Bruce Elliott Johansen, Barbara Alice Mann, eds. Encyclopedia of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois
Confederacy). Westport, Conn. and London: Greenwood Press, 2000. xvi + 366 pp. $95.00
(cloth), ISBN 978-0-313-30880-2.
Reviewed by Charles C. Kolb (National Endowment for the Humanities)
Published on H-AmIndian (October, 2000)
An Encyclopedia of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) by Native American Contributors
An Encyclopedia of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) by
Native American Contributors
includes entries by eight authors. Johansen is Robert T.
Reilly Professor of Communication and coordinator of
the Native American Studies Program, University of Ne[Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are those braska at Omaha, and has written fifteen books and nuof the reviewer and not of his employer or any other fed- merous professional articles. Barbara Mann completed
eral agency.]
her doctorate in 1997 at the University of Toledo (Ohio)
Bruce Johansen, the volume’s senior editor, com- and now professes there in the English department; she
ments that the modern discipline of American anthro- is an expert on gender issues and a contributor to the Hpology is founded in part on Lewis Henry Morgan’s AmIndian list. The senior editor prepared 161 of the 198
seminal work, League of the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois encyclopedia entries, while Mann wrote 26 others.
published in 1851 – regarded as the first scientific acAnother six contributors wrote a total of eleven escount of an Native American society (p. vii). The term says: one by John Kahionhes Fadden (associate curator,
Haudenosaunee translates as “People of the Longhouse,” Six Nations Indian Museum, Onchiota, New York), three
while the name Iroquois is of French origin. The editors
by Doug George-Kanentiio (Round Dance Productions
and authors use the term Iroquois interchangeably with
and newspaper columnist), two by Barbara Gray or Katheir own name for themselves, Haudenosaunee. Writ- natiyosh (a doctoral student in justice studies, Arizona
ing about the content of the book, Johansen also states State University), one by Brenda LaFrance (tribal trustee,
that “this is the first one-volume college- and university- St. Regis Mohawk Tribal Council), one by Kallen Martin
library reference work on the Haudenosaunee” (p. xiii). (a doctoral student at Syracuse University and magazine
The encyclopedia contains 198 ethnohistoric and ethnocontributor), and three by John C. Mohawk (associate
graphic entries that relate to the Haudenosaunee Conprofessor, Native American Studies, State University of
federacy, which has its traditional homeland in upstate New York at Buffalo). Informative mini-biographies of
New York. The Confederacy’s constituent tribes include the eight contributors appear on pages 365-366. The
the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca, six-page Preface prepared by Johansen (pp. vii-xii) has
and, after 1722, the Tuscarora who had emigrated from eleven suggestions for further reading, and his Introducpresent-day western North Carolina. The prehistoric era
tion (pp. xiii-xvi) lists two others. The encyclopedia’s enand archaeological cultures and sites are not covered in
tries are listed alphabetically beginning with “Adodaroh”
this encyclopedia.
and ending with “Wyandot” (pp. 1-337). A very useNonetheless, this volume is an impressive research ful Selected Bibliography (pp. 339-353) has 301 entries,
tool co-edited by Bruce Johansen and Alice Mann, and while an index (pp. 355-363) with 301 major headings
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emphasizes proper nouns. The two maps (p. vi) illustrate the Haudenosaunee homelands ca. 1500 and Haudenosaunee reservations in 1999.
bibliography, and then summarize the importance of this
work in terms of its goals.
As may be expected, some entries are brief (a few
hundred words) but others are more expansive. The latter includes the especially valuable recounting of the tripartite history of the Iroquois beginning with “The First
Epoch of Time” (pp. 83-97) authored by Johansen, followed by “The Second Epoch of Time” (pp. 265-284) and
“The Third Epoch of Time” (pp. 307-312), both composed
by Mann. The first part recounts creation myths and history through the missionary period, the second details
Handsome Lake and the founding of the League, while
the third documents the period since about 1800. There
are entries dealing with the sacred, the profane, mythology, important native and Anglo personages, historic and
contemporary events, including casino gambling.
In the Preface Johansen critiques the pioneering work
of Lewis Henry Morgan (1851), pointing out that Morgan’s volume is still the most comprehensive treatment
of the Haudenosaunee despite the intervening 150 years.
