Tekarihogen or Dekarihokenh (Tekarihó:ken) is the title and office of an
Iroquois League
The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...
sachem
Sachems and sagamores are paramount chiefs among the Algonquians or other Native American tribes of northeastern North America, including the Iroquois. The two words are anglicizations of cognate terms (c. 1622) from different Eastern Al ...
of the
Mohawk nation
The Mohawk people ( moh, Kanienʼkehá꞉ka) are the most easterly section of the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois Confederacy. They are an Iroquoian-speaking Indigenous people of North America, with communities in southeastern Canada and norther ...
. The title has been rendered in English in numerous spelling variations.
The title of ''Dekarihokenh'' is hereditary through the maternal line; each office holder is a male of the Mohawk Turtle clan. He is appointed by the senior women of the clan, as the Iroquois have a matrilineal system of descent and property. Like the other sachems of the
Grand Council of the Six Nations, the ''Dekarihokenh'' is part of the ceremonial leadership of the Iroquois, but not necessarily of the political leadership.
Holders of this title included:
*
Hendrick Tekarihoga
*
John Brant
References
*Snow, Dean R. ''The Iroquois''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Blackwell, 1994.
*Sivertsen, Barbara J. ''Turtles, Wolves, and Bears: A Mohawk Family History''. Bowie, Maryland: Heritage Books, 1996.
External links
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Mohawk culture
Titles and offices of Native American leaders
Indigenous politics in Canada
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