IROQUOIS KINSHIP SYSTEM AND ITS IMPACT ON CULTURE

The Iroquois tribe is a diverse group of Native American Indians joined through marriage and adoption to create several generations of a dominating nation. They are descendants of the Algonquin tribe which were also considered their enemy at one time. The common name Iroquois also known as Iroqu (Iriankhoiw) meaning "rattlesnake" was given to them by the Algonquin tribe, the suffix -ois meaning "Tribe of" was later added by the French men that discovered them. This name was considered an insult, as opposed to their original tribal name given of themselves Haudenosaunee, meaning "People of the longhouse", because that is where they lived as a tribal family (Nowak & Laird, 2010) (Sultzman, n.d.). Great introduction - really gets the reader's attention. Make sure to include a thesis statement here.

The Iroquois tribe was one of the largest and most respected tribes of the land. This massive tribe was divided into smaller groups called clans, which later became recognized as the Six Nations recently having an accounted population of 70,000 (Sultzman, n.d.). The individual tribes within the Iroquois tribe were: Mohawk; Cayuga; Oneida; Tuscarora; Huron; and Seneca. Each individual tribe was divided into 3 or 8 clans depending on size; turtle, bear, wolf, crane, snipe, hawk, beaver, and deer. Each clan was managed by a female elder of the tribe called a clan mother. Due to their horticultural way of life the women have the ultimate say so over the tribe and how it is governed from relationship to leadership and even economical growth, being they were the owners and the elders of the land and the people. Therefore, kinship is traced though a matrilineal social structure because of the woman's status in their culture (Nowak & Laird, 2010)