Onondaga

Onondaga, self-name Onoñda’gega’ (“People of the Hills”), tribe of Iroquoian-speaking North American Indians who lived in what is now the U.S. state of New York. The Onondaga traditionally inhabited villages of wood and bark longhouses occupied by related families. They moved these houses periodically to plant new fields, to seek fresh supplies of firewood, and to be nearer fish and game. They grew corn (maize), beans, squash, sunflowers, and tobacco. A council of adult males in each community guided the village chiefs.

The Onondaga tribe, one of the five original nations of the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) Confederacy, was the political and geographical centre of the league. With 14 seats in the council, the Onondaga furnished the chairman and the archivist, who kept the records of transactions in wampum belts.

In the 18th century a sizable faction of Onondaga favouring the French interest migrated to Jesuit mission settlements along the St. Lawrence River. Another faction remained loyal to the British, and, upon the breakup of the Iroquois Confederacy after the American Revolution, a small party followed other members to Grand River in what is now Ontario. The majority, however, remained in their ancestral valley.

Early 21st-century population estimates indicated some 4,000 individuals of Onondaga descent.