Land & Geography
The area of land that an Indigenous nation has traditionally lived on, used, cared for, and maintained relationships with.
Traditional Territory
A person's or group's sense of who they are, often shaped by culture, language, family, history, beliefs, and connections to place
Identity
The system or group responsible for making decisions, creating rules, and organizing a community.
Government
The materials people obtain from nature and use to meet their needs, such as food, wood, water, and animal products.
Resources
Corn, beans, and squash are traditionally grown together in this important agricultural system.
Three Sisters
The study of the Earth's land, water, climate, and physical features, and how people interact with them.
Geography
The way a society is organized into different relationships, roles, groups, and responsibilities.
Social Structure
A way of making decisions by discussing an issue until the members of a group can reach general agreement.
Consensus
An economic system in which people meet their needs primarily by hunting animals, fishing, and gathering wild plants rather than growing crops.
Hunter-Gatherer Economy
This aquatic plant was an important traditional food for some Indigenous peoples, particularly in regions around the Great Lakes.
Wild Rice
This idea describes the relationship Indigenous peoples have with the land, including responsibilities, culture, identity, and ways of life.
Connection to Land
The way a community organizes its members and responsibilities so that people can work together.
Group Organization
In Mi'kmaq society, this term refers to a leader or chief responsible for representing and helping lead a community.
Saqamaw
An economic system based largely on growing crops and raising or managing plants and animals for food.
Farming Economy
This term describes a society or social system in which women hold particularly important positions of authority or influence.
Matriarchal
This term describes the ways people use the land for activities such as hunting, fishing, farming, gathering, travel, and settlement.
Land Use
A group of people who share a common ancestry or family connection and are organized as a social group.
Clan
In Haudenosaunee society, this woman had an important leadership role within her clan, including responsibilities connected to choosing or removing a male chief.
Clan Mother
Systems of exchange that connected different communities so they could obtain goods and materials that were not available in their own territories.
Trading Networks
An alliance in which separate nations or groups join together and cooperate while maintaining aspects of their own identity and governance.
Confederacy
Animals, plants, water, forests, minerals, and other useful materials that people obtain from their environment are examples of these.
Resources
A system in which family descent and membership are traced through the mother's side of the family.
Matrilineal
A governing body in Haudenosaunee political organization where representatives from different nations met to discuss matters affecting the Confederacy.
Grand Council
Tools, techniques, and knowledge developed by people to help them solve problems, obtain food, travel, build shelters, and adapt to their environment.
Technology
This system of laws and principles provided a foundation for governance, relationships, decision-making, and peace among the nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.
Great Law of Peace