There were always bad spirits around, doing their best to block this from happening.

Some bad spirits caused disease. Other caused bad behavior. The False Face Society was an Iroquois healing group. The Iroquois False Face Society knew they could not kill a bad spirit. Their job was to scare the bad spirits away. They used masks and chants and rattles and dance to scare the evil spirits and to chase them away.One bad spirit was the flying head. The False Face Society was very familiar with the flying head. He lived in the forest and caused all the disease he could. He was a very bad spirit. If someone had a spooky dream, and saw a flying head, they would go to the False Face Society and ask for help.

A resemblance to grade 6?To chase the flying head spirit away, the dreamer would be told to:1. Carve a face on a living basswood tree.2. Once the face was carved, the tree would be cut down.3. The piece of tree that had the outline of a flying face carved on it would be taken to the wood carver. 4. The wood carver made a wood mask following the lines of the carved face on the log. The masks created by the wood carvers always had twisted features and looked scary.5. Once the mask was ready, the dreamer and his or her family clan hosted a feast. They were responsible for the preparation of all the food. During the feast, with the help of chants and rattles, the members of the False Face Society, invited a good spirit to take the place of the bad one.

6. From that time on, the mask was treasured and honored. It was now the home of a good spirit that had to be protected by the dreamer and the clan.Most of the ailments that were brought to them were easy fixes. If someone came to them with a headache, the ceremony would be performed in the longhouse for everyone to enjoy. The society would put on their masks, and dance, and blow ashes in the sufferer’s face. In minutes, they were done, and the person was suppose to be better.Their reward was some tobacco and some corn mush given to them by the grateful family, who was sure that the sufferer was now cured.

The person they cured automatically became a member of the society. If you were helped, it was important that you go on to help others. That was the Iroquois way.Each spring and fall, members of the False Face Society each wore a mask and went from home to home, chanting and shaking rattles, and making as much of a racket as they could. This was the twice-annual evil spirit house cleaning festival. The racket they made was designed to scare any lurking little evil spirits away that they might have overlooked during the previous months.

ClothingThe Eastern Woodland Natives dressed differently from the Plains Natives. Walking through forests and farmed fields meant protecting legs and arms. They made clothes from soft deerskin. The women and men wore leggings, shirts, and moccasins. The sewing needle was a small bone from the ankle of a deer.The women wore a skirt or a dress that covered most of their leggings. In the winter, the men added a smock that went down to their knees for warmth. They decorated their clothes with dyed porcupine quills.The women wore their hair long. Warriors wore their hair in a "mohawk" - a wide stripe of hair left down the middle of their head. Men removed all body hair by scraping it off. Both men and women decorated their bodies with tattoos.

The Gustoweh The Iroquois Nation was similar in most ways. One difference between them was the Gustoweh.A Gustoweh is a type of hat worn by each Native group in the Iroquois Nation. Each Gustoweh was made by having a wood frame made from strips of ash wood which looked a bit like an upside down basket that fit the head of the Native. It was then covered with fabric or animal skin and adorned with eagle or hawk feathers. Each member of the Iroquois Confederacy wore a different number of feathers or a slightly different arrangement of feathers. This was one way to identify different groups within the Iroquois nation.

1500 years ago, Ontario was ruled by the Algonquians who shared land with the Huron, Neutral and Petun nations. The Iroquois travelled south to settle among those nations peacefully.1000 years ago, legend has it a Huron man killed a Seneca chief. Different Natives groups broke into sides as war broke out.The Iroquois lost and were eventually exiled to less fertile land south of the Great Lakes.The Iroquois tribes fought amongst themselves and became weak and poor, while the nations north of the Great Lakes became strong and peaceful civilizations.The Iroquois kept asking to return to their old lands, but the other nations insisted on their decision.

800 years ago, the Iroquois decided to work together and form a confederacy based on peace among their five nations.For hundreds of years, the 'Five Nations' grew stronger and sub-councils by different tribes were formed, like a war party with a separate war chief. The main council remained peaceful.The Iroquois became upset the Huron Natives controlled all of the fur trade with the French. They wanted to move north and be involved with the trading as well. The Iroquois decided to attack the other Eastern Woodland Farmers.In 1642, the Five Nations war party attacked Contarea, a major Huron village located on Lake Simcoe, near what is now he city of Orillia. Within hours, the village was ravaged.

Moving quickly, they surprised other Hurons towns, claimed the lands, and wiped out the people within a year.Within the next year, the Petuns and Neutrals were also wiped out.

WampumTo the Natives, Wampum was simply the Quogue or clamshell polished and fashioned into beads. These beads could be made into a string or even a belt. It was important because Wampum was a system of recording important things. The Natives did not have a written language, so Wampum was a way to record these important events, contracts or stories. The person who wore the wampum had the authority to speak about the story, so it was also used as a symbol of position and title. The great circle wampum, for example, was a belt worn only by a chief as a symbol of his position. Wampum was also given to seal a promise.

Wampum was made from dyed beads or shells, arranged in a certain way. To make wampum:First, you needed to collect the right sized shells or make certain sized beads.Then, you needed to dye your materials. Individual beads and shells were dyed various shades of solid purple, solid cream, or a mix of purples and cream. No other colors were used in making wampum.Next, you had to string your beads on a thread in a certain order, depending upon what you wanted to say. The designs made out of certain combinations of colors had both symbolic and actual meaning. Long messages were made by sewing the strings of beads together to make a wampum belt.

Wampum moneyWampum became very valuable. Once European settlers came to live in the same area as the Natives, they started using wampum as money. The colonists would even trade wampum belts with other colonists. To the Iroquois People, wampum was a written record. They did not have money in their culture. They did, however, trade wampum for other items they needed.

The Peace PipePeace pipes were a sacred symbol for Native Americans. Like all Native American art, peace pipes were fashioned with great care. Smoking a peace pipe had great significance: it could seal a political agreement, treaty with the another tribe or arrange a marriage. Like many other arts and crafts, Native American peace pipes have a legend behind them. Two young men were walking one night in a ravine. Suddenly, they saw a beautiful young maiden coming towards them. She had a dress made out of fine material. Each man fell in love with the girl instantly. As she approached them, they noticed that she held a pipe in her hands. The girl took the pipe and offered it to the sky, the earth, and then held it toward the men.

The girl put the pipe on the ground and then turned into a buffalo cow. The cow pawed the ground, stuck her tail out behind her, and picked up the pipe with her hooves. Then, the cow turned into a girl again. She explained that she was giving them a peace pipe. She told them that a peace pipe should be a part of all sacred ceremonies and treaties.