The Iroquois Pack

Written by Mackenzie Kayahsota

The Seneca people have a long and illustrious history as one of the six main branches of the Iroquois, the other six branches being: Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk, and Tuscarora (who joined in 1720, not one of the original five nations). These small tribes combine together to form the Iroquois, also known as the Haudenosaunee or "People of the Longhouse". The Iroquois people lived in communal longhouses in the east coast of the United States, primarily in upstate New York from the 16th century or earlier onward.

The name Iroquois was bestowed upon the tribe by the French, though there are various theories for why. One theory is that it stood for blacksnake or real adder because the Iroquois were enemies of the Huron and Algonquin who traded with the French fur trappers, but another story says that because Iroquois traditionally end their phrases with the phrase 'hiro' meaning I have spoken and 'kone' which can be translated into a variety of French words the most common being 'in joy', 'in sorrow' or 'in truth' however, this phrase would have sounded to the French at the time like the word Iroquois.

A League of Peace was formed with the nations that now comprise the Iroquois before European contact with the new world. According to tradition Deganawida, sometimes known as the Great Peacemaker and Hiawatha who brought the message known as the Great Law of Peace to the squabbling nations and most of the fighting died out leaving the Iroquois tribe in its place. The Iroquois were also engaged in the Beaver Wars with the French and their Huron allies, coming to the height of their power in the early seventeenth century with twelve thousand people. In 1677, the Iroquois formed an alliance with the British through an agreement known as the covenant chain. Together they battled the French. Again during King William's War, the Iroquois were allied with the British. They deeded the British a large tract of land in Ohio that they claimed to have conquered 80 years ago, though the French did not recognize this treaty and were already heavily populated in this land. During the French and Indian Wars they again allied with the British and the British attempted to return the favor by declaring no settlers could settle over the Appalachian mountains in Iroquois territory.

The Iroquois of history were a mixture of farmers, fishers, and hunters through their main diet came from farming. They grew corn, beans and squash - known as the three sisters. The women were in charge of gathering roots and berries and during the maple syrup run they collected syrup and herbs were gathered for medicines. They fished for salmon, trout, and bass in nets and, in the winter, ice fished through holes. Since they had no writing system the Iroquois depended upon the spoken word to pass down history, tradition, and rituals. As an aid to memory and for trading they used wampum beads ground from shells which they used to decorate belts which depicted events of importance. Women in the tribe held places roughly as important to men being able to hold property and retain that property to herself after marriage. A husband lived in a longhouse with his wife's family and the work of a woman's hand was to do with as she saw fit. Women had the keeping and educating of the children and the descent was traced through the matrilineal line. Violence against women by men was virtually unheard of. Spiritually the Iroquois belief system was a formless Great Spirit or Creator from whom other spirits were derived. The spirits controlled the change of the seasons and key festivals coincided with the major events of the agricultural calendar.

That's the part all of us know - the history of our tribe, but now let me take those of you who are allowed to know into a deeper secret that has been around for many years. However, what I tell you now you must remember is of the greatest secrecy and can be shared with no one outside of this pack and those other elders of the tribal council.

During the Revolutionary War - the historic battle for the United States' freedom from the British in 1776 the Iroquois, particularly that branch known as the Seneca, was allied with the British through a great warrior chief known as Guyasuta. Now his name takes on many variants of spelling today and nowadays we use the more common variant of Kayahsota (the way the name came to be phonetically rendered). Untraditionally to most Seneca, Guyasuta sided with the French in the French and Indian War and was a scout for the young George Washington in 1753. However, by the time the American Revolution came about he had parted ways with the new Americans now known as Patriots. The Patriots attempted to win Guyasuta to their cause, but like the other Iroquois he sided with the British and led the Seneca and the other branches of the League into fighting on the British side. What Historians do not know however was that this wavering decision on who to fight for - his old alliance or a new one was wavered by one crucial factor.

During the fighting some interesting creatures had joined the patriots. Guyasuta and the other leaders called them pale faces. They were very pale and their skin was hard and shined in the light like diamond and they could not be killed through any ordinary means but had to be ripped into pieces and the piece turned to ash by fire lest they reassemble their bodies. These pale faces drank the blood of humans. One particular Patriot of note was called Garrett Cole. Garrett had made an alliance with George Washington himself who was now in control of many of the Patriot forces. Angered at what he saw as betrayal from Washington by aligning himself with such creatures as the Pale Faces, Guyasuta made the decision to side with the British. However, by the time the Battle of Saratoga in the fall of 1777, the turning point of the war came. The French allied themselves with the new Patriots and this time they were not a friend to their old ally Guyasuta. He, who of all the tribe, had been one of the only ones to ally himself with France before was the one that was betrayed- now once by the French and once by George Washington. Furious, Guyasuta and his people called on the Spirits and asked them to please have mercy on their people for together the French and the Patriots with Garrett and his kind, though there were only a few, were deadly and were going to slaughter the British and the Iroquois people.

As tribal legend has it, the great Spirit himself came to talk with Guyasuta and took mercy on him for he had cut his hair and was wailing saying it would be better to die than to admit a defeat so bitter. The spirit gave him the power to change into a mighty wolf at will and he could take many people at once. They gave him teeth and claws that could rip the skin of the Pale Faces. In turn Guyasuta's young sons and step sons and daughters were granted the ability through their father/uncle and when they turned of age, even though the war itself had ended in a defeat, the pack continued to flourish until the pale faces left the area. It was said then, after no shifters were seen for fifty years, that they had died out of the tribe's bloodline and it began to begin to be known as legend.

This continued until the early part of the 20th century when two new pale faces came to the nearest town to the Seneca-Iroquois settlement in Rochester New York. However, these vampires said that they were different and when the Iroquois people saw that they did not hunt or kill humans and that there were only two of them and later a third who was changed there after she was brutally raped, they formed a non aggression treaty with the Cullen Coven. They would not attack each other. To everyone's surprise, however, this treaty did not stop the shiftings from starting again in those descended from the original pack. The shifters had not been seen since about 1800 or so and everyone assumed it was no longer possible to shift. However, after the Cullens left the area the shifting ceased again.

All was quiet until near present day when the resurgence of large numbers of vampires, especially the carnivores who DID drink the blood of humans, caused the shiftings not seen for 70 years to begin again in earnest. But this time, something changed.. this time, though old, there were members of the tribe who had been alive to see the last shifters and who were able to instruct the members of the pack, though it was small to begin with, how to conduct themselves and such. Now the pack is growing larger every day and when the battle comes they will travel to the pacific northwest to help their Quileute shifter brothers, who also take the form of wolves, to fight the palefaces who are coming, ironically enough, to destroy the same Cullens (though now notably a larger coven) that these shifters had signed a non-aggression pact with. They have learned that the Quileutes made a similar pact and the three forces will soon be allied. In addition to the Sioux who have an allied relationship with the Iroquois due to the Sioux Alpha imprinting on the current Iroquois Beta.