Songs & Rhymes In Iroquois
Songs & Rhymes In Mohawk

About the Iroquois

The Iroquois are a Native American tribe who currently live in parts of Canada, and the United States. The tribe was originally largely based in upstate New York.

During the height of their power, the Iroquois controlled most of what is now the Northeast United States and Canada. During the American Revolution, they sided with the British. After the war, the Americans invaded their US lands. As a consequence, many of them migrated to Canada, where another group of Iroquois was already located. Now, half of the Iroquois live in Canada and the other half in the US.

The Iroquois call themselves the Haudenosaunee, which means People of the Long House. Their primary dwellings were literally long houses, in which about 10 families or so could live.

They cultivated crops and hunted.

The Iroquois are also known as the Six Nations because they consist of six member tribes: the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Mohawk, Oneida and Tuscarora.

The Iroquoian language group consists of eleven languages, including those of the tribes listed above and also the Cherokee language. This leads linguists to believe that the Cherokee were once a part of the Iroquois.