Glossary

anthropology: systematic investigation and interpretation of people; including their physical, psychological, and cultural characteristics and interrelationships.

archaeology: the systematic investigation and interpretation of materials found underground that relate to human activity in the past.

assimilate: to make similar; to absorb and incorporate (an immigrant or culturally distinct group) into the prevailing culture.

clan: a group that traces its descent from a common ancestor.

condoled chief: one of 50 named chiefs who sit in Grand Council as defined in the Haudenosaunee's Great Law.

consensus: complete agreement or accord.

descent group: any group that traces a common lineage, or ancestry.

exogamous marriage: marriage outside of clan or other social unit.

faithkeeper: a person who oversees spiritual well being in a Haudenosaunee community.

Haudenosaunee (Ho-dee-no-saw-nee): The Six Nations (Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk) joined together under the Great Law; the term used by the members of these six nations to identify themselves as a group; also known as The Six Nations Confederacy, or the League of the Iroquois. (Literal translation: "People of the Longhouse")

Iroquois Confederacy: see Haudenosaunee.

kinship: status of being related by blood or by other rules of relationship.

League of the Iroquois: see Haudenosaunee.

longhouse: historically, the long wooden dwelling of the Haudenosaunee in which several families of the same clan would live; in today's Haudenosaunee communities, the building where people gather for social and spiritual activities.

Manifest Destiny: a 19^th century American nationalistic doctrine that served as a rationalization for the United States' territorial expansion.

matriarchy: a social system in which descent is traced through the mother's family line.

matrilineal: tracing descent through the mother's family line.

multiculturalism: the promotion and preservation of diversity; the recognition and acceptance by a larger group that its members may identify with different histories, customs, and belief systems.

Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA): a federal law, passed in 1990, that requires federally funded institutions to return human remains, associated funerary materials, sacred objects, and materials of cultural patrimony to appropriate, federally-recognized American Indian tribes or nations.

oral tradition: history, customs, and spiritual and social expectations passed on through spoken word from generation to generation.

patriarchy: a social system in which descent is traced through the father's family line.

patrilineal: tracing descent through the father's family line.

repatriation: the return of a person or thing to the country of origin.

Seventh Generation philosophy: the Haudenosaunee concept that before making an important decision, leaders must first consider how that decision will impact the people seven generations into the future.

Six Nations Confederacy: see Haudenosaunee.