By William, Walter, and Michael

Table of continents Introduction 4

Food 6

Homes 8

Games 10

Religion 12

The roles of men and women 14

Music and art 16

Conclusion 18

IntroductionThe Seneca lived near the western part

of New York. They are one of the five

groups of the Iroquois. Did you know the

Seneca are known as the Keepers of the

Western Door? They had a lot of culture.

They had games, they hunted for food, and

they lived in longhouses and if you want to

find out more read our book!

FoodThe Seneca had lots of food. One of the foods

they ate were berries. They ate huckleberries,

cherries, and strawberries. They also ate nuts like

butternuts, acorns, and chestnuts. Maple sap was

one of the sweetest things there. They collected

maple sap from the forest. They used it to put on

breads. They boiled the syrup and made a snow

cone candy for kids.

The most important crops were the three sisters

corns, beans, and squash. The corn was used in

several ways. They made pudding, soup, corn cakes,

and corn meal. The Seneca ate two different types of

beans like lima and kidney beans. They also ate

sunflower seeds. The meat they ate were deer, bear,

rabbit, raccoons, and squirrel. The Seneca also ate

pigeons, turkeys, and wild ducks. The men did the

hunting while the women did the cooking..

Longhouses

The Iroquois lived in longhouses it could hold up to

20 families. It is 36 feet high, 200 feet long, and 36

feet wide. They have smoke holes at the top of the

longhouses so the smoke from the fire could

escape. In the winter the Iroquois would pull down

the deer skin from the door so then they would be

able to have perfect warmth and they would use

sections of bark on the top of the longhouse to

cover them from rain and snow. They would make

the longhouses out of materials they found in the

forests for example they would use vines to hold

the wood together. The most important material

they used was wood from trees.

One of the games that the Iroquois played was lacross but they called

it the ball game. Some of the difference from the lacrosse we play now and the

lacrosse they used to play are that they used to play with about 1,000 players.

The goals were miles apart from each other and they even played boys vs. girls

or they also played against other villages.

The men tried to injure players as much as they could. This way when

they fought in a war, the other villages would have less warriors. The warriors

played lacrosse as exercise.

They had winter sports too like the Snow Snake. The Snow Snake is

played when you take a stick about 5 to 9 feet long and you prepare a track

about 3 miles. After that you put water on the track to make it icy. Then you

throw the stick strait along the track. Whoever throws the stick farther wins.

Religions and RitualsThe rituals the Seneca had were pretty interesting. The Maple

Festival is where they collected sap to make sweet sugar and syrup. The Iroquois prayed to spirits to help grow their plants during the planting festival. They said strawberries were the “first fruit of the earth” and held a Strawberry Festival in the summer. In the green corn and harvest festival they gathered their crops.

The New Years Festival was the last festival of them all. It lasted for at least 4 days. It was the largest festival of all of the festivals. They celebrated by praying, playing games, singing, and dancing. The False Face Society was when they wore masks to scare away evil dead spirits that caused death and illness. They made mask out of a living tree. They believed that if they made their masks out of a tree, the strength and spirit would go inside the mask. The masks looked like ugly and horrifying monsters that the men dreamed in their dreams. The False Face Society was important to the Seneca.

The Roles of Men and Women

The women would make food and supplies they needed. The women made food and clothing. The boys would help their fathers catch animals like turtles, deer, and other animals for food. They use turtle shells for bowls and deer skin for clothing. The men would fish and trade deer skin and fish.

Some things that the boys and girls did is they both got fire wood and water to drink and to boil the water to make stew for each other.

Arts and music

The music that Native Americans had was the turtle rattle

made of turtle shell. They were like maracas. They also had clay

pipes which are like horns. They used to play this at a ceremony of

dead.

Some of the arts that Native Americans used were berries.

They would smash the berries to make a gooey paint. If they didn’t

have the exact colored berries they would just use those colors.

They would also use some rocks and water for paint. They had their

face painted by other people because they didn’t have mirrors.

The Iroquois are different from us

The Iroquois are different from us. They would always fetch water

when we would buy it. The men would work while the women would cook

but the men and women now would do both. They grew their food when

most of us buy it. Our homes house one family when theirs housed 20.

They would write with numbers, while we would write with letters. You

can’t believe it but the Iroquois and us have a lot in common.