Algonquian and Iroquois
 
Cultures

Subsistence
Economic Activity
 
 
	At the rise of the Algonquian and the Iroquois culture, the people
 were considered a hunter and gatherer society.  Their main form of
 subsistence was fish they caught in the nearby rivers and streams, beaver
  they trapped for their food and furs, otter, moose, bear, caribou, some
 maize growing, kidney-beans, shads, eel, alewives, herring, and a variety 
 of nuts.  In the Meadowood Phase of the Algonquian, the people also were 
 able to grow some maize, but depended on collecting scallops, oysters, 
 quahogs, and soft clams.  There is some evidence that people in the Early
 Iroquois stage may have grown maize and gathered fish is the summer, but 
 they hunted exclusively throughout the winter.  The Late Iroquois stage
  was a time of great agricultural farming.  These people grew and quickly
 depended on corn, squash, beans, and sunflowers to make up almost 80% of
 their daily diet.

 
Technology

	As we emerge through time, technological advances played a major
 role in the increasing subsistence patterns.  Both the Algonquian and the
 Iroquois had roughly the same trade tools.  These were a variety of war
 clubs, bow and arrows, birch bark canoes, they used the hides from their
 kills for clothing, snowshoes, stone axes, knives, pipes, and a variety of
 agricultural tools.  The Iroquois people were also able to obtain guns and
 ammunition through the fur trade with the Europeans.  The Algonquian 
 people also had a unique fishing spear that possessed two harpoon points 
 like that of the Thule tradition.  A technological advance that became
  very evident from excavations of the Algonquian culture was in the
  susquehanna tradition the people used very broad projectile points, but in
 the Orient tradition these points were long and narrow with fishtail bases.
 
Trade

	Trade among these two cultures was a necessity for their 
 survival.  In the Terminal Archaic period of the Algonquian people they
  traded such things as chert, soapstone, projectile points, and cooking
  vessels.  As the Algonquian culture became stronger, they made an alliance
  with the French and began trade with them.

	We begin to see the use of wampum by the different tribes of the
  Iroquois people in the Late Iroquois period.  Initially, the belts of 
 wampum were used as a form of documenting important events.  But as time
  went on the use of the wampum was converted as a type of currency that was
  used for trading among other bands.  Like the Algonquian, the Iroquois
  people also made alliances for trade, but the Iroquois became allies of
  Great Britain who traded them guns and ammunition for treasured fur pelts,
  especially that of the beaver.

 
Environmental Impact

	There is no record of either the Algonquian or the Iroquois people
  creating mass destruction to their localized environment.  The majority of
  the environmental declination that took place was clearing and cutting
  away forests for new agricultural fields when their previous one became
  soil and nutrient depleted.

 
Social Organization

Organization

	Most of the information that we currently have on the social
  organization patterns is that of the Iroquois people.  Throughout much of
  the Middle Iroquois period, the people congregated in bands of localized
  matrilineal clans.  Within each clan was a leader who oversaw the events
  of his clan.  Perhaps one of the most intriguing factors about the social
  organization was that the men went off to live with their wives and her
  family.  Once married, her family became his to help protect, and his
  biological family was no longer considered his family.  Eventually as time
  went on multiple clans joined together to form larger communities, most
  likely caused by increasing tension from neighboring tribes.
 
	The initial coming together of the original thirteen colonies is
  believed to be modeled after the League of the Iroquois.  In the Late
  Iroquois period, groups of powerful tribes joined forces and created a
  pact called the League of the Iroquois.  This league consisted of the
  Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and the Mohawk.  It is believed that the
  League of the Iroquois was formed as a way of protecting themselves from
  external pressures like the Europeans and the Algonquian.  A council of
  elders was formed from each of the five tribes, and this council made the
  decisions on what was best for the league.
 
