The tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy and other Iroquois speaking peoples, including the Huron, lived in the region including what is now New York State and the Great Lakes area. The Iroquois Confederacy was composed of five different tribes (a sixth was added later) who had banded together shortly before European contact. While not Iroquois, the Huron fall into the same linguistic group and share many customs similar to the Iroquois’. These peoples were predominately agricultural and developed certain cultural customs related to their lifestyle. Among these developments were ideas concerning the nature and management of property. The Iroquois developed a system of economics very different from the now dominant western variety. This system consisted of several unique components including land ownership, the division of labor, and trade. The Iroquois Confederacy (also known as the League of Peace and Power) is a group of First Nations/Native Americans. ... The Iroquois Confederacy (Haudenosaunee, also known as the League of Peace and Power) is a group of First Nations/Native Americans. ... This article is about the First Nations people, the Wyandot, also known as the Huron. ... State nickname: Empire State Other U.S. States Capital Albany Largest city New York Governor George Pataki Official languages None Area 141,205 km² (27th)  - Land 122,409 km²  - Water 18,795 km² (13. ... The Great Lakes from space The Great Lakes are a group of five large lakes on or near the United States-Canadian border. ... // Use of the term The concept of property or ownership has no single or universally accepted definition. ... U.S. Economic Calendar Economics at the Open Directory Project Economics textbooks on Wikibooks The Economists Economics A-Z Institutions and organizations Bureau of Labor Statistics - from the American Labor Department Center for Economic and Policy Research (USA) National Bureau of Economic Research (USA) - Economics material from the organization... This page deals with property as ownership rights. ... Division of labour is the breakdown of labour into specific, circumscribed tasks for maximum efficiency of output in the context of manufacturing. ... A fruit stand at a market. ...

Land Ownership

Later day Iroquois longhouse housing several hundred people

The Huron had an essentially communal land system of land ownership. The Frenchman Gabriel Sagard described the fundamentals. The Huron had “as much land as they need[ed]” (Axtell, 110-111). As a result, the Huron could give families their own land and still have a large amount of excess land owned communally. Any Huron was free to clear the land and farm. He maintained possession of the land as long as he continued to actively cultivate and tend the fields. Once he abandoned the land, it reverted to communal ownership and anyone could take it up for themselves(Axtell, 111). While the Huron did seem to have lands designated for the individual, the significance of this possession may be of little relevance; the placement of corn storage vessels in the longhouses, which contained multiple families in one kinship group, suggests the occupants of a given longhouse held all production in common (Trigger, 28). Image File history File links Long_House_Iroquois_Allen. ... Image File history File links Long_House_Iroquois_Allen. ... Gabriel Sagard, baptized Théodat, was a Catholic priest and missionary of the Franciscan Recollect order (French: Récollet) who arrived in New France June 28, 1623 to join four other members of his order who had arrrived in 1615. ... Longhouses were built by native peoples in various parts of North America, sometimes reaching over 100m long but still around 5m to 7m wide. ...

The Iroquois had a similar communal system of land distribution. The tribe owned all lands but gave out tracts to the different clans for further distribution among households for cultivation. The land would be redistributed among the households every few years and a clan could request a redistribution of tracts when the tribal council gathered. Land property was really only the concern of the women, since it was the women’s job to cultivate food and not the men’s (Stites, 71-72).

The Iroquois system of land management had to change with the coming of the Europeans and the forced isolation to reservations. The Iroquois had a system of collectively owned land free to be used as needed by their members. While this system was not wholly collective as land was distributed to individual family groups, the Iroquois lacked the western conception of property as a commodity (Noon). After the Europeans arrived and placed the Iroquois on reservations, the natives had to adjust their property system to a more western model. Despite the influence of western culture, the Iroquois have maintained a unique view of property over the years. Modern day Iroquois Doug George-Kanentiio sums up his perception of the Iroquois property view: The Iroquois have “no absolute right to claim territory for purely monetary purposes. Our Creator gave us our aboriginal lands in trust with very specific rules regarding its uses. We are caretakers of our Mother Earth, not lords of the land. Our claims are valid only so far as we dwell in peace and harmony upon her” (George-Kanentiio, 169-170). In the United States an Indian reservation is land which is managed by a Native American tribe under the United States Department of the Interiors Bureau of Indian Affairs. ... The word commodity is a term with distinct meanings in business and in Marxian political economy. ...

