Haudenosaunee is the name these six nations use for themselves. It means roughly “those who build the longhouse.” Iroquois is an outside name, and its origin is unclear.
This section covers the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, also called the Iroquois Confederacy or Six Nations. We use both names here because search and older classroom materials still rely on the second one, and we lead with the first.
Who the Haudenosaunee are
The confederacy originally joined five nations: the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca, listed east to west across what is now upper New York State. The Tuscarora were accepted in 1722, and the confederacy has been known as the Six Nations since (Britannica).
The nations were united under the Great Law of Peace, brought by the figure known as the Peacemaker to five nations that had been at war with one another.
On the name
“Iroquois” first appears in French records around 1603, in Samuel de Champlain’s writing. Its ultimate origin and meaning are unknown, and scholars generally treat it as a name adopted from the Haudenosaunee’s traditional enemies. The nations themselves prefer Haudenosaunee Confederacy.
This is not a trivia point. Teaching the endonym alongside the exonym is the difference between describing a people and repeating what their opponents called them.
A note before you teach the masks
The Haudenosaunee Confederacy issued a policy on False Face masks in 1995. It holds that the masks carry power and a purpose belonging solely to members of the respective medicine societies, and that interference with those societies or their masks harms Haudenosaunee communities.
Read that policy before building any lesson, craft activity or display involving these masks. We are carrying this section under review for that reason, and the page here should be treated as unfinished until that review is complete.
Where to go next
See Iroquois art and the page on masks, noting the caution above. Individual nations have their own pages under Native American history and culture, including Mohawk and Seneca.