Mohawk People

Mohawk People

Mohawk (borrowed from the Narraganset 'mohowaùuck', 'they eat (animate) things,) are the most easterly tribe of the Iroquois confederation. They call themselves Kanien'gehaga, people of the place of the flint. Kanien'kehá:ka ("People of the Place of Flint") are an Iroquoian-speaking indigenous people of North America originally from the Mohawk Valley in upstate New York. Their territory ranged to present-day southern Quebec and eastern Ontario. Their current settlements include areas around Lake Ontario and the St Lawrence River in Canada. Their traditional homeland stretched southward of the Mohawk River, eastward to the Green Mountains of Vermont, westward to the border with the Oneida Nation's traditional homeland territory, and northward to the St Lawrence River. As original members of the Iroquois League, or Haudenosaunee, the Mohawk were known as the "Keepers of the Eastern Door". For hundreds of years, they guarded the Iroquois Confederation against invasion from that direction by tribes from the New England and lower New York areas. Mohawk religion is predominantly Animist.