The Iroquoian stocks are famous through the confederacy of the °Five (afterward Six) Nations" and the great "League of the Iroquois" (so sympathetically studied by Morgan). Their physical characteristics at the time of the war of 1861-65 were such that they exceeded the recruits of all other races (white included) in points of excellences demanded by military re quirements. The high position occupied by woman among the Iroquois lifts them above many of their Amerindian kindred. The story of the Iroquoian statesman of the 16th century, Hiawatha, and his founding of the league that was to end all war and unite all the nations in one lasting bond of peace is a historical fact, which Longfellow's confusion of the Iroquoian patriot with the Algonkian demi-god Mana bozho cannot altogether obscure. In political and social organization the Iroquoian tribes at tained a position that was largely sui generis. The tale of their long struggle to preserve their independence against the whites will be found in Morgan and Parkman, while the 'Jes uit Relations' contain their reaction to the ef forts of the missionaries to convert them to the Christian faith, as well as the account of the fratricidal strife resulting in the extermination of the Hurons. The fame of the Iroquoian tribes (for example, Mohawks) as fierce war riors has caused the general public to neglect them in other respects. Through the researches of Horatio Hale and others it has been shown that the Cherokee of the Carolinas (recently so well investigated by Mooney) belong to the Iroquoian stock, together with several minor tribes in the south Atlantic region. This stock has produced a number of eminent men: Hia watha, Red Jacket, Joseph Brant and Dr. Oron hyatekha (qq.v.), of the Independent Order of Foresters; J. N. B. Hewitt, of the Bu reau of American Ethnology at Washington, is also of Iroquoian blood. Sequoia, the half-blood Cherokee, who invented the alpha bet now in use by his people, deserves men tion here likewise. As compared with the prominent part played by them in the French English and colonial wars, and in the Revolu tionary War, War of 1812, etc., the Iroquoian people left little impression upon the culture and the speech of the English in America,— the words from their language which have crept into our own have been originally place-names: Chautauqua, Conestoga (horse), Saratoga (trunk), etc. To the French of Canada they have given a few more words. In the place names of the region about Lakes Ontario and Erie (Ontario, Niagara, Erie, Cataraqui, Os wego, Cayuga, Seneca, Onondaga, Tuscarora, Oneida, Ticonderoga, Tonawanda, Genesee, Ohio, etc.), the Iroquoian peoples are gener ously remembered, while their Cherokee kins men in the south have likewise left their im press upon the topographical nomenclature of the country. In both New York and Ontario, where considerable numbers of Iroquois still live, with no immediate danger of dying out, but particularly in the latter province on the Grand River Reserve, the pagan and Christian ized Iroquois hay: existed side by side in the same community for so long a time as to make this phenomenon, the details of which have been pointed out by David Boyle, of great value to sociologists. See INDIANS, CANADIAN.
The Muskhogean stock (Choctaws, Chick asaws, Creeks, etc.), as their subse quent career in the °Civilized Nations" of the Indian Territory with the Cherokee has shown, are among the most gifted intellectually of the aborigines of America. Gatschet notes as char acteristic of this stock : Their color-symbolism for peace and war, their totemic system, the use of the "black drink," the doctrine of the "Mas ter of Life," sun-worship, mound-building (some regard this stock as having been one of the so-called °Mound-Builders"), the ceremony of the busk, etc. This stock has had many in tertribal wars, and the Creeks and particularly the Seminoles of Florida are famous for their contests with the whites.
The Siouan stock (Crows, Mandans, Assini boins, Hidatsa, Sioux, Winnebagos, Omaha, Tu telos, Catawbas, Biloxi, etc.), are noteworthy by reason of their migration from the Atlantic slope in the region of the Carolinas to the trans Mississippian and Missouri country, where their culture was conditioned by the presence of the buffalo and the adoption (from the whites) of the horse. Their wars with the surround ing tribes, particularly the Algonkian, and their subsequent numerous collisions with the whites (Minnesota massacre of 1862, the troubles in which Sitting Bull figured, etc.), are matter of history. The use of buffalo-skins made it pos sible for some of the Sioux tribes to develop pictography to a high degree. The researches of J. Owen Dorsey and Miss Alice Fletcher have shown the Omaha in particular to be gifted with a religio-social consciousness of a marked character, reflected in their name-giving and the ceremonies associated with the passage from childhood to manhood, in which indi viduality is much emphasized. That their capacity for producing men of ability is not confined to those of the primitive type (Sitting Bull) is indicated by the way in which indi vidual members of this stock (Dr. Eastman, La Flesche, the collaborator of Dorsey, etc.), have responded to the stimuli of modern culture. The Dakotan federation is well remembered by the names of the twin States of the Northwest; Minnesota, Nebraska, etc., are terms of Siouan origin; while the minor place-nomenclature of the Northwestern States contains a multitude of names from the same source.
The Shahaptian stock is noteworthy on ac count of the Nez Perces and the famous chief Joseph, one of the most remarkable Indians of any age, whose °retreat" in 1877 has been com pared to the celebrated march of the Ten Thousand of old.
The °Pueblo" Indians, as they are called from their village life, have risen in New Mexico and Arizona above the stage of savagery into a state of semi-civilization, repre senting the triumph of man over the adverse conditions of the desert and the inroads of fierce enemies of the lowest culture. Their re lations to the so-called °Cliff-Dwellers" has been the subject of ethnological speculation. (See PUEBLO Isnnics). Diversity of culture among the Pueblos is not as great as that of speech. Besides the Moqui or Hopi, who belong to the Shoshonean stock, there are found in the Pueb losgroup three other distinct linguistic stocks, —Keresan, Taiwan and Zufiian. The Pueblos culture has apparently been developed independ ently in several local centres, and the studies of Bandelier, Hodge, Fewkes, Cushing, etc., have thrown much light on the origins and interre lations of stages of culture largely the reflex of environment.
The Shoshonean or Uto-Aztecan stock offers the most wonderful contrasts in its members of any Amerindian stock. Linguistic and other evidence appears to justify the conclusion that not only certain peoples of the Sonoran coun try (Cahitas, Coras, Tepehuanas, etc.), some of whom achieved a sort of half-civilization in contact with their more cultured neighbors, but the Bannacks, Shoshones and Utes (even the wretched °Root-diggers") are kith and kin with the ancient Aztecs upon whose civilization Cortes intruded, and the tribes of Nahuatl line age who carried that culture more or less from central Mexico to beyond Lake Nicaragua. The change from the low type represented by the Utes to the high type of the old Mexicans may have been due in large measure to environment. Intermediate stages are represented by some of the Sonoran tribes. The Mexican or Aztec branch of this stock has furnished to English and other civilized languages a number of in teresting and valuable words: Axolotl, choco late, coyote, cacao, tomato, ocelot, chilli, copal, chinampa, jalay, etc. The Moqui group of the Pueblos Indians belong also to the Shoshonean stock.