Iroquois Kinship

Iroquois horticultural kinship

The Iroquois or Haudenosaunee are a matrilineal horticultural society based on longhouse clans where the women traditionally farm, own the output of their labor, and have decision power in a decentralized, consensus-based and Association of clans called the Iroquois League. What has often been called the Iroquois Confederation in the past but has always been and is currently called the League is a balanced-reciprocity group of 50 male chiefs who are selected, monitored, overseen and if necessary demoted by the Clan Mothers. Local decision making takes place in small clan groups based around the longhouse, by male and female councils who then agree on policy but which the women ultimately arbitrate (Iroquois Indian Museum 2011a). The Clan Mothers also have religious authority and redistribute private property upon a member's death (Iroquois Indian Museum 2011a). This entails institutions of private property, which women acquire through grain...
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