The Onondaga Indian Nation is about five miles south of Syracuse. The 1,475 people enrolled on
the reservation call themselves Haudenosaunee, which means ``people of the Longhouse.''
The reservation sits on about 7,300 acres.
There are 14 chiefs -- selected by clan mothers -- in the tribal government. There is also one head chief.
The Grand Council meets on the reservation. The council is a traditional meeting of all of the nations of the Confederacy.
There are no industries on the reservation, and employment figures are unavailable.
A health clinic there includes facilities for laboratory testing, pediatrics, gynecology, obstetrics, and general medical care. There also is a dental clinic.
The reservation has housed a volunteer fire department since 1951.
There is school for students in kindergarten through eighth-grade. Most
high-school-age students attend public high schools in non-Native American
communities.
Native American history credits Hiawatha, or Ayawentha, who was an Onondagan exile, with helping to bring a ``Great Peace'' which formed the confederacy sometime between the years 900 and 1350.
The Onondagas are the confederacy's Keepers of the Central Fire.
The Oneidas have a 32-acre reservation south of the city of Oneida in
Madison County. Their Turning Stone Casino is a stone's throw from Interstate 90 and construction is underway on a luxury hotel slated to open in the fall of 1997.
That reservation is the smallest among the six nations.
The 32 acres are all that remain of the some 6 million acres in New York state which once belonged to their ancestors.
About 40 of the 630 people in the Oneida Nation live on this reservation.
Most of the remaining members live about 30 miles away on the Onondaga Nation, south of Syracuse.
For 12 years, the Oneidas did not have a federally recognized status because of leadership conflicts.
Recognition was granted to the traditionalist faction in 1987 by Ross O. Swimmer, assistant secretary in the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Also in 1987, the first Longhouse in 150 years was built on the Oneida
territory.
Known as the People of the Standing Stone, the Oneidas got their name because a legend said wherever the Oneida people moved, a stone would appear and give directions.
Until the Oneidas are united, the legend says, the stone will not direct them.
The leaders saw their configuration symbolically as a long house with an
east and west door and a central fire.
The Seneca tribe is the keeper of the western door.
The Seneca Nation has 5,400 members living in the Allegheny River valley in
Western New York.
The Senecas once owned half of New York and now hold title to 52,100 acres divided into three reservations: the Allegany, the Cattaraugus and Oil Springs Reservation.
The Seneca Nation is the only tribe to own a U.S. city -- Salamanca. It's built on land leased from the Allegany Indian reservation.
There are three additional settlements of Seneca Indians in the United States and Canada.
The Tonawandas live on 7,549 acres near Akron, NY; another group lives on the
Six Nation, or Grand River Reserve near Brantford, Ontario; and the
Seneca-Cayugas were relocated to northeastern Oklahoma, where they have a
5,000-acre reservation.
However, losing their fight against the colonial settlers, the Tuscaroras
fled north from North Carolina to become the sixth nation of the Iroquois
Confederacy.
Today, Kenneth Patterson of the Tuscarora Indian Nation estimates there are
about 1,000 Tuscaroras living on their reservation in Niagara County, north of
Buffalo.
A portion of the land on the reservation where the British burned the main
Tuscarora settlement during the War of 1812 is now a plowed field.
Parts of the Tuscarora Reservation have been taken to accommodate public works reservoir.
``Most of the land claims of the Tuscaroras are made in North Carolina,'' Patterson said. ``That's where we were driven out and many were converted to Christianity.''
The reservation consists of 14,640 acres sitting on the U.S.-Canadian
border along the St. Lawrence River.
The 8,000 Mohawks living on the reservation have three tribal governments of their own.
There is one council on the Canadian side of the reservation, one on the American and a Tribal Council which oversees all activities.
There are 650 housing units on the reservation. However, only 49 new units
have been built since 1963.
Over half the units are defined as sub-standard, according to the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The unemployment rate is 44 to 46 percent on the U.S. side of the
reservation, said the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Most of the labor force is employed in construction.
Tribal enrollment for the Cayuga Nation is small -- about 1,000.
The Cayugas do not have a reservation or land base. Most of the nation's members live on or near the Seneca Nation reservation.
There are no demographic figures defining the Cayuga Nation. However, since the Cayugas are geographically and socially near the Senecas, it is probable that the figures are the same, according to the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
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