Our unit on Historic American Culture

My tribe was the Iroquois. I learned a lot about this tribe like what they ate, wore, hunted, their shelter, and their entertainment. The Iroquois hunted deer and other game. There main supply of food was from farming. Their three most important crops also called the “Three Sisters” were corn, beans, and squash, one of their favorite foods were corn cakes. The women wore vest, skirts, and moccasins all made from deerskin. The men wore deerskin breechcloths in the hot summer and in the winter they wore leggings made of leather, tunics, and cornhusk or deerskin moccasins. The Iroquois had shelters called longhouses. There were usually two or more in a village. They were built on hills and guarded by watchtowers. The long houses were usually twenty-five to hundred feet long and could hold up to thirty to sixty people. People in the long houses had a personal area of about nine by six feet. They had seats attached to the walls. The seats were used as beds and they would be used to store their tools and all items there. They had good entertainment like there six festivals they had every year. The festivals were The New Year festival, the Maple festival, the Corn Planting Festival, the Strawberry festival, the Green Corn festival, and the Harvest of Thanksgiving. These festivities were to give thanks to the spirits for good health. They also played a game with six half black half white seeds on a plate and you would flip them up and try to make five out of six the same color. That is a lot of what I have learned about my tribe the Iroquois.

By Kyle Hoffman