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Hodenausaunee Egalitarianism (was: Re: WANTED: A good
thomas w kavanagh (tkavanag@INDIANA.EDU)
Sat, 27 Jan 1996 11:04:49 -0500
If you would read down through the posts and reposts, appended to all this
correspondence, you will see that my original question to you was to
explain your view that the Hodenausaunee were "egalitarian,"
which you said you had taught and written about. I included in that
question the observation, obtained from the basic literature
(Morgan, Parker, Fenton, Tooker) that by Fried's technical definition,
the Hodenausaunee, at least in the formal political aspects of the
League, were not egalitarian. In your answer you said you could "not
answer my question," and then asked me to answer my own question. To me,
that is turning it around. (BTW, in phrasing my original question the way
I did, I answered it: the Hodenausaunee were/are not "egalitarian." I
asked you to justify your position.)
I then asked you for references to your (or Dr. Leacock's) writings on the
subject of Hodenausaunee egalitarianism, which you claim to have written
and taught about. Only insofar as I asked you to specify the basis for
your anthropological analysis of the Hodenausaunee as egalitarian have I
"veered to another subject" away from an historical analysis of "the first
feminists and the Iroquois women."
*-*-*-*-*-*-
On Fri, 26 Jan 1996, Ruby Rohrlich wrote:
> You posed a question, to which I said I didn't know the answer, and asked
> you to give the answer. How is that "turning it around"? Now, you have
> veered to another sub ject, and want references. This is a far cry from
> my original posting ab out Elaine Rapping's article in ON THE ISSUES
> about the close relationships between the first feminists and the
> Iroquois women. Ruby Rohrlich
>
> On Fri, 26 Jan 1996, thomas w kavanagh wrote:
>
> > Come on now, don't turn it around. All I asked was, since you cite
> > yourself as having written on the subject, how you consider the
> > Hodenausaunee "egalitarian." All I know on the subject is what I read
> > [BTW, I am interested in reading you article, or Dr. Leacock on the
> > subject, can you give me a reference?] and by applying Fried's definition,
> > they didn't seem to qualify. If you--and Morgan?-- are using another,
> > perhaps looser definition of the term, what is it? Has there been any more
> > recent examination of the subject?
> >
> > tk
> >
> > On Thu, 25 Jan 1996, Ruby Rohrlich wrote:
> >
> > > My knowledge of the Hodenausaunee seems not to be as extensive as yours
> > > seems to be, for I cannot answer your question, but I would be interested
> > > in your answer. However, the
> > > egalitarianism of the League of the Iroquois has been asserted by many
> > > anthropologists, beginning with Lewis Henry Morgan. Ruby Rohrlich
> > >
> > > On Wed, 24 Jan 1996, thomas w kavanagh wrote:
> > >
> > > >
> > > > On Wed, 24 Jan 1996, Ruby Rohrlich wrote:
> > > > <snip>
> > > >
> > > > > Although some anthropologists - Judith Brown, Eleanor
> > > > > Leacock and I -- have taught and written about the egalitarianism of
> > > > > American Indians, particularly the Iroquois Confederacy
> > > > <unsnip>
> > > >
> > > > I am interested in how you consider the Hodenausaunee "egalitarian." As
> > > > defined by Fried, an egalitarian society is one which "there are as many
> > > > positions of prestige in any given age-sex grade as there are persons
> > > > capable of filling them" (1967:33). This would seem not to apply to the
> > > > Hodenausaunee, or at least to the formal political aspects of the
> > > > "League," in which only certain specific clans and lineages in those clans
> > > > had/have control of the council chief positions. Moreover, the Tuscarora
> > > > have no representation in the formal councils. In what ways does the Clan
> > > > Mother of a non-represented clan have the kind of authority that a
> > > > represented Clan Mother has?
> > > > tk
> > > >
> > >
> >
>
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