Onondaga people
The Onondaga people (Onontaerrhonon, Onondaga: Onoñda’gegá’’, "People of the Hills") are one of the five original nations of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy in the Northeastern Woodlands. Their historical homelands are in and around present-day Onondaga County, New York, south of Lake Ontario.
Todadaho Sid Hill, Traditional Chief of the Onondaga Nation at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
|---|---|
| United States (New York) | Unknown |
| Canada (Ontario) | 856 (2019) |
| Languages | |
| English, Onondaga, Other Iroquoian languages. | |
| Religion | |
| Longhouse/Gai'hwi:io, Kanoh'hon'io, Kahni'kwi'io, other Indigenous religions, Christianity | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Seneca Nation, Oneida Nation, Tuscarora Nation, Mohawk Nation, Cayuga Nation, other Iroquoian peoples | |
Being centrally located, they are considered the "Keepers of the Fire" (Kayečisnakwe’nì·yu in Tuscarora) in the figurative longhouse that shelters the Five Nations. The Cayuga and Seneca have territory to their west and the Oneida and Mohawk to their east. For this reason, the League of the Iroquois historically met at the Iroquois government's capital at Onondaga, as the traditional chiefs do today.
In the United States, the home of the Onondaga Nation is the Onondaga Reservation. Onondaga people also live near Brantford, Ontario on Six Nations territory. This reserve used to be Haudenosaunee hunting grounds, but much of the Confederacy relocated there as a result of the American Revolution. Although the British promised the security of Haudenosaunee homelands, the 1783 treaty of Paris ceded the territory over to the United States.