Place: Evanston Public Library, 1703 Orrington Avenue.
Time: 3:00 p.m. Meeting Opening: Election of Officers and Board, and Social Hour.
Program: 3:30 p.m. Presentation by our guest speaker:
Dr. Robert J. Hasenstab, The Prehistory of the Iroquoian- speaking peoples of the Northeast .
Dinner: 5:00 p.m. Informal dinner with our guest speaker at Dave’s Italian Kitchen.
[Presentation of The January 2015 speaker has been underwritten by Jeanne Zasadil.]
Introducing Robert J. Hasenstab and the Iroquois: The Prehistory of the Iroquoian speaking peoples of the Northeast
Who were (or are) the Iroquois? Where did they come from? Where are they now? At the January 2015 Members Night meeting Guest Speaker, Dr. Robert J. Hasenstab, will assist our understanding about this very important New World culture.
Dr. Hasenstab is Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Department of Anthropology where he manages the Student Spatial Analysis Lab and teaches Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing. His dissertation research focused on the prehistory and geography of the 5-Nations League of the Iroquois in New York State.
His talk will examine the prehistory and archaeology of the League of the Iroquois and related groups and will focus on the development of longhouse life in the Northeast. For many, present knowledge of the Iroquois ends with a fuzzy notion of an Amerindian tribe something like the Sioux.
Unfortunately Americans may only recognize Pocahontas or recall that a long time ago the Pilgrims celebrated a Turkey Thanksgiving with cranberries and assorted invited Indian guests.
We should have learned more about the Iroquois; after all didn’t it exert some influence on the Constitutional Convention? Actually it didn’t! Chalk that up to urban legend or myth.
The first five nations and later with the addition of the Tuscarora as the sixth were the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and the Seneca constituted the Iroquois Confederacy of Nations.
Not a myth, of the six, only the Oneida was allied with the patriot cause during the War for Independence.
In a preliminary statement Dr. Hasenstab reports that the northern Iroquoian-speaking peoples were among the most populous and well-organized Native groups of the Eastern Woodlands. The famous League of the Iroquois called themselves the "Haudenosaunee" or "People of the Longhouse". Longhouse life was the core of Iroquois society, both at the local, every-day level and at a regional, political scale.
For more about the Iroquois please join our welcoming party for Dr. Robert J. Hasenstab and the Iroquois on January 25 at 3:30 p.m. at the Evanston Public Library.
