Cayuga (people)

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The Cayuga within the five nations of the Iroquois, tribal area around 1650

The Cayuga or Gayogohó: no ' or Guyohkohnyoh ("people of the great swamps") are a tribe of the Haudenosaunee ("people of the longhouse "), better known as the Iroquois League or Iroquois Confederation , an alliance of originally five (later six) tribes or nations of the Iraqi language family . In common parlance, these tribes are called the Iroquois . The living and hunting area of ​​the Cayuga was between the Seneca in the west and the Onondaga in the east. They are one of the indigenous groups of the Indians of North America .

The indigenous name in use today for the Iroquois League is derived from two phonetically similar but etymologically different words in the Seneca language: Hodínöhšö: ni: h ("people of the long house") or Hodínöhsö: ni: h ("long house builder "), the Mohawk, however, referred to the confederation in their language as Rotinonsionni ("people of the longhouse").

The indigenous names or designations for the individual tribes / nations are first given in the naming convention commonly used today, followed by the self-designation ( autonym ) if possible , then the Seneca designation (historically mostly the most common), then the Mohawk designation and finally the ceremonial council name (mostly borrowed from the Mohawk).

The nations of the Iroquois League included (from east to west):

  • Mohawk ( Kanien'kehá: ka / Kanien'kehake - "People from the Land of Flint ", Kanienkahagen; Council name: "Guardian / Guardian of the Eastern Gate")
  • Oneida ( Onyota'a: ka / Onyota'ake - "people of the (upright) standing stone", Onayotekaono or Oneniotehá: ka / Oneniote'á: ka; Council name: Latilutakówa (Onondaga) or Nihatironta'kó: wa (Mohawk) - "People of the big trees / tree trunks")
  • Onondaga ( Onoñda'gega '/ Onöñda'gaga' , Onundagaono or Ononta'kehá: ka - "people from the place on the hills, ie from Onondaga", council name: Gana'dagwëni: io'geh or Rotishennakéhte (Mohawk) or Kayečisnakwe 'nì · yu' (Tuscarora) - "keeper of the council fire")
  • Cayuga ( Gayogohó: no ' - "People of the Great Marshes", Guyohkohnyoh or Kanawakonhá: ka, Alternative Mohawk name: Kahoniokwenhá: ke - "People from the place where the boats are taken out of the water", Council name: Shotinennawen'tó : wane - "people / keepers of the great pipe")
  • Seneca ( Onondowahgah / Onödowá'ga: ' - "People from the great mountain", Tsonontowanehá: ka / Tsonontowane'á: ka - "People from Tsonontó: wane (the great mountain)", Alternative Mohawk name: Shotinontó: wane - " Your (inhabited) mountain is big ", council name: Rontehnhohanónhnha / Ratihnhohanónhnha or Ronatehnhóhonte / Rotihnhóhonte -" guardian / guardian of the western gate ") and from 1722
  • Tuscarora ( Ska-Ruh-Reh - "hemp collectors" or "shirt-wearing people", Thatihskarò: roks / Tehatiskaró: ros / Taskaroraha: ka / Taskarorahaka; had no right to vote in the council, were represented by the Oneida).

The territory of the Iroquois League was in what is now the central part of the US state of New York . The Mohawk's residential and hunting area was the largest within the Iroquois League and was furthest to the east; they were therefore called guardians of the eastern gate - the Seneca with about 4,000 tribesmen by far the largest tribe within the league were the westernmost nation and therefore the guardians of the western gate (since the Iroquois / Haudenosaunee compared their alliance with a longhouse).

The Iroquois League was first known to the French as Ligue des Iroquois and later as Confédération iroquoise ("Iroquois League ") or Ligue des Cinq-Nations and to the British as Five Nations ("Five Nations"); from 1722 with the entry of Tuscarora after the lost Tuscarora War as Ligue des Six Nations or Six Nations ("Six Nations"). Politically, had the Seneca in the final decision-making in the Council (Grand Council) of the Haudenosaunee as so-called. "Older Brothers" ( Elder Brothers very large) together with the Mohawk and Onondaga impact. Due to the central / central location of their tribal area, their capital "Onondaga" was also the seat of the Great Council (consisting of 50 elected clan chiefs or Hoyane ) of the Haudenosaunee and the Onondaga symbolically the keepers of the council fire of the Iroquois League ; They were responsible for the preparation, organization and decision-making of the council meetings as well as the preservation of the wampums , which were used to document the council decisions. The chiefs were organized into three groups: the "older brothers" ( Older Brothers - 8 Seneca chiefs and 9 Mohawk chiefs), the "younger brothers" ( Younger Brothers , with 9 Oneida chiefs and 10 Cayuga chiefs) and the "keepers of the council fire" ( fire keepers , with 14 Onondaga chiefs), the Onondaga therefore had an outstanding and often decisive function. Today there are also 6 Tuscarora chiefs, previously the Tuscarora had no voting rights in the tribal council.