He rightly comments on Morgan’s intense ethnocentrism
and the conscious attempt to place Iroquois society into
his own evolutionary schema of Euro-American political systems. Nonetheless, Johansen categorizes Morgan’s
League as a precursor to his Ancient Society (1877) in
which a refined version of societal evolution is explicated. In sum, Johansen contends that the effect of Morgan’s pioneering work in ethnology was a scientific parallel to the contemporary seminal research conducted by
Charles Darwin in biology. Johansen goes on to chastise the academic establishment noting that these scholars and the modern Haudenosaunee peoples could not be
more alienated from each other (p. xi).
Among the entries are: Akwesasne Mohawks; the
Beaver Wars; the Canandaigua Treaty; the Jay Treaty;
Lacrosse; Longhouse (with a drawing); the Mingo; the
Salamanca (New York) Lease; Thanksgiving; Wampum;
He has justifiably harsh words for William N. Fen- and Warrior Society. Important persons include, for
ton ,author of The False Faces of the Iroquois (Norman: example, Cornplanter (Seneca), Frederick Dockstader
University of Oklahoma Press, 1987), who offended tra- (an Oneida-Navajo anthropologist), Simon Girty (or
ditional peoples by including photographs and drawings Katepakomen, a Seneca-Wyandot), the visionary Handof sacred Grandfather masks which, as Iroquois schol- some Lake (Seneca), Arthur C. Parker (Seneca), Ely S.
ars should know, are not to be photographed. Johansen Parker (Seneca), and the film actor Jay Silverheels (who
concludes by stating that “the Haudenosaunee, who had was actually Harry Smith, a Mohawk), as well as explorer
been assigned by the intellectual heirs of Morgan to the Jacques Cartier, political philosopher Friedrich Engels,
subsidiary status of subjects in studies designed by non- Sir William Johnson, the author Thomas Paine, General
Iroquois, have been working to find their own voice. In John Sullivan, and the interpreter Conrad Weiser.
history, any complete description demands consideration
Significant phrases that have come into common usof oral as well as written histories. I hope that this volage include “bury the hatchet” and “sleep on it,” and the
ume will help infuse a Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) voice
lesser-known term “buttlegging” (cigarette bootlegging)
into undergraduate library research” (p. xi).
are also documented. Splendid explanations are given
Johansen’s Introduction further elaborates the need for condolence, consensus, and the taxation disputes,
for a one-volume reference work and he comments on the while descriptions of present-day reservations are likecontributions of his colleagues, especially Barbara Mann, wise informative. The reference to 97-year old Winona
in detailing the roles and responsibilities of women. He Esther Blueye (Tonawanda Seneca) documents her splenalso points out that commonly used terms such as Huron did effort to translate orally spoken Seneca into written
and Sioux derived from the French are actually deroga- form (p. 30). The birthdate of Douglas Mitchell Georgetory. Huron from the French “hure” meaning “prickly Kanentiio (Mohawk), journalist and founder of radio stawild boar’s head” translates as “uncouth” (also p. 170), tion CKON at Akwesasne, however, is not 1995 (p. 108).
while Sioux denotes “snake.” In addition he reports that
The selected bibliographic entries span works from
the encyclopedia breaks new ground by documenting the
Tom
Abler, George Abrams (Seneca), and James Axorigin date of the Confederacy as 31 August 1142, nearly
tell to Edmund Wilson, Peter Wraxall, and Geoffrey
three centuries earlier than had been thought (pp. 151York. Anglo and native authors are both represented:
153) according to Barbara Mann who employs astronomWilliam Fenton (eleven publications), Donald Grinde,
ical records to support her findings.
Larry Hauptman. J.N.B. Hewitt, Rick Hill, Lewis Henry
I shall make a few comments about the entries, the Morgan (five citations), Arthur C. Parker (twelve ref2
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erences), Elizabeth Tooker (five entries), Bruce Trigger
(four citations), and Paul Wallace (six publications). The
only references to the monumental Handbook of North
American Indians, Volume 15: Northeast or HNAI (Bruce
Trigger, editor; Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution
Press, 1978) are in a Trigger reference and a citation to
Elizabeth Tooker’s article on the history of the League
of the Iroquois (both on p. 351). The HNAI contains entries for each Iroquoian tribe and provides compelling essays on the prehistory, ethnohistory, and contemporary
Haudenosaunee among other entries on Iroquois topics
as well as a splendid bibliography that is essential for the
interested student or scholar. Twenty-six of 73 chapters
in HNAI Volume 15 relate directly to the Hadenosaunee.