 
Economic Classes
 
	The people of the Middle Iroquois period had extraordinary class
  distinction.  Each group had their individual role, and knew that their
  survival depended on their carrying out that role.  The sachems or chiefs
  were divided into two categories, the war chiefs and the peace 
 chiefs. "Peace chiefs kept a pulse on public opinion, settled domestic
  disputes, organized community works, rituals and ceremonies, and
  negotiated with others.  War chiefs had more limited powers.  They
  organized and led war parties, dealt with prisoners, and killed suspected
  witches"(Fagan, P. 465).  Every tribe had a group of warriors that were
  under the war chiefs.  These warriors would defend their home, go out on
  raiding parties, and do the majority of the hunting.  The women of each 
 committee was expected to stay at home and take care of the kids, keep the
  house clean, and do most of the agricultural work.  
 
 
Relating to Subsistence
 
	As stated earlier, the women did most of the agricultural work.
   They did the planting, the hoeing, all of the things that go with trying
  to obtain a good crop yield.  The men of each particular tribe were in
  charge of getting enough meat to feed their family.  It is often believed
  that the men went out to get the meat as a form of obtaining superiority
  over the women in the tribe, although the women did the majority of the work.
 
   
Population and Settlement Pattern
Population Size
 
	The population of each individual society greatly fluctuated
  through time.  As in other cultures, the population density greatly 
 depended on the amount of subsistence that members of the tribe were able
  to bring in.  When the Algonquian and the Iroquois cultures first began,
  their settlements were small and therefore and low populations.  But as 
 they became better farmers their population began to rise.  The average 
 summer village in Early Iroquois times was anywhere between 100 and 400
  persons.  By Middle Iroquois times, the population rose anywhere up to
  2,000 persons in one settlement.
 
 
Settlement Pattern
 
	The first settlement pattern that we see is during the Terminal
  Archaic period.  The Terminal Archaic period lasted from about 1650 to 700
  B.C.  The majority of their settlements were along major river highways,
  which served for multiple purposes.  As an efficient way of traveling, a
  great and vast source of food, and as a means of possible escape in case
  of attack.  These camps were of semi-permanence and possessed no real 
 definite roots.
 
	The Meadowood Phase, from 700 to 300 B.C., has been found to be
  fairly similar to that of the Terminal Archaic period.  The Algonquian
  people settled in west and central New York State and Mohawk drainage. 
  They tended to reside in semi-permanent dwellings that existed partially
  below ground level for the possible purpose of conserving heat in the 
 winter.  Winter houses were usually found by streams and ponds in the 
 backcountry where an abundance of game was to be found.  Their houses
  tended to be cone-shaped so that they were able to be transported easily.
   Made of primarily birch bark, these cone houses allowed for very little
  room to move around.  Their summerhouses were considered long houses,
  which were much larger than their winter homes and able to house multiple
  families.
 
	The Iroquois people were not much different than the Algonquian
  people in settlement patterns.  In the Early Iroquois period, 1000 to
   1300 B.C., the majority of the summer camps were found on river flats by
  sheltered inlets where they could fish and cultivate a variety of plants
  easily.
 
	Settlement pattern began to change of the Iroquois people in the
  Middle Iroquois period.  It was not uncommon to see villages of up to two
  and a half acres scattered about the countryside.  Feeling somewhat unsafe
  residing next to a river way, the Iroquois people moved from the flood
  plains inland to the hills where they were able too easily defend their
  community.  People also began to lead more sedentary lives, building long 
 houses that held many families and were guarded by a well-fortified log 
 wall.  "[The long houses] were said to be twenty to eighty feet in length
  and about twenty feet in width, standing approximately fourteen feet high
  at the ridge or center of the long house"(Kubiak, P. 27).  But there were
  drawbacks to becoming more sedentary.  As the population of their tribe 
 increased, a number of their resources started to decrease.  Hunters began
  to have a more difficult time finding game.  Lumber to keep up the 
 palisade and their houses became scarce.  The soil that they had planted
  their crops on began to become nutrient deficient.  Infestation of rats,
  mice, and fleas began to take over their homes.  Because of these
  drawbacks, the people were forced to relocate occasionally, and anytime a
  community decided to relocate, there was competition with other tribes for 
 those hunting grounds.
 
	The Draper site is one of the most well known sites for being 
 completely excavated.  At current times, it is the largest Iroquois site
  to ever be excavated, covering 19.76 acres and housing roughly 2000 to
  3000 people.  
 
	Another site that was well excavated was the Kelso site.  "The
  [Kelso] site proved to be much larger than anticipated, consisting to two
  slightly over-lapping villages of 2 acres each, bounded on their
  peripheries by multiple stockade lines"(Tooker, P. 71).  At the time,
  archaeologists were astonished by the work put in building a palisade
  around the village.  "The fortification features, the earliest known for
  the New York Iroquois…are radically different from later Iroquois
  palisades made after the introduction of the steel trade ax"(Tooker, P. 
 71).
 
 
Ideology
Religious Beliefs and Rituals
 
	The burials of the Algonquian during the Meadowood phase are much
  different that those of the Mississippian cultures.  The people were
  usually cremated and placed in closely packed bark-lined pits, located on
  natural hills with projectile points and a variety of luxury items.
   
	During the Early Iroquois period, we find that they had less
  elaborate burial ceremonies, and buried their dead with few if any trade
  goods.  
 
	The Iroquois people had a number of rituals that they performed 
 ceremoniously.  Ceremonies were performed for marriages, burials, when
  tribes moved from one settlement to another and in the spring and fall to
  scare away any disease that people might have.  Major items that were used
  in these ceremonies were rattles made from turtle shells or bark, masks
  that were carved from living basswood trees, ceremonial headdresses, and
  costumes.
 
	Another extremely important ritual among the Iroquois people was
  that of cannibalism.  They often sacrificed their war prisoners to their
  gods in hopes of winning favor with them.  Although archaeologists are 
 positive that cannibalism was a common practice, with skeletons that have
  been excavated, why they did they acts and what caused them remains a
  partial mystery.
 
 
Artwork
 
	The Iroquois people were incredible mask makers.  These masks that
  were usually used for ceremonial purposes, were often made from live
  basswood trees or husks that were braided or twined.  The faces took on a
  distorted image, depending on what the mask creator's dream was about.
   They often had large noses, which appeared to be broken severely, and
  large lips.  Although sometimes disturbing to view, their maskwork is yet
  to be matched.  
 
 
Language
 
	We know that the Algonquian and the Iroquois people had spoken 
 languages, but any written form of it is yet to be unearthed.  People in
  the coastal drainages between Nova Scotia and North Carolina spoke and
  Eastern Algonquian dialect.  While tribes that belonged to the Iroquois
  League spoke in a Northern Iroquois language.  Although the different
  tribes had their own dialect, each was able to obtain the jist of what the
  other was trying to communicate.
 
 
Warfare
 
	Warfare was a major part of the Iroquois life, as well as the
  Algonquian.  The beginning evidence that we have of warfare among the
  Iroquois is in the Early Iroquois period when the first fortified villages
  begin to appear.  
 
	Warfare in the Middle Iroquois period quickly became a survival
  test.  Long houses were now closely packed together so that they were
  easier to defend.  Wars among tribes were a very brutal time, but even
  then they had rules of engagement.  Only the men were to be killed the
  women and children were allowed to live, although sometimes as slaves.
   The fallen men's scalps were often brought back as trophies as a sign of
  prestige.
 
	In the Late Iroquois period, no one was more feared than the
  League of the Iroquois.  One and all feared them.  They became extreme
  enemies of the Huron and the Algonquian tribes.  It is believed that the
  Seneca were the most ferocious warriors of all.  Their lightening speed,
  their strong will, and acceptance of death made even their allies cower in
  fear.
 
	No one is sure how or why the fighting began between the different
  tribes.  It is thought that it started from retaliation for someone 
 getting killed.  We don't know why the wars started, but we do know that
  they always ended in lots of bloodshed.
 
 
 
(C) Copyright 2000
 

 
 
Bibliography
Fagan, Brian M.  Ancient North America: The Archaeology of a Continent. 
  Second Edition.  1995.  P. 465.
 

 
Kubiak, William J.  Great Lakes Indians.  1970.  P. 27.
 

 
Tooker, Elisabeth.  Iroquois Culture, History, and Prehistory. 1970.  P. 71.