Today the Cayuga live mostly in the Six Nations Reservation of the Grand River in Canada . In the United States, there is the Cayuga Nation of New York in Perrysburg , New York State, and the Seneca-Cayuga Tribe of Oklahoma in northeast Oklahoma .

Surname

The Cayuga called themselves Gayogohó: no ' and the other tribes of the Haudenosaunee also called them (in their respective language) Guyohkohnyoh (Seneca) or Kanawakonhá: ka (Mohawk), all of which means "people of the great swamps". Their ceremonial council designation during the deliberations in the Grand Council (Federal Council) of the Iroquois League was Shotinennawen'tó: wane (Mohawk) ("people / keepers of the great pipe"). The tribal name commonly used today as "Cayuga" appeared for the first time in 1676 in a wide variety of spellings, such as Caijouga, Cajuge, Cojage and others. Either it can be traced back to the Kayohkhono ("people from Oiogouen"), also handed down as an autonym , or to the Mohawk designation as Kahoniokwenhá: ke ("people from the place where the boats are taken out of the water").

territory

The Cayuga residential area in which their villages were located stretched between Cayuga and Owasco Lake in Cayuga County , New York State. The considerably larger hunting area extended from the two lakes in the north to Lake Ontario and in the south to the vicinity of the Susquehanna River . The area around their villages was rich in wildlife, as well as various species of fish, pigeons and other birds. As a result, their diet consisted more of meat than of agricultural products compared to the other Iroquois tribes.

In the seventeenth century, the Cayuga reportedly lived in three major villages in France. The earliest document is from Pierre Esprit Radisson , who visited three closely spaced Cayuga settlements in the spring of 1653. Fifteen years later, French Jesuits had established a permanently manned mission station with the Cayuga and also reported on three villages, namely of Oiogouen , Tiohero and Onontaré . The Jesuit Saint Joseph Mission was located in Oiogouen, which was believed to be just a few kilometers south of Union Springs . The other two villages were on the Seneca River . Tiohero was named after the river's numerous rapids and was around 16 km from Oiogouen. Here the Jesuits had set up their Saint Etienne mission . The Saint René Mission was built in Onontare . The village was almost 25 km from Oiogouen, but was only 8 km downstream from Tiohero on the Seneca River. Over the next ten years, presumably after the Susquehannock defeat , the Cayuga apparently moved their villages. In 1677, the English trader Wentworth Greenhalgh reported that the three Cayuga villages were no more than two kilometers from each other and about three to five kilometers from Cayuga Lake. They would not be protected by palisades .

history

First contacts with the French and Beaver Wars

In the first half of the seventeenth century the Iroquois trade in beaver pelts for European goods developed. At the same time, the number of beavers in their territory dwindled. In order to open up new hunting areas, the Iroquois League attacked the neighboring tribes during the so-called Beaver Wars . By 1649 the Mohawk and Seneca annihilated the Hurons and shortly afterwards the Petun and Neutrals . Only the Erie in the west were initially spared. In 1653 the northern Iroquois tribes including the Cayuga signed a peace treaty with the French. In the autumn of 1656 the missionary Father René Mènard came to the Cayuga to set up a mission station there. The peace with the French did not last long, because after only two months Father Mènard had to return to the central mission station Sainte Marie with the Onondaga on Onondaga Lake because he feared for his life. He had previously been warned by an influential Cayuga chief. In 1658 the missionaries were even forced to give up Sainte Marie and leave the Iroquois area.

During the following years the war between the Susquehannock and the three western Iroquois tribes escalated: Seneca, Cayuga and Onondaga. In 1661 a joint delegation of the Cayuga and Onondaga came to Montreal to negotiate a peace treaty with the French again. At the invitation of the Iroquois, the missionary Simon Le Moyne traveled to the Onondaga for a few weeks in the winter of 1661/62. In 1664 the Cayuga sent a delegation to Québec and asked for French missionaries to be sent. But a war between the French under General Alexandre de Prouville de Tracy and the Mohawk prevented this project in 1666. The Cayuga in particular were interested in peace with the French, because the war against the Susquehannock required all forces. The fear of attack by the Susquehannock caused part of the Cayuga to move to the Bay of Quinté on the north shore of Lake Ontario. In 1668 the Sulpizians established a mission in the new Cayuga settlement on the Bay. In the same year the mission station was reopened with the Cayuga under the name Saint Joseph .

