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Animals and Men The Iroquois recognized the importance of the animals with which they shared the forest. They depended on animals for survival and patterned their society on the structure of Nature. The Iroquois people organize themselves according to the model of the animal world. Everyone belongs to the clan of his or her mother, and every group has its own clan animal. One of the main functions of the clan is to provide kinship with clan members in other villages. Hunting often took Iroquois men away from the village. However, they could always depend upon their clan for food and lodging. Iroquois men spent much of their time and energy protecting their village and territory, trading for goods, and hunting and fishing. Their most important quarry was the deer, and they needed to shoot one a week to provide sufficient meat for their families.
The European desire for furs, especially beaver,
began to dominate Iroquois
affairs in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In exchange for furs,
Iroquois men brought home a wealth of useful trade goods, especially metal
items such as guns, axes, knives, hoes, cooking pots, needles, scissors, and
nails.
By 1800 the Iroquois had exhausted their own supply of beaver. Through
alliances, first with the Dutch and then with the English, the Iroquois
established themselves as the middlemen in the fur trade. They regulated the
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