UNIQUE CULTURAL TERMINOLOGY IN THE SENECA IROQUOIS LANGUAGE (Autumn Season Special) [VI.X.MMXXIII]

On my mother’s side of the family, there is a prominent Seneca Iroquois Lineage through my mother’s grandparents and father (all were full-blood Seneca). My great-grandmother and my mother were extremely close. I grew up with my mother telling me about the many things that her grandmother had taught her when she was young. She told me about ‘The Three Sisters’ [corn, beans, and squash], about the Seneca Tribe people being ‘The People of the Long House (part of the Haudenosaunee),' about the eight clans of the Seneca (my grandfather being of the Deer Clan), about the Seneca being a matrilineal society where women were revered and were the elders of the tribe, about the proper differentiation of the Five Nations and how each would wear the feather in their hair [the Seneca wore one feather at the back of the head and the feather would be strapped in their hair vertically and pointing upward], and many other historical and cultural facts about the Seneca. My mother would tell me many things about my great-grandmother: she was a stern woman that didn’t smile much, she knew how to properly can fresh cooked venison in a light gravy and she knew how to make it so that it did not have the gamey flavor [soak the meat in fresh milk and a tablespoon of vinegar], she [my grandmother] had her own garden [self-reliant for food due to growing up in poverty], and many other facts about my grandmother that I carried with me throughout my childhood. She also told me about my great-grandmother being put into a boarding school and whatever happened to her there affected her for the rest of her life (she never laughed or smiled ever again - always stern and reserved) and it would lead to her living off the grid in Pennsylvania when she became pregnant with my grandfather. My great-grandfather (also Seneca) struggled with alcoholism on the Reservation and also while living off the grid [this would prevent my grandmother (my mom's mom) from allowing my mother to spend more time with her grandparents]. Later when I grew up, I kept these teachings in my heart and mind. When I was college age [around 21 years old], my mother and I took several mini-vacations during my breaks throughout my college semester and went to the Reservation that my great-grandmother had come from [near Salamanca, New York – Allegheny Reservation]. There is a cute museum there that we would visit every time that we went. Upon reading and absorbing all the exhibits in the museum, I was initially shocked how accurate all the information was that my mother had told me all those years in my childhood. The accuracy of what my great-grandmother taught my mother in her childhood struck a chord in me about the importance of Oral Traditions and those traditions being handed down to the generations after us.

One of the saddest things about visiting a reservation is the fact that the once proud First Nations people live in absolute poverty. I can easily compare the poverty of the reservations to what I have seen and lived in [myself] in different parts of Guatemala. It calls to memory the words that a friend of mine once said: ‘they stuffed us into these reservations to get rid of us…like sweeping dust underneath a rug to avoid the immediate problems at hand.’ Back in 2013, I was determined to find someone at the Allegheny Reservation who spoke Seneca. At that time, I already had the strong desire to try to preserve the Seneca Language [at the time there were only around 100 speakers of the language left – perhaps even less now]. I did eventually meet an elderly woman named Aida who was willing to sit with me and help me record as much of the language as was possible. She sadly died in 2014.

In December 2017, I founded and put together my publishing company with the helpful tools provided first by Createspace.com and then by KDP Publishing. My mission from then to now was to preserve rare or endangered languages [Amerindian Languages and all others]. Almost ten years later from the time I had recorded 100s of pages of notes about the Seneca Language [grammar, vocabulary, phrases, etc.], I finally decided to create a Seneca Iroquois Phrasebook in order to not only to promote the language and its revitalization, but also to create an easily affordable resource for the language [as the few that exist are very expensive].

In a way, it was a long overdue mission that I feel that my great-grandmother would be proud of. I felt that it was my duty to create it [the book] to honor the culture that I was told so much about as I grew up. Over the past ten years since I first documented the language with the help of my friend Aida, the speaker base has dwindled without an exact number of speakers known. This article was created with the intention of bringing awareness to this unique and beautiful language. I hope that with this article and with our long-awaited Seneca Iroquois Phrasebook, I can do my part to promote interest in this language and help with revitalization efforts.