At this time there were numerous captured Hurons, Susquehannock and neutrals living with the Cayuga. There was opposition to the presence of the Jesuits among the Cayuga and in 1682 the missionaries had to leave the Iroquois territory again. In the next few years there were increasing conflicts with the French. In 1687 they sent a punitive expedition to the Seneca and burned their villages down. A second expedition in 1693 destroyed the villages and crops of the Mohawk. Finally, in 1696, a third expedition followed under Louis de Buade , which had the villages of Oneida and Onondaga as its destination and also destroyed them. The Cayuga were the only ones from the Iroquois League whose villages were not burned down.

Peace treaty and neutrality

In 1701 there was finally a lasting peace treaty both between the Iroquois and the French and between the Iroquois and the British ( Great Peace of Montreal ). For the next few decades, the Cayuga pursued a policy of strict neutrality and did not allow themselves to be drawn into the Queen Anne's War by the British as allies . In the subsequent colonial wars between the French and the British, the Iroquois League remained largely neutral and was able to expand its dominance in the fur trade with the Europeans, as well as in the trade in goods with the neighboring Indian tribes in the south and west.

The danger of enemy attacks diminished in the 18th century and led to the fact that the Cayuga villages no longer had to be protected by palisades. The houses were further apart and the villages could expand in area. Around this time there were some Cayuga settlements on the western side of Cayuga Lake and on the Susquehanna River in the south. Another village was on the Seneca River and their main village was traditionally on the east side of Cayuga Lake. It was visited by missionaries from the Moravian Brothers in 1750 and, according to their report, had over twenty longhouses with up to four fireplaces. Four to five families could live in them.

In 1753 the Cayuga took on members of the Sioux-speaking Tutelo and Saponi . Seventeen years earlier, Seneca and Cayuga had attacked tribes further south after defeating the Susquehannock. These fled their villages in Virginia to North Carolina in the south . There they were expelled by Governor Alexander Spotswood around 1710 and returned to Virginia to settle at Fort Christianna. In 1722 there was a peace treaty between the Iroquois and their allies on the one hand and the tribes in Virginia and Carolina on the other. The increasing white settlement caused the Tutelo and Saponi to leave their village around 1740 and move to Shamokin at the fork of the Susquehanna River. Here and a little further upstream in Skogari lived scattered members of several tribes. After their adoption by the Cayuga and acceptance into the Iroquois League around 1753, they moved further north and established their main village five kilometers south of Cayuga Lake in 1771.

Dissolution of the tribal unit

When the American War of Independence began, the Cayuga numbered around 1040 tribesmen. They continued to strive for neutrality, as did the other tribes of the Iroquois League. The western members of the league, including the Cayuga under their chief Fish Carrier , eventually decided to fight on the British side. In 1779 the Americans sent an expedition to punish the pro-British Iroquois. Under the leadership of Generals John Sullivan and James Clinton , American forces attacked and burned the Seneca villages. In September of the same year the Cayuga suffered the same fate when a detachment under Colonel William Butler attacked and destroyed the villages on the east side of the lake. A smaller force under Colonel Henry Dearborn burned the Cayuga villages on the west side.

After the war, a large number of the Cayuga moved to Canada to the Six Nations Grand River Reserve , where they lived in two villages. In 1785 382 Cayuga were counted there. With them, 74 tutelos came to the reservation, most of whom settled on the heights of Brantford and built a town hall. Two epidemics, in 1832 and 1848, killed most of the Tutelo, and the survivors were absorbed by marrying them into the Cayuga. The Saponi apparently did not go to the reservation in Canada and their fate is unknown. It can be assumed that they stayed with the Cayuga in New York State and lost their tribe identity there. According to James Mooney , a couple of Saponi lived in the Cayuga reservation on the Seneca River in 1789. A number of Cayuga and Tutelo settled with the Seneca on the Buffalo Creek reservation. There they lived in a scattered settlement on Cayuga Creek in the north of the reservation. In 1789 there were 38 Cayuga families with a total of 350 members and 35 tutelos. In 1824 and 1827, however, there were only 90 people left. Some Cayuga stayed in their old homeland. In 1790, around 130 tribe members lived on the western and eastern shores of Cayuga Lake. Shortly thereafter, this land was sold and many of the Cayuga including Chief Fish Carrier had to move to the Six Nations Grand River Reserve in Canada.

In the Treaty of Albany in 1789 and Fort Stanwix in 1790, the Cayuga sold all of their territory to New York State except for one area on the north shore of Cayuga Lake, about 100 square miles. In the Treaty of Cayuga Ferry in 1795, they also sold this reservation to the state and kept only two pieces of land measuring five and two and a half square kilometers on the east side of Cayuga Lake. Chief Fish Carrier was given an area of ​​two and a half square kilometers on the west side of the lake. The two small pieces of land on the east side of the lake were sold to New York State in 1807 and Chief Fish Carriers' area in 1841.

