Transcript Mohawk - Sycamore Middle School

Mohawk
Tribe
By Maxwell Wray
October, 15th, 2013
The Mohawk lived in New York and
Ontario, but now live on reservations.
History
• Before the Europeans
arrived the Mohawk had
wars against other tribes.
• Then someone they call
peacemaker said the tribes
should join and fight their
common enemy, the
Algonquin.
• The tribes that joined were
the Oneidas, Cayuga, Seneca
and the Onondaga. They
called themselves the
Iroquois .
History (continued)
• The French came in 1534, the
Dutch in 1609, and the English
in 1664.
• The trading was important to
the Mohawk, because that’s
when they first got stuff like
guns and beads.
• The Mohawk became friends
with the Dutch and the other
nations that came. They signed
a treaty that said the nations
wouldn’t take land from them,
but they later broke that treaty
and moved more men into the
Mohawk land.
Way of Life
• The Mohawk women farm. They grow corn, melons, squash,
pumpkins, beans, tobacco, sunflowers and peas.
• They also had apple orchards and maple syrup farms.
• The men hunt, fish and trade.
• Men dress in a two piece deer skin garment and wore moccasins.
• They fish using spears.
They wait until night and
they go out on canoes with
a torch in front of the boat.
When a fish comes by,
they spear it.
Way of Life (shelter)
• For shelter the Mohawk lived in longhouses.
• Longhouses were poles bent into an upside down “u” shape with
elm bark covering the poles.
• The longhouses were about 20 feet wide and 150 feet long.
• One clan lives in a longhouse and the tribe was split into 3 clans:
bear, wolf and turtle.
• When the men and women got married, the man moved into the
wife’s home.
Belief
The Mohawk believe
that they got here
when a woman fell
through a hole in the
sky. Then a group of
herons caught her and
carried her to a giant
turtle. There she had a
daughter who had
twins and the
population grew.
The End
Presentation by
Maxwell Wray