Little Hawk - Native American Wisdom | Indigenous Storytelling

Iroquois Women
The Heart of the Nation
“There is nothing more real than the
Superiority of the women. It is they who constitute
The tribe, transmit the nobility blood,… and perpetuate
The family. The possess all actual authority; own the land, and
The fields and their harvest; they are the soul of the councils,
The arbiters of peace and war; they have care of the public treasury;
[captives] are given them; they arrange marriages; the children belong to them and their blood confined the line of descent and the order of inheritance.”
By: Joseph-Francois Lafitau
1724

For thousands of years the southern Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River. The hardwoods of the eastern forest- maple, elm, ash, hickory, chestnut, beech- blended with stands of birch trees and eternal green of the hemlock, pine and spruce forest to the north. The elm tree, which provided bark for longhouses and canoes, had special religious meaning: at the center of the earth stood the Great Elm, with its huge, arching branches. There were no high mountain's, only gentle hills, from which to spot enemy or welcome a friend.
There were also many rivers and streams, forming a vast water network among the lakes. Many tribes could easily paddle canoes throughout their territory to trade corn, beans, and animal pelts with their friends and make war with their enemies. Although trees had to be cleared to build village nears the rivers, the land was fertile and easily worked with their stone tools. The Iroquois replied on crops of corn, beans, and squash, but they also hunted and gathered in the woods and fields.
The people of the Longhouse lived within nature. They cycle of their lives revolved around four clearly defined seasons. In the spring, the sap flowed and, like delicate green lace, the buds emerged on the trees. The earth softened, warmed, and was made ready to receive seeds.
In early summer, cherries and luneberris including wild strawberries and raspberries' were gathered before the long stretches of and heat. As July temperatures soar, ears of corn quickly ripen on the stalks.
In the autumn, the trees become a brilliant red, yellow and orange foliage corn leaves and stalks faded to tan, pumpkins glow orange on the damp morning sun or sunset, and drying beans rattling in their shells. Women and children harvesting the fields and gather in crab apples used to flavor deer meat, and the last of the blackberries.
Watching the geese as they fly south and feeling chill winds from the west sweep over us