In order to view the Book on Amazon, click the link below:

BiiNPs' Seneca Iroquois Phrasebook

THE SENECA IROQUOIS LANGUAGE:

The Seneca Language is an Iroquoian Language that is critically endangered. Out of the 8,000 documented citizens living on the Reservations in Upstate New York (near Salamanca, New York) and in Ontario, Canada near Brantford who are of Seneca descent, roughly around 100 people can still speak the Seneca Language at varying degrees of fluency. Revitalization efforts are indeed underway, but Seneca still has a long road to a semblance of recovery. One of the hardest aspects of revitalizing the Seneca language is, of course, garnering interest in the language itself. Generally, young people within these communities are the key to preserving this endangered language; yet the lack of interest in the language and the complexity of the language itself are two factors that make this language a high-risk language (for possible permanent loss).

This short document will highlight some interesting terminology we came across while putting together and compiling our Seneca Iroquois Phrasebook which we published in August of 2023.

SECTIONS I – V:

I.??????????????????? OHIO = THE GOOD RIVER

II.???????????????? THE PEOPLE OF THE LONG HOUSE

III.????????????? SENECA MYTHOLOGY: STONECOAT

IV.????????????? THE EIGHT SENECA CLANS

V.??????????????? THE THREE SISTERS: CORN, BEANS, AND SQUASH

I.??????????????????? OHIO = THE GOOD RIVER

Most U.S. citizens that live in Ohio do not realize that they have the Seneca People to thank for the name of their state.

OHI:YOH which is pronounced ‘OH-HEE-YOH’ generally and historically referred to the Allegheny River (which today is all dried up) in Upstate New York. The Seneca word literally means ‘Good River’ [implements the -I:YOH suffix meaning ‘good, great’]. The Seneca word was later adopted to refer not only to the Ohio River, but also the U.S. State of Ohio.

II.??????????????????? THE PEOPLE OF THE LONG HOUSE

The Seneca are only one specific group among the Iroquoian peoples who formed the Iroquoian Confederacy [an agreement between five Iroquoian Peoples: Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca; later on, the Tuscarora were accepted in 1722 as the sixth nation to be part of the Iroquoian Confederacy].

TERMINOLOGY (X3):

HODIN?HS?:NI’ [pronounced: HOH-DIH-NOHN-SOHN-EE] literally means ‘People who are building the Long House’; thus, indicates the alliance of the Iroquoian Peoples [Iroquoian Confederacy]

*The Long House, by the way, was the common domicile constructed by the Iroquoian peoples opposed to other types of living quarters built by other tribes around North America. The Long House is generally accepted as the trademark of the Iroquoian Peoples.

*The general term used in Seneca for ‘Long House’ is:

GAN?HSE:S [pronounced: GAH-NOHN-SAY-S] = Long House; the trademark form of housecraft credited to the Iroquoian Peoples.

ON?DOWá’GA:’ [pronounced: OHN-OHN-DOH-WAH-GAH] means ‘Great Hill People’ and is usually used to refer to the Seneca Language itself; thus, ON?DOWá’GA:’ GAW?:N?’ [pronounced:? OHN-OHN-DOH-WAH-GAH GAH-WEHN-NOHN] tends to be used as the full name of the language and means ‘Great Hill People Language.’

*Side Note: the Wikipedia page for the Seneca Language erroneously spells ‘GAW?:NO’’ [language] instead of the proper ‘GAW?:N?’’ [language]. The proper spelling of the word has the final -O’ nasalized.

III. SENECA MYTHOLOGY: THE STONECOAT

One aspect of all Amerindian cultures that is exceedingly fascinating is the many unique mythologies attributed to each individual culture. The Oral Tradition of the many Amerindian peoples was carried down all the way to our Modern era and even today it is a very interesting subject to study. There are, of course, many parallels among the mythologies of different cultural groups as well as many differences. Many of the parallels can be attributed to a common shared belief or even possibly a historical event that was then carried down to the present day through the strong Oral tradition of many Amerindian cultures.

GEN?SGWA’ or GEN?SKWA’ [pronounced: GEHN-OHN-SGWAH / GEHN-OHN-SKWAH] which means ‘Stony one’ and generally refers to the mythological character known as the Stonecoat. The Stonecoat was a common shared mythology among the Iroquoian Peoples and other surrounding cultures. There is a large amount of variation about the Stonecoat and the origins of this mythological figure are quite vague. Some cultures parallel the Stonecoat with the Windigo (Ojibwe) [commonly known today as: Wendigo] and the Witiko (Cree) [similar to the previous]. Usually in Seneca mythology, the Stonecoat is a rock giant that tends to hunt and eat humans. They are usually associated with ice and winter. The flesh-eating aspect of these creatures with the inclusion of their association with winter and ice tend to be the key factors that parallel the Stonecoat mythology with the mythologies of the Windigo (Wendigo) and Witiko. Other terms attributed to the Stonecoat would be ‘Flintcoat’ and ‘Stonish Giants.’