The system of the Grand River Iroquois demonstrates the one group integrated the traditional Iroquois property structure with the new way of life forced upon them. The reservation was established under two deeds in the eighteenth-century. These deeds gave corporate ownership of the reservation lands to the Six Nations of the Iroquois (Noon, 86-88). Individuals would then take a perpetual lease on a piece of land from the Confederacy (Noon, 88). The Iroquois idea that land came into one’s possession if cared for and reverted to public control if left alone persisted in reservation property law. In one property dispute case, the Iroquois Council sided with the claimant who had made improvements and cultivated the land over the one who had left it alone (Noon, 88). The natural resources on the land belonged to the tribe as a whole and not to those who possessed the particular parcel (Noon, 92). The Iroquois leased the right to extract stone from the lands in one instance and fixed royalties on all the production (Noon, 94). After natural gas had been discovered on the reservation, the Six Nations took direct ownership of the natural gas wells and paid those who had wells on their land compensation only for damages done by gas extraction (Noon, 94). This set up closely resembled the pre-contact land distribution system where the tribes actually owned the land and distributed it for use but not unconditional ownership. Another instance of traditional Iroquois property views impacting modern day Indian life involves the purchase of land in New York State by the Seneca-Cayuga tribe perhaps for a casino. The casino would be an additional collectively owned revenue maker. The Seneca-Cayuga already own a bingo hall, a gas station, and a cigarette factory (Adams). The later day organization of reservation property directly reflects the influence of the pre-contact view of land ownership. Six Nations of the Grand River is the name applied to two contiguous Indian reserves southeast of Brantford, Ontario, Canada – Six Nations reserve no. ... The Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, New Jersey Mirage Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas (jb) A casino is a building that accommodates certain types of gambling games and activities. ...

Division of Labor

Iroquois women at work (1664 engraving)

The Iroquois had to have a system of work to match their system of land ownership. Since the Iroquois owned property together, they worked together as well. The division of labor in Iroquois society, like other Eastern American tribes, was mainly along sexual lines (Axtell, 103). The Iroquois men were responsible for hunting, trading, and fighting while the women took care of farming, food gathering, and housekeeping. The women performed difficult work in large groups going from field to field helping one another work each others’ land. Together they would sow the fields as a “mistress of the field” distributed a set amount of seeds to each of the women (Axtell 124-125). The Iroquois women of each agricultural group would select an old but active member of their group to act as their leader for that year and agree to follow her directions (Stites, 32). The women performed other work cooperatively as well. The women would cut their own wood, but their leader would oversee the collective carrying of the wood back to the village(Stites, 32). The women’s clans performed other work and, according to Mary Jemison, a white assimilated as an Indian, the collective effort averted “every jealously of one having done more or less work than another…”(Stites, 32). Image File history File links Iroquois_women_work. ... Image File history File links Iroquois_women_work. ... Hunting is, in its most general sense, the pursuit of a target. ... Look up Trade in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Trade centers on the exchange of goods and/or services. ... This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Farming, ploughing rice paddy, in Indonesia Agriculture is the process of producing food, feed, fiber and other desired products by cultivation of certain plants and the raising of domesticated animals (livestock). ... Housekeeping is the maintenance of a clean environment, usually in a house, but it also applies to industrial, commercial, and institutional settings. ... Mary Jemison’s family came to America, most likely from Ireland, and settled outside of Philadelphia; Mary was born on the passage to America. ...

