PATHFINDER
Name: Theresa Mastrodonato
Topic: Iroquois Confederacy
Scope note:
This Pathfinder is designed to assist college or university students in an academic library with finding information about the Iroquois Confederacy and the Native American groups that made up the confederacy. It contains information on the Library of Congress subject headings, encyclopedias that contain good basic information about the subject, selected books to use as you start your research and web resources where you can find information regarding this subject. This is not a complete exhaustive list of all information on the Iroquois Confederacy but it can and should be used as a starting point in your research.
Subject Headings
Library of Congress Subject Headings
Five Nations Six Nations
Iroquois Indians Indians of North America New York (State)
Indians of North America Ontario Cayuga Indians
Mohawk Indians Oneida Indians
Onondaga Indians Seneca Indians
Tuscarora Indians
Call numbers for browsing
Iroquois Indians - E99.I7 Cayuga Indians - E99.C3
Mingo Indians - E99.M64 Mohawk Indians - E99.M8
Oneida Indians - E99.O45 Onondaga Indians - E99.O58
Seneca Indians - E99.S3 Tuscarora Indians - E99.T9
Selected Books
Jemison, G. P. and Schein, A. M. (2000) Treaty of Canandaigua 1794: 200 years of treaty relations between the Iroquois Confederacy and the United States. Sante Fe, NM: Clear Light Publishers.
Morgan, L.H. (1851). League of the Ho-de-no-sua-nee or Iroquois. Rochester, NY: Sage & Brother.
Schoolcraft, H.R. (1846). Notes on the Iroquois, or, contributions to the statistics,
aboriginal history, antiquities and general ethnology of western New York. New York: Bartlett & Welford.
Encyclopedia/s
Hoxie, F. E. (1996). Encyclopedia of North American Indians. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin Company.
This encyclopedia contains several articles on the Iroquois. There is an article on the Iroquois Language and the Iroquois Confederacy. It also contains articles on each of the Six Nations (Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, and Tuscarora). Each article in the encyclopedia has an author and each article contains a bibliography at the end. The Encyclopedia also contains a contributor’s index and a general index.
Johansen, B. E. and Mann, B. A. (2000). Encyclopedia of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
“This is the first one-volume college- and university-library reference work on the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy), containing about 200 entries describing their history, culture, present-day concerns, and historical contributions to general North American Culture”. (Johansen and Mann, 2000: Introduction). Each article contains a section for further reading. The encyclopedia also contains a selected bibliography and an index.
Dictionaries
Leitch, B. (1979). A concise dictionary of Indian tribes of North America. Algonac, MI: Reference Publications, Inc.
This dictionary contains an entry on each of the Six Nations (Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, and Tuscarora). It also contains maps on language groups, culture groups and regional maps. This dictionary also contains a glossary and index.
Atlases
Waldman, C. (2000). Atlas of the North American Indian (revised edition). New York:
Facts on File, Inc.
This atlas discusses the Northeast culture area including the Iroquois. It discussed the social organization and language. It provides a classification table for North American Indian languages. It contains a glossary, bibliography and index.
Handbooks
Trigger, B.G. (1978). Handbook of North American Indians: Northeast (Vol. 15). Washington: Smithsonian Institution.
This is Volume 15 of the Handbook of North American Indians and covers the Northeast section of North America. Each article has an author and at the end of each article provides a list of sources used in the article. It also contains an index and a larger bibliography.
Bibliographies
Haas, M. L. (1994). The Seneca and Tuscarora Indians: an annotated bibliography.
Metuchen, N.J.: The Scarecrow Press.
This is an annotated bibliography of the Seneca and Tusacarora Indians. It covers subjects such as archaeology & artifacts, arts & crafts, fiction & poetry, folklore, food & agriculture. It contains an author/editor index as well as a subject index. It also contains a section on government documents.
Access to the Periodical Literature
Web resources
1. http://www.carnegiemuseums.org/cmnh/exhibits/north-south-east-west/
This is an interactive website from Carnegie Museums. It covers the Iroquois and has information on the Iroquois from the formation of the confederacy to contemporary information about the Mohawk steelworkers.
2. http://www.indigenouspeople.net/ipl_final.html (Indigenous Peoples Literature)
It was created by the Internet Public Library to house information on indigenous cultures around the world. You can find information on Iroquois authors and contains links to other web resources on the Iroquois.
3. http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/ntreaty/ntreaty.htm
This site is a creation of Yale University’s Avalon Project. It contains information about treaties between native groups and the US government. You can select a time period and look up the treaty that was signed between particular groups.
4. Gonondagan State Historic Site (www.ganondagan.org)
Contains information about the Iroquois, the site in Victor, NY and contains links to other resources, including contemporary books about the Iroquois.
5. Iroquois Museum (www.iroquoismuseum.org)
This museum is located in Howes Cave, NY and showcases Iroquois art and culture as well as archaeological work on the Iroquois.
6. Another resource is the Gale Virtual Reference Library available through University at Buffalo’s website at http://ublib.buffalo.edu. It can be accessed via the following website: http://find.galegroup.com.gate.lib.buffalo.edu/gvrl/start.do?prodId=GVRL&userGroupName=sunybuff_main. You can search this resource on Iroquois Confederacy and it will pull information from different areas such as the Encyclopedia of World Biography and Dictionary of American History. You can see the full-text for each article.