People of the Hills: What They Didn't Teach You

By Jack Edgerton

I knew very little about our neighbors that resided on the "Rez" a mere five miles south of Syracuse. They are called Onondage which means "People of the Hills." The Iroquois confederacy encompassed most of New York state from lake Erie to the Hudson River, the St. Lawrence river to the state of Pennsylvania. Learn about their lifestyle, language, food choices, clothing, respect for the children and elders. They have their own belief regarding the creation of the earth. They were the founders of democracy! They were not conquered but still here today. I am proud to know them and to be welcome in their homes.

Jack Edgerton A.K.A "Mohawk Jack"

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Oct 21, 2021
• ISBN: 9781663230379

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Copyright © 2021 Jack Edgerton.

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Cover Art by Mackenzie Edgerton

ISBN: 978-1-6632-3036-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-3037-9 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 10/13/2021

CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1     Terminology

Chapter 2     Very Early Times

Chapter 3     Pre-Colonial Territory

Chapter 4     Exposure To Non-Amerinds

Chapter 5     Illegal Gains

Chapter 6     Treaties

Chapter 7     The Onondaga-Huron (Wendat) Battles

Chapter 8     Different Faiths

Chapter 9     The Pipe

Chapter 10   The American Holocaust

Chapter 11   Whose Land Is It?

Chapter 12   The Story-Origin Of The Five Nations

Chapter 13   Religion

Chapter 14   Lacrosse

Chapter 15   Dances

Chapter 16   Ceremonies

Chapter 17   Origins

Chapter 18   Amerinds-The Early Immigrants

Chapter 19   Diet

Chapter 20   Living Natuarally

Chapter 21   Three Sisters-Three Brothers

Chapter 22   Sugar In The Blood

Chapter 23   Present Day Concerns

Chapter 24   Land Rights—Clean Water—Ecology Issues

Chapter 25   Education

Chapter 26   Other Issues

Bibliography

The Good Mind offers an alternative to what happened (American Holocaust): Don’t dwell on the past, learn from it. Move on in positive ways. Find solutions to strengthen relationships.

INTRODUCTION

For those who were here first

It’s March 11th, 2005 and an article on the front page of the Syracuse Post Standard, lets us know that some of the residents of the Onondaga Nation are appearing that morning in downtown Syracuse at the Federal Building to present legal papers regarding land rights.

I have a feeling that they’ll want to be there early to avoid the press and a potentially hostile crowd. I placed a phone call to Sean Kirst at the paper, who wrote the article; to hopefully get more information as to the time and place of this meeting and to inquire if it would be open to the public. He said that he’d probably meet me there—he didn’t show.

Knowing that I would soon be writing my next book on The People, I just had to get down there to witness history in the making, so to speak. After a quick shower, I hastily said, good-bye for the day letting my wife and daughter know that this was a most serious event and something that I wanted to personally attend.

As I’m arriving at the parking lot across from the Federal Building, walking toward me is none other than Sid Hill. He is on his way to represent the Onondaga, as their leader, in their land rights issue. Sid, by the way, is the Tadodaho to the entire Six Nations. They call him the Fire keeper. He is the unassuming, quiet leader in the book.

But I’m getting way ahead on this story. We need to back-up about 14,000 to 15,000 years. As I mentioned in a previous book I wrote, MY TIME-Thousands Went to Broadway-Millions Went to Auschwitz, we’re going to look at these first people and the abhorring way they were and are being treated and mistreated.

I am by trade an importer-wholesaler, not a historian by any means. I disliked picking up a history book in prep school and, as I recall, American History was not one of my more popular subjects either. Who wanted to memorize all those dates? Dates in this book are for reference points relating to significant events in a sequence in the overall story of the Six Nation Confederacy. They’re only here for a time frame.

I am, however, going to explore some events in greater detail than your history book ever did. Some happenings are going to be a revelation to you. I’m not going to win any popularity contest, but that’s the way it goes. As Sid once said to me when I told him that I was writing a book about his people, If it’s not truthful, it’s not worth telling. If it is true then don’t worry about what others will say.

They say that the telling of history belongs to the victors, so do your research well.

To better understand our Amerind (American Indian) sisters and brothers, we need to go back in time to when it is said and theorized that they first inhabited this area in what is now called New York State wherein lie separate sovereign countries, the Onondaga Nation Territory being one of them.

It might surprise you to learn that they have their own laws, government, school (K-8), security, fire department, boundaries, language, flag, passport, religion, indigenous food, clothing style, culture, history and pride.

I have learned that there are disputes with other tribes and internal disagreements, as well. I probably won’t go into much detail as nobody wants me to use their name in this book. I have opinions galore but no quotes that I can use.

You’ll understand how they’ve influenced the way we live and more importantly the way we’ve changed their lives.

As Cavalli-Sforza wrote, I found myself face to face with history, with the paths trodden by those few thousands or tens of thousands of people who, over a period of one hundred thousand years, colonized every corner of the earth. Native Americans numbered in the millions at one point in time but now figure in the mere thousands, some due to warfare and a great deal to the inability to fight off our diseases. (germ warfare)

To truly know a race you must study their archeology, history, demography, linguistics, and statistics. We must remember that what unifies us outweighs what makes us different. Skin color and body shape, language and culture, are all that differentiate the peoples across the earth. (Pg. xi Cavalli-Sforza)

The research on this book will be interesting for me as well. It hopefully will eliminate some of my personal ignorance about my neighbors to the south. You see, the very first time that I was at the Onondaga Nation, I was terrified! Our family was on the way to go apple-picking on Route 20. For us, Route 11A was a shortcut through their territory. All that my dad had to mention were the words, Indian reservation and I couldn’t wait to put the windows up in the car. Being a warm day, they all wondered why I wanted the car closed up. In my impressionable state as a very young boy I preferred not to get hit by a stray Indian arrow as we passed by, like a stagecoach. Such wrong impressions were given to the white movie audience by white producers of B movies—no wonder I was warped!

