ONONDAGA

The Onondaga located their ancestral villages in the vicinity of Onondaga Lake and Oswego River just to the south of Lake Ontario, in what is now upstate New York not far from present-day Syracuse, New York. As the central tribe in the Iroquois League, or Iroquois Confederacy, the Onondaga played the role of Keepers of the Council Fire, the flame kept burning for two centuries, from about the 1570s to the 1770s. Their main village,

Onondaga, was the meeting place of the Iroquois League Great Council, held every year. Since the Onondaga shared culture and history with the other NORTHEAST INDIANS of the Iroquois League, they also are discussed under IROQUOIS (haudenosaunee).

Onondaga is pronounced ah-nun-DAHG-uh and means the “people of the hills” in Iroquoian, after the hilly land surrounding their villages. At the Great Council, the Onondaga also bore the epithet Name-Bearer because they had the responsibility of keeping the wampum belt that served as a record of the meeting and of who was present. The Onondaga had the greatest number of sachems, or chiefs, as tribal representatives, 14 of the 50.

In Iroquois legend, an Onondaga chief known as Ato-tarhoh was the most stubborn in opposition to the formation of the league when the MOHAWK called Hiawatha traveled from tribe to tribe preaching the message of Haudenosaunee unity. Atotarhoh was so fierce and hostile to other tribes that he supposedly had serpents growing out of his head. To pacify Atotarhoh and seal the alliance, Hiawatha combed the snakes from the chief’s head. Atotarhoh had one condition, however, for the participation of the Onondaga: They must always serve as chairmen at the Great Council.

The Iroquois League split up during the American Revolution when the member tribes chose opposing sides. The Onondaga, along with the Mohawk, SENECA, and CAYUGA, supported the British, whom they had supported in the earlier French and Indian wars. The fact that the ONEIDA and TUSCARORA sided with the American rebels meant that the Great Peace had ended and that unity was no more. The Onondaga let the Council Fire, which had burned continuously for 200 years, die out.

It took some time after the Revolutionary War to heal the wounds among the opposing factions of the confederacy. Most Onondaga took refuge for a time in western New York; they were finally granted a reservation on part of their original homelands near Nedrow, New York. Other Onondaga settled in Canada as part of the Six Nation Reserve at Oshweken on the Grand River. The Iroquois tribes have since rediscovered their unity, and today the Onondaga again play a central role in the confederacy. The Onondaga reservation is the capital of the confederacy. The spiritual leader of the allied Iroquois,

Onondaga turtle rattle

The Tadodaho, is always of the Onondaga tribe. Only he can summon the Six Nation Council.

The Constitution of the Iroquois League reads as follows:

The Onondaga lords shall open each council by expressing their gratitude to their cousin lords, and greeting them, and they shall make an address and offer thanks to the earth where men dwell, to the streams of water, the pool, the springs, the lakes, to the maize and the fruits, to the medicinal herbs and the trees, to the forest trees for their usefulness, to the animals that serve as food and who offer their pelts as clothing, to the great winds and the lesser winds, to the Thunderers, and the Sun, the mighty warrior, to the moon, to the messengers of the Great Spirit who dwells in the skies above, who gives all things useful to men, who is the source and the ruler of health and life. Then shall the Onondaga lords declare the council open.

As one of their many fronts promoting Hau-denosaunee unity, the Onondaga in recent years have successfully recovered wampum belts of the Iroquois League held by museums.

Many Onondaga, who are considered the most traditional of the Haudenosaunee, participate in the Long-house Religion founded by the Seneca Handsome Lake in 1799. He is buried next to the Onondaga Longhouse near Nedrow, New York.

One of the intertribal events sponsored by the Hau-denosaunee is the Iroquois National Cup for the game of lacrosse, held annually at the Onondaga National Arena.