Tid Bits

These Tid Bits are fast facts about the leadership ways and history of the Aboriginal people of Canada.

• There are six major cultural regions of First Nations in Canada (from east to west): Woodland, Iroquois of south eastern Ontario, Plains, Plateau, Pacific Coast, and First Nations of the Mackenzie and Yukon River basins.
• The largest group of Aboriginal people who live near the St. Lawrence waterway are the Iroquois.
• Many Aboriginal groups go by two names—what they call themselves and the name given them by the early Europeans. Below are a few examples:

Huron - French for “bristly.” Huron referred to the distinctive headdress of the “Wendat or “Wyandot,” which means “Island People.”

Iroquois - Algonkian for “rattlesnakes.” Their own name, “audenosaunee,” means “People of the Long House.”

Ojibwa - (Ojibway, Ojibwe, and Chippewa) means “puckered up” and refers to the stitching on moccasins. Originally, these First Nation people were known as Anishinabe, which means “real people.”

Sioux was short for the Ojibwa term “nadouessiox,” meaning “adders.” The oldest primary designations are Lakoda or Dakota, which are variant terms for “allies.”

• Another name for the Great Law of Peace is The Great Binding Law.
• The biggest of the long houses could be about twenty meters by one hundred meters (sixty feet wide by over three hundred feet long).
• The clans within the Iroquois Confederacy were known as Turtle, Bear, Wolf, Heron, Hawk, Snipe, Beaver, Deer, and Eel.
• The Iroquois Confederacy was divided into houses or, in their own words, "brotherhoods." The elder brothers are the Mohawk and Seneca. The younger brothers are the Oneida, Cayuga, and, since 1722, the Tuscarora. The Onondaga were known as the "Fire keepers." The Seneca and Mohawk confer as a "house," and the Cayuga, Oneidas, and Tuscarora confer in a separate caucus, in a structure similar to that found in upper and lower houses in some parliamentary systems.
• The Mohawk were one of the first of the Iroquois Confederacy to come into contact with Europeans.
• The Oneida were organized into three clans turtle, bear, and wolf.
• Tuscarora became the Sixth Nation of the Iroquois Confederacy in 1722.
• Tuscarora Clans were: Turtle, Wolf, Bear, Beaver, Snipe, Eel, and Sand Turtle or Deer