Years later when my suppliers from Japan came over on a business trip, one of their first requests was to see real, live, Indians. Well, needless to say, it wasn’t what they expected. They too were brought up on B Westerns and were looking for tee-pees as well as Natives riding around on horseback with full feather head-dress typical of the plains Indians at a gathering. Instead they got mobile homes, pick-up trucks, and baseball caps.

Ready? Come explore these fascinating people with me. We’ll go from mastodon to Burger King, buckskin to Calvin Klein. Their CK brand on clothing doesn’t stand for Calvin Klein; I’ll let you figure it out.

CHAPTER ONE

TERMINOLOGY

W hen I refer to the first people that settled this area I’ll try to use the words Amerind or The People, or better yet— Haudenosaunee pronounced ‘ho-dee-no-sho-nee.’ They don’t like words of the whites to describe them such as Native Americans (for the most part they don’t consider themselves Americans, so I’ll respect their sovereignty); "Iroquois or Hiroquois as they were labeled by the French; Indians or Indios as they were wrongly identified by Christopher Columbus; savages as they were branded by the early settlers and U.S. Cavalry; or red skins" coined by the trailblazer Kit Carson in the books and movies to denote a body of individuals that, in fact, do not possess that skin color; or the use of other derogatory words that I frequently hear but I’m not going to mention. When any of the above words are used by me, they generally are in a quoted passage or used in con text.

In the Iroquois way, from the frequent use of a tinted all-natural suntan lotion that they had developed, it gave their naturally white skin a reddish-brown glow, which racists assumed (and still assume) was their natural color. (Mann pg. 101) I’m sure you remember Anthony Quinn, the Greek actor, who portrayed Indians in Saturday westerns, looking like he just stepped out of the tanning parlor.

I’m usually of darker complexion than my friends on the rez as I tan easily. With my skin color, grayish hair, and blue eyes, I’m assigned the name, Mohawk Jack, by many who know me. The children on the rez quite often are curious as to what clan I belong to i.e. beaver, turtle, snipe, etc. As I’m of Scottish ancestry, I use my clan name of MacMillan which totally confuses them until I explain that we both have clan origins.

CHAPTER TWO

VERY EARLY TIMES

I ’ll give you a timeline that will help to organize their story and that of neighboring tribes. It hopefully will assist you to follow the movement, lifestyle, conflicts, relations with non-Amerinds, and the many problems that they face t oday.

Artifacts that are discovered today reveal so much about the living conditions, diet, and technology of tools and weapons used hundreds of years ago. Most artifacts that are found consist of pottery, bone fragments, or implements made from stone. Items made years ago from skin, cloth, wood, rawhide, or organic materials used for articles such as baskets or clothing would rot and would not stand the test of time.

The abundance of articles that were found preserved in gravesites, contributed greatly to filling in the gaps about the lifestyle of the early Amerinds. True, these were sacred places and should never have been disturbed; but ignorance quite often leads to knowledge.

I heard from an archeologist at a lecture that it is now against the law to own complete and intact artifacts in New York State. They more than likely came from a burial site. This should help to prevent people from disturbing Amerind gravesites. I personally own a few that I bid on at local auctions which I’ll eventually give to the Tadodaho for safe keeping or as a donation to the Iroquois Museum on Route 88 outside of Schenectady, NY.

13000-8000 BC The Ice Age is coming to an end. The Wisconsin Ice Shelf is starting to break up and melt making northern overland routes available (ice was as high as two miles in some areas with accompanying bitter cold). Migration in this region was mainly along the southern shore of Lake Iroquois (Lake Ontario and expanded area). Wild game and fish became plentiful and the tribes followed their food sources. The glaciers, as they had proceeded south from Canada, had carved out very deep valleys as they sliced across New York State. As the ice shelf receded and melted, the eleven Finger Lakes were formed (inlets from the south, outlets to the north).

11000-6500 BC Paleo-Indian hunters moved east between the Laurentian Upland Province (Canada) and the Glaciated Alleghany Plateau (New York) comprising the north and south shores of Lake Erie (5-10 mile corridor along the shoreline) and Lake Ontario (approx. 35 mile corridor along the southern shore, 35-40 miles along the northern shore). As soon as the ice shelf retreated to the north, the St. Lawrence River valley was open to carry the melting ice water to the northeast and eventually to the ocean thereby relieving the strain on the Mohawk River which flowed east to the Albany region and the Hudson River.

The Seneca River carrying the outflow from the Finger Lakes, now joined the Oneida River and the north-flowing Oswego River at a junction called Three Rivers which is northeast of present day Syracuse. You can readily see the importance of these water routes to the Iroquois tribes not only for food but transportation for wartime purposes, as well.

8000 BC The archeological dig site, West Athens Hill, is situated 3 miles west of the Hudson River in Greene County containing 1,400 artifacts, all Paleo-Indian. "While by far the bulk of the chipped-stone artifacts were derived from the local flint outcrops, a small remainder made of exotic flints is