As a result of the land sales in 1789/90 some Cayuga and with them other Iroquois moved to Ohio , where they settled on the lower Sandusky River and became known under the name Sandusky-Seneca . These Iroquois fought alongside the Americans against the British in the War of 1812. As a thank you, they were given 30,000 acres (121 km²) of land on the Sandusky River in 1817, which was enlarged by 10,000 acres (40 km²) in 1818. According to census from 1829 lived in Seneca Sandusky Reservation 322 Iroquois, of which 157 Cayuga. At the same time, New York State had 94 Cayuga on Buffalo Creek, 25 in Cattaraugus, and 16 in Tonawanda. In 1831 the Sandusky Seneca sold their land and moved west across the Mississippi . This group included around 340 Iroquois and some members of other tribes. They settled in northeastern Oklahoma and formed the Oklahoma-Seneca-Cayuga tribe there .

By 1838, the Iroquois in New York had sold all of their land holdings. However, there were a large number of tribesmen who refused to sell the land in favor of a reservation in Oklahoma. This opposition led to new contract negotiations in 1842 with the result that only the Buffalo Creek and Tomawanda Reservations were sold, while the Cattaraugus and Alleghany Reservations remained in Indian ownership. Those tribe members who did not want to go to the west could move to one of the two remaining areas.

The Cayuga still living in New York were in the three Seneca and one Onodaga reservations around 1890, but most of them were in Cattaraugus. According to the census from 1892, 153 of the total of 183 Cayuga still lived in Cattaraugus.

Todays situation

Sign at the entrance to the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation reservation

Today there are four Cayuga groups. These include the Upper and Lower Cayuga , both of which can be found in Ontario, Canada at the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation . In the USA there is the Cayuga Nation of New York in Seneca Falls and the Seneca-Cayuga Tribe of Oklahoma, both of which are federally recognized.

In the Six Nations of the Grand River all six Iroquois tribes are united and with 23,902 members form the largest group among the First Nations in Canada. The reservation they inhabit at Brantford in Ontario covers around 190 km² and corresponds to about five percent of the land that was given to them in 1784 by the Haldimand Proclamation . The Cayuga Nation of New York is based in Versailles and Seneca Falls in the US state of New York. There the tribal council meets, which is made up of chiefs whose dignity is passed on in the maternal line. However, the Cayuga Nation of New York does not have its own reservation and its 964 members mostly live in reservations made by Seneca.

The seat of the Seneca-Cayuga Tribe of Oklahoma is located in the far northeast Oklahoma and the 1,509 members live in an area known to be tribal jurisdictional area (dt. Tribal Custom Administrative Region ) is called and the location Grove is located in Oklahoma.

See also

literature

Web links

  • Cayuga Language in: Ohwejagehka: Ha`degaenage, website of the Six Nations of the Grand River in Canada

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ In the historical specialist literature and to this day the names for the Iroquois League, whose tribes and institutions are borrowed from the Seneca language (the largest tribe within the league at the time) - today these are supplemented or replaced by the Mohawk language, as this is currently the most widely spoken language of the Iroquois League (Onkwehonwehneha).
  2. ^ Haudenosaunee Confederacy - The League of Nations
  3. ↑ Kanienkeha - An open source endangered language initiative
  4. ↑ Kahnawà: ke Branch of the Mohawk Nation
  5. ↑ According to today's Haudenosaunee, however, the Mohawk council name most often given as "guardian / guardian of the eastern gate" is a frequent misunderstanding on the part of Europeans and can be traced back to their interpretation that the Mohawk as the easternmost nation as the "guardian of the eastern door within the Confederation "were known; however, this name was never officially used among the Haudenosaunee, but only used and spread by the Europeans.
  6. ↑ a b c d Bruce G. Trigger (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians . Vol. 15: Northeast, p. 500. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC 1978. ISBN 0-16004-575-4
  7. ↑ a b c d e f Bruce G. Trigger (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians. Vol. 15: Northeast, p. 501.
  8. ↑ a b c d e f Bruce G. Trigger (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians. Vol. 15: Northeast, p. 502.
  9. ↑ Six Nations of the Grand River ( Memento of the original from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed October 2, 2012  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / pse5-esd5.ainc-inac.gc.ca
  10. ↑ Cayuga Nation of New York , accessed October 2, 2012
  11. ↑ Seneca-Cayuga Tribe of Oklahoma ( Memento of the original from April 21, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed October 2, 2012  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.sctribe.com