Onondaga people

The Onondaga people (; Onondaga: Onoñdaʼgegáʼ, 'People of the Hills') are one of the five original nations of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy in the Northeastern Woodlands. Their historical homelands are in and around present-day Onondaga County, New York, south of