The origin of the name ‘Stonecoat’ could possibly reference the arrival of the Spaniards to the New World since 1492 and later. The Spaniards wore a particular piece of armor called the ‘Cuirass’ which would explain the reference to the mythological being having a ‘Stonecoat’ or ‘Stony exterior.’ The main reason that this is usually ignored is because the mythological being is and was considered a giant or a being of gigantic stature. The Spaniards on average were shorter than many of the first-contact Amerindian Tribes. A key point to bring up would be that upon the arrival of the Spaniards to southern Mexico under Hernán Cortes, the Mayan peoples and the Aztec peoples [later encountered] saw the Spaniards as god-like beings. The Mayans especially thought that perhaps Hernán and his men were in some way related to Gucumatz / Kulkukan [a.k.a. Quetzalcoatl] who was believed to be a light-skinned priest king rumored to return some day in the future. The fact that the cuirass was a common abdomen-covering armor used by the Spaniards can easily make it a possible option for the origin of the Stonecoat myth. There is also the possibility that word of the arrival of the Spaniards was distorted or exaggerated over the distance that the news traveled; thus, explaining the larger-than-life difference of size between the Stonecoat(s) and the Spaniards.

IV. THE EIGHT SENECA CLANS

Another unique aspect of Amerindian Tribes is that other than the general cultural name [such as ‘the Seneca’ or ‘the Seneca peoples’] each larger generalized group was made up of multiple clans with their own unique self-identifying clan name. The Zu?i peoples for example were collectively known as the Zu?i or the Zuni, but despite this, multiple clans made up of several family units each tended to adopt names of animals to label each specific clan [e.g. with Zu?i: Suski:kwe ‘Coyote Clan’] that would collectively make up the cultural group as a whole. The Seneca had and still have a similar clan-based system as the Zu?i did (and still do) with animals that are revered within Seneca culture:

CLANS IN THE SENECA CULTURE:

1.????? BEAR (CLAN) = ONYAGWAI’ / NYAGWAI’ [OH-NYAH-GWAI]

2.????? WOLF (CLAN) = AGáTA:Y?:NIH [AGAH-TAH-YOHN-EE]

3.????? TURTLE (CLAN) = HA’NO:WA:H [HAH-NOH-WAH]

4.????? BEAVER (CLAN) = N?GANYA’G?H [NOHN-GAHN-YAH-GOHN]

5.????? DEER (CLAN) = NEOG? [NEY-OH-GEHN]

6.????? HAWK (CLAN) = GAJI’DA:S [GAH-JEE-DAHS]

7.????? SNIPE (CLAN) = N?DZAHGW?’ [NOHN-DZAH-GWEHN]

8.????? HERON (CLAN) = J??SH?’ [JOAN-AHS-HAH]

V. THE THREE SISTERS: CORN, BEANS, AND SQUASH

One of the key cultural facets of the Seneca People was the importance of the ‘Three Sisters’ which is a term referring to Corn, Beans, and Squash. These three crops were generally grown together as the Bean and Squash plants would replenish the nutrients to the soil that the corn tended to remove [thus, there was no need for crop rotation which is a process used today].

J?HéHG?H [pronounced: JOAN-HEH-GOHN] means ‘what we live on’ and this word is the term used to refer to the ‘Three Sisters’ which as previously mentioned are ‘Corn, Beans, and Squash.’ These three crops were the main form of sustenance among the Iroquoian peoples and most prepared dishes made would include one of the three or, with some prepared dishes, all three.

*This concludes are brief cultural look at the Seneca Iroquois. Our Book that teaches the language can be easily found at any online Book Retailer.

“B’ajlom ii Nkotz’i’j Publications’ Seneca Iroquois Phrasebook: Ideal for Traveling around Western New York, United States, 1st Edition” (2023)

We hope that everyone who reads this brief publication found it unique and informative pertaining to the Seneca People.

We hope that you all have a blessed week!

Sincerely,

Mateo G.R. & Sandra Chigüela

B’ajlom ii Nkotz’i’j Publications