Erie people
The Erie (also Erieehronon, Eriechronon, Riquéronon, Erielhonan, Eriez, Nation du Chat) were an Iroquoian pre- and early-historic group of Native Americans, who lived from western New York to northern Ohio on the south shore of Lake Erie. They were destroyed by warfare waged by the Iroquois, based in New York. They adopted some of the survivors into their own tribes, primarily into the Seneca, the nation located in the west of New York..
The names Erie and Eriez are shortened forms of Erielhonan, meaning "long tail." The Erielhonan were also called the "Cat" or the "Raccoon" people. They lived in multi-family long houses in villages enclosed in palisades. They grew the "Three Sisters": varieties of corn, beans, and squash, during the warm season. In winter, tribal members lived off the stored crops and animals taken in hunts.
History
Clip from John Senex map ca 1710 showing the people Captain Vielle passed (1692-94) by to arrive in Chaouenon's country as the French Jesuit called the Shawnee.
While indigenous peoples lived along the Great Lakes for thousands of years in succeeding cultures, historic tribes began to coalesce by the 15th and 16th centuries. The Erie were among the several Iroquoian-speaking nations. Competition among tribes for resources and power was escalated by the returns of the fur trade. Violence increased between the tribes, which responded to demand for beaver and other furs by overhunting some areas.
The Erie encroached on territory other tribes considered theirs. They angered their eastern neighbors, the Iroquois League, by accepting refugees from Huron villages which had been destroyed by the Iroquois. Though rumored to use poison-tipped arrows (Jesuit Relations 41:43, 1655-58 chap. XI), the Erie were disadvantaged in armed conflict by having few firearms (If the Erie tribe used poison on their arrows, it would make them the only tribe in North America to do so.)[1] Beginning in the mid-1650s, the Iroquois Confederacy went to war against the Erie and neighboring competing tribes. As a result, the Erie confederacy was destroyed, with the tribes surviving in remnants. Dispersed groups survived a few more decades before being absorbed into the Iroquois, especially the westernmost Seneca nation.
Anthropologist Marvin T. Smith (1986:131–32) theorized that some Erie fled to Virginia and then South Carolina, where they became known as the Westo. Some were said to flee to Canada. Members of other tribes claimed later to be descended from refugees of this defunct culture. Some members of the Seneca people in Oklahoma and Kansas claim to be descended from the Erie nation.
Because they were located further from areas of early European exploration, the Erie had little contact with Europeans. Only the Dutch fur traders from Fort Orange (now Albany, New York) and Jesuit missionaries in Canada report on them in historic records. The Jesuits learned more about them during the Beaver Wars. What little is known about them has been derived from oral history of other Native American tribes, archaeology, and comparisons with other Iroquoian peoples.
Language
The Erie spoke an Iroquoian language said to have been similar to Wyandot. Citation, [(Hodge[2], John R. Swanton[3])][4]
See also
Notes
- ^ Tooker 1978 and Snyderman 1948, "doubts poisoned arrows". Anthony P. Schiavo, Claudio R. Salvucci, Iroquois Wars: Extracts from the Jesuit Relations and Primary Sources p.11 ISBN 188975837X
- ^ Erie (Huron: yěñresh, 'it is long-tailed', referring to the eastern puma or panther; Tuscarora, kěn'räks, 'lion', a modern use, Gallicised into Eri and Ri, whence the locatives Eri'e, and Riqué, 'at the place of the panther', are derived. Compare the forms Erieehronon, Eriechronon, and Riquéronon of the Jesuit Relations, signifying 'people of the panther'. It is probable that in Iroquois the puma and the wild-cat originally had generically the same name, and that the defining term has remained as the name of the puma or panther). A populous sedentary Iroquoian tribe, inhabiting in the 17th century the territory extending south from Lake Erie probably to Ohio river, east to the lands of the Conestoga along the east watershed of Allegheny river...and spoke a language resembling that of the Hurons, although it is not stated which of the four or five Huron dialects, usually called "Wendat " (Wyandot) by themselves, was meant.
Smithsonian Institution Bureau of Ethnology Bulletin #30 - ^ Erie. Meaning in Iroquois, "long tail," and referring to the panther, from which circumstance they are often referred to as the Cat Nation. The Erie belonged to the Iroquoian linguistic family. Also called: GA-quA'-ga-o-no, by Lewis Henry Morganal (1851).
- ^ Frederick Webb Hodge, "Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico", Washington, DC, Smithsonian Institution Bureau of Ethnology, Ebooks by Google
References
- Engelbrecht, William E. (1991), "Erie", The Bulletin: Journal of the New York State Archaeological Association (102): 2–12
- Eric, Bowne E. (2006), "Westo Indians", The New Georgia Encyclopedia, Georgia Humanities Council and the University of Georgia Press
- Hewitt, J. N. B. (1907), "Erie", Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, Part 1, BAE Bulletin 30, Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, pp. 430–432
{{citation}}: Unknown parameter|editors=ignored (|editor=suggested) (help) - Smith, Marvin T. (1987), Archaeology of Aboriginal Cultural Change in the Interior Southeast: Depopulation During the Early Historic Period, Ripley P. Bullen Monographs in Anthropology and History 6, Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, OCLC 15017891
- White, Marian E. (1961), Iroquois Culture History in the Niagara Frontier Area of New York State, University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology Anthropological Papers 16, Ann Arbor, Mich.
{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - White, Marian E. (1971), "Ethnic Identification and Iroquois Groups in Western New York and Ontario", Ethnohistory, 18 (1), Ethnohistory, Vol. 18, No. 1: 19–38, doi:10.2307/481592
{{citation}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link) - White, Marian E. (1978), "Erie", Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 15: Northeast, Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, pp. 412–417
{{citation}}: Unknown parameter|editors=ignored (|editor=suggested) (help) - Wright, Roy A. (1974), "The People of the Panther-A Long Erie Tale (An Ethnohistory of the Southwestern Iroquoians)", Papers in Linguistics from the 1972 Conference on Iroquoian Research, Mercury Series Paper 10, Ottawa: National Museum of Man. Ethnology Division, pp. 47–118
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External links
- "Erie History", unreferenced amateur history by Lee Sultzman