How the Iroquois Hunted

The Iroquois: How they hunted

By Joon Cho and Rohan Krishnan

The Iroquois were very smart when it came to traps.

The Iroquois made all sorts of traps; one of them was a small snare trap. To make this ingenious trap, they first find a tree, then bend it over and tie it on its roots making a loop. When the victim stepped in, the snare would tighten its rear legs, and it would be held in mid-air. Another trap was a bear trap. This trap was obviously used for catching bears, and was larger then the snare traps. The Iroquois would use logs to make a box shaped trap. They would place meat in the box, to allure the bears in. When the animal walked in, the logs would fall on it because of its enormous weight. These traps were used to obtain hides and meat.

To catch fish the Indians built a v-shaped fence across a river. They pushed the fish into the fence with a big rake that was powered by horses on the opposite side of the fence. Then the fisherman speared the fish

The Iroquois hunted many animals. They hunted birds, small animals, sly animals, large hoofed animals and fish. They hunted birds such as turkeys, geese, and other birds that lived on the ground. They also hunted smaller animals such as raccoons and opossums. They hunted foxes, wolves, and porcupines. They hunted deer and bison too. They hunted weird fish like pickerel and sturgeon.

The men hunted for the food.

The women managed the supply of food.

If the men went to war or went out hunting without the women's permission, the women would not give the men food to take along.

Both the men and the women were critical to the village’s amount of food

The Iroquois also used other ways of hunting other than setting up traps.

They used bows and arrows