The Iroquois men also organized themselves in a cooperative fashion. Of course the men acted collectively during military actions as there is little sense in a single individual fighting entirely alone in battle(Stites, 33-34). The other jobs of men, such as hunting and fishing, also involved cooperative elements similar to women’s cooperation. However, the men differed from the women in that they organized as a whole village rather than as a clan (Stites, 33). The men organized hunting parties where they used extensive cooperation to kill a large amount of game. One first hand account told of a large hunting party that built a large brush fence in a forest forming a V. The hunters burned the forest from the open side of the V forcing the animals to run towards the point where the village’s hunters waited in an opening. A hundred deer could be killed at a time under such a plan (Stites, 36-37). The men also fished in large groups. Extensive fishing expeditions often took place where men with weirs, with nets, and in canoes covered entire streams to reap large amounts of fish, sometimes a thousand in half of a day (Stites, 37-38). A hunting or fishing party’s takings were considered common property and would be divided among the party by the leader or taken to the village for a feast (Stites, 70). Hunting and fishing were not always cooperative efforts, but the Iroquois generally did better in parties than as individuals (Stites, 30). A village is a human settlement commonly found in rural areas. ... A clan is a group of people united by kinship and descent, which is defined by perceived descent from a common ancestor. ... Subfamilies Capreolinae Cervinae Hydropotinae Muntiacinae Defined strictly, a deer is a ruminant mammal belonging to the family Cervidae. ... The bridge and weir mechanism at Sturminster Newton on the River Stour, Dorset. ... Bird netting on wine grapes Net may refer to: A device made by fibers woven in a grid-like structure, as in fishing net, a soccer goal, or the court divider in tennis; In circuit design, a collection of terminals that are or should be connected to each other electrically... Canoe at El Nido, Philippines A canoe is a relatively small human-powered boat. ...

Trade

The cooperative production and communal distribution of goods made internal trade within the Iroquois Confederacy pointless, but external trade with tribes in regions with resources the Iroquois lacked served a purpose (Stites, 79). The Iroquois traded excess corn and tobacco for the pelts from the tribes to the north and the wampum from the tribes to the east (Stites, 79-80). The Iroquois used present-giving more often than any other mode of exchange. Present-giving reflected the reciprocity in Iroquois society. The exchange would begun with one clan giving another tribe or clan a present and expected some sort of needed commodity to be given in return. This form of trade ties to the Iroquois culture’s tendency to share property and cooperate in labor. In all cases, no explicit agreement is made, but one service is performed for the community or another member of the community’s good with the expectation that the community or another individual would give back (Stites, 81). External trade offered one of the few opportunities for individual enterprise in Iroquois society. A person who discovered a new trading route had the exclusive right to trade along the same route in the future; however, clans would still collectivize trading routes to gain a monopoly on a certain type of trade (Stites, 80). This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

Impact on Iroquois Culture and Society

The structure of the Iroquois economy created a unique property and work ethic. The threat of theft was almost nonexistent since little was held by the individual except basic tools and implements which were so prevalent they had little value. The only goods worth stealing would have been wampum (Speck, 31-32). While a theft-free society can be respected by all, communal systems such as that of the Iroquois are often criticized for not providing any incentive to work. In order for the Iroquois to succeed without an individual incentive, they had to develop a communal work ethic. Virtue became synonymous with productivity. The idealized Iroquois man was a good warrior and productive hunter while the perfect woman excelled in agriculture and housekeeping (Stites, 144-145). By emphasizing an individual’s usefulness to society, the Iroquois created a mindset that encouraged their members to contribute even though they received similar benefits no matter how hard they worked. Work ethic is a set of values based on the moral virtues of hard work and diligence. ... Wampum, or sewan, was a string or belt of beads prized by early Native Americans and First Nations, and was used as a trading currency up through the early decades of European colonization. ...

As a result of their communal system, some would expect the Iroquois to have a culture of dependence without individuality. The Iroquois, however, had a strong tradition of autonomous responsibility. Iroquois men were taught to be self-disciplined, self-reliant, and responsible as well as stoic (Wallace, 30). The Iroquois attempted to eliminate any feelings of dependency during childhood and foster a desire for responsibility. At the same time, the child would have to participate in a communal culture so children were taught to think as individuals but work for the community (Wallace, 34).

References

Jim Adams, “Oklahoma Native Tribe Buys Land in New York State,” Indian Country Today, 24 November 2002.

James Axtell, ed., The Indian Peoples of Eastern America: A Documentary History of the Sexes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981).

Doug George-Kanentiio, Iroquois Culture and Commentary (Santa Fe: Clear Light Publishers).

Bruce G. Trigger, The Huron Farmers of the North (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969), 28.

John A. Noon, Law and Government of the Grand River Iroquois (New York: The Viking Fund), 1949).

Frank G. Speck, Iroquois (Bloomfield Hills, Michigan: Cranbrook Press, 1945).

Sara Henry Stites, Economics of the Iroquois (Lancaster, Pennsylvania: The New Era Printing Company).

Anthony F.C. Wallace, The Death and Rebirth of the Seneca (New York: Vintage Books, 1969).