STATUS OF WOMAN IN lEOQUOIS POLITY BEFOEE 1784 



By J. N. B, Hewitt 

 Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution 



There are several cogent reasons why this stucl_y should close with 

 the colonial period of the British Colonies in North America. The 

 final results of the War of the American Revolution, affecting the 

 affairs of the League of the Iroquois, were the crushing disruption 

 of its vital institutions and the ruthless sundering of the unity 

 of its component peoples into hostile parts which later found pre- 

 carious dwelling-places in various sections of Canada and in several 

 of the United States; thus the integrity of the League of the Iro- 

 quois was irreparably dissevered and dissipated, its fundamental 

 organic institutions ceased to function normally, and so the entire 

 confederate structure of the once famous League of the Iroquois 

 swiftly fell into ruins. 



The status and plenary power of the Iroquois woman shared in 

 the common ruin of the vital institutions of her people, and they are 

 in their original integritj^^ forgotten to-day, and lost beyond re- 

 covery by her. 



Five Iroquoian tribes — the Mohawk, the Seneca, the Onondaga, 

 the Oneida, and the Cayuga — dwelling in the central and eastern 

 parts of what is to-day the State of New York, organized during 

 the heyday of the Stone Age in North America, under the wise 

 guidance of the prophet-statesman Deganawida, a league or con- 

 federation of peoples with a carefullj'' designed constitution em- 

 bodying the principles of health, peace, justice, righteousness, order, 

 and force (or power). In 1722 the Tuscarora were incorporated 

 as a sixth member of this league. 



These six tribes spoke dialects of the important Iroquoian stock of 

 languages which is one of the 40 native linguistic stocks of language 

 spoken north of Mexico. 



To-day, in consequence of the disintegrating causes mentioned 

 above, every one of these six tribes is divided into two or more inde- 

 pendent parts wdiich occupy residences situated distantly one from 

 another ; so that none of the six tribes mentioned above exists to-day 

 except in their discrete parts, and none of these parts of tribes is 



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