📚✏️ Did you know that the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, also known as the Six Nations, maintains a matrilineal system of descent and property ownership? This means that clan membership, identity, and inheritance are passed down through the mother’s line.
For over a thousand years, Haudenosaunee women have held significant power and influence. They control property, make decisions regarding war and peace, and elect male leaders. Women in political roles are known as clan mothers, and they are responsible for electing and removing male chiefs. Clan mothers serve as the “eyes and ears of the people,” while the chiefs act as their voices.
This matrilineal system also played a crucial role in inspiring prominent Euro-American women of the suffrage movements that began at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 in New York. For instance, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Matilda Joslyn Gage, who grew up in the land of the Haudenosaunee, recognized the superior social, religious, economic, and political positions of Haudenosaunee women. Gage famously remarked, “Never was justice more perfect; never was civilization higher,” in reference to the Haudenosaunee.
A satirical drawing titled “We the Women of the Iroquois” asserts that Iroquois women have long been practicing a system of equality and democratic principles. In stark contrast, their Euro-American counterparts and others influenced by colonialism are still struggling to achieve these fundamental ideals.
Learn more:
https://www.oneidaindiannation.com/haudenosaunee-women-and-equality/
https://www.haudenosauneeconfederacy.com/influence-on-democracy/
https://www.wxxinews.org/local-news/2020-03-31/100-years-ago-haudenosaunee-women-influenced-suffragists
Image sources:
https://rocheritage.org/items/show/27
https://new.artsmia.org/hearts-of-our-people-native-women-artists/hearts-of-our-people-audio-tour/iakonikohnrio-tonia-loran-galban
#IPDphilly #DidYouKnow #Indigenous #HaudenosauneeSuffragist #Haudenosaunee #Matriarchy #WomenSuffrageMovement
