Oneida
The Oneida are one of the original tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy, traditionally located in central New York State. Their name translates to "people of the standing stone," reflecting their deep ancestral roots in the region. The Oneida language shares similarities with other Iroquois languages, and like their confederates, they organized society around a matrilineal clan system, consisting of three clans: Turtle, Bear, and Wolf. Traditionally, Oneida villages were matrilocal, with families residing in longhouses that could accommodate extended families.
The Oneida were known for their agricultural prowess, particularly in cultivating the “Three Sisters” crops: corn, beans, and squash. Their cultural life is marked by a series of ceremonial festivals that celebrate their agricultural calendar. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, the Oneida faced significant challenges due to European contact, including warfare and disease, which drastically reduced their population.
During the American Revolutionary War, many Oneida sided with American forces, hoping to secure their homeland, but post-war policies led to further marginalization and land loss. Today, Oneida communities exist in New York, Wisconsin, and Ontario, each reflecting different degrees of traditional practices and modern adaptations. Despite facing historical challenges, the Oneida continue to hold on to their cultural heritage, including language and traditional ceremonies. Their small reservation in New York is notable for being home to the first tribal casino authorized by the state.
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Oneida
Category: Tribe
Culture area: Northeast
Language group: Iroquoian
Primary location: New York State, Ontario, Wisconsin
Population size: 8,325 in U.S. (2020, Combined New York and Wisconsin); estimated 2,075 in Canada (2021, Statistique Canada)
One of the five (later six) tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy, the Oneida were ancestrally located between the Onondaga to their west and the Mohawk to their east in what is now central New York State. Their language is very similar to other Iroquois languages; the name “Oneida” means “people of the standing stone.” The Oneida were at times overshadowed by the larger Onondaga tribes and Mohawk tribes, and they attempted to rectify this imbalance at times in the Grand Council of the Confederacy when it met at Onondaga. The Oneida held nine of the fifty seats in the Grand Council. Like all other Iroquois tribes, they adhered to a matrilineal clan system in which the matron of each clan appointed the sachem (chief) for each clan. The sachem participated in political activity at both the local and confederacy levels. The three Oneida clans are the Turtle, Bear, and Wolf clans.
Oneida society was traditionally matrilocal in that a married couple would live with the wife’s family in her extended-family longhouse. A longhouse was made of poles or saplings as a frame, with the walls filled in with bark. These dwellings could be up to 70 feet long and could house up to thirty people or more. There were anywhere from ten to fifty longhouses in a village. Particularly after contact with Europeans, the villages were female-oriented places, as the men were often traveling for purposes of hunting, fishing, trading, and warfare. Women were the main breadwinners, growing and harvesting corn, beans, and squash, the staples of Iroquoian horticulture. The ceremonial cycle of Oneida (Iroquois) life made plain this orientation toward horticulture: the Maple Sugar Festival, the Green Corn Dance, the Strawberry Festival, the Harvest Festival, and the Midwinter Festival framed the religious year.
Increased contact with the French, Dutch, and English in the 1600s meant that Oneida society changed greatly. In addition to the escalation of warfare over the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, disease epidemics took their toll on the Oneida people. They numbered about one thousand in 1677 but probably had much greater numbers before European contact. The patterns of warfare changed during the American Revolutionary War when most of the Oneida broke with the rest of the confederacy and sided with the Americans. Following this war, the Oneida assumed that they would be able to retain their homeland, but they were increasingly marginalized by the U.S. government, which tried to convince them to move to Kansas. This was unsuccessful, but one faction of Oneida did purchase a tract of land in Wisconsin and moved there in the 1820s. Others moved to Ontario and resided on an Oneida reserve on the Thames River near the Six Nations reserve, and still others moved to the Six Nations reserve itself. All the Oneida—in Ontario, New York, and Wisconsin—have seen their landholdings dwindle at the hands of various governments and land speculators. The Ontario and New York Oneida have remained more traditional than their Wisconsin counterparts. They still have matron-appointed sachemships and include some fluent Oneida speakers. Many of the traditional ceremonies, along with newer ones incorporated in the Handsome Lake religion (Longhouse religion), are still practiced. Oneida living at the Six Nations reserve and on the Onondaga reservation in New York are minorities within these larger communities. The tiny remaining Oneida reservation in the ancestral homeland east of Syracuse, New York, is the site of the first tribal casino to open with the sanction of the New York state government, made possible partly because of a land claims case won by the Oneida tribe.