Dean R. Snow’s The Iroquois (London and New York:
Blackwell, 1996), a revisionist analysis on Iroquois origins which chronicles archaeological antecedents to the
present, is not cited.
30). Johansen’s goal was to prepare a readable, up-to-date
one-volume encyclopedia of the Haudenosaunee. In this
effort he has succeeded admirably. The work chronicles
much of Iroquoian life from the perspectives of ethnohistory, ethnography, and history. As noted, the archaeological antecedents are not considered, nor are some of
the protohistoric or early historic/Colonial events such
as the impact of the fur trade, the introduction of European firearms, the demise of the Erie peoples, the effects
of Quaker missionization, and later dispersal of Haudenosaunee as far west as Oklahoma. Indeed, there is little to no consideration of the role of the Haudenosaunee
in the War of 1812 or the American Civil War, nor their
contributions to the building and maintenance of railroads systems in the Southern Tier of New York State.
Their role in the American Revolution is summarized adequately (pp. 21-24). Music, arts, and crafts are peripheral to the focus of this encyclopedia.
The reference to the JR, The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents: Travels and Explorations of the Jesuit Missionaries in New France, 1610-1791: The Original French,
Latin, and Italian Texts, with English Translations and
Notes (Rueben Gold Thwaites, editor and translator), is to
the five hundred set reprint edition (New York: Pageant
Book Company, 1959) not the original 73-volume compendium (Cleveland: Brown Brothers, 1896-1901) limited to 750 sets. The University of Toronto has a microfiche set for public use. Most libraries house the JR
in rare book rooms or non-circulating stacks. Readers,
therefore, should to know that 31 of 55 English-language
translations of these important volumes are now available on line for reading or downloading through the courtesy of Rev. Raymond A. Bucko, S.J., Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Le Moyne College, the Jesuit College of Central New York. This effort is a joint
project of Le Moyne College and Ste. Marie Among the
Iroquois, a facility of Onondaga County Parks. The URL
is <http:vc.lemoyne.edu/relations/>
You reviewer is often intrigued by the uses of the
terms “encyclopedia” and “handbook.” The former is normally considered to be a comprehensive reference work,
usually arranged alphabetically, with articles on a broad
range of subjects or on numerous aspects within a restricted field. Handbooks are concise reference works
or manuals that present specific material on a particular subject. This distinction has, of late, been blurred. In
the present review we have a one-volume encyclopedia
of just over 380 pages, whereas the six-volume The New
Handbook of Texas (Ron Tyler, editor in chief; Austin:
Texas State Historical Association, 1996) has more than
1150 pages per volume and occupies more than one and
one-half feet of bookshelf.
Johansen and Mann and their six colleagues have prepared a very valuable, essential resource that is well written and expresses a contemporary view of aspects of the
history and ethnography of the Haudenosaunee from a
Native American perspective. It is a refreshing and delightful contribution that is essential to secondary school
and college and university libraries and is a compelling
resource for scholars of the Iroquois. This handbook prepared by Native American contributors and their colleagues is not exclusively for them, and we are fortunate
to have the benefit of their scholarship and outlook.
Bruce Johansen’s many past contribution to the literature on Native Americans have been extraordinary and
he maintains a splendid publishing record with Greenwood Press, itself well known for is publications on Native American topics.
The contributors are to be commended for their eloCopyright (c) 2000 by H-Net, all rights reserved. This
quent scholarship and the editors are to be thanked for work may be copied for non-profit educational use if
the clarity of the encyclopedia’s entries, cross referenc- proper credit is given to the author and the list. For other
ing, and error-free text. The authors have sought impor- permission, please contact [email protected].
tant references, including a LEXIS database citation (p.
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Citation: Charles C. Kolb. Review of Johansen, Bruce Elliott; Mann, Barbara Alice, eds., Encyclopedia of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy). H-AmIndian, H-Net Reviews. October, 2000.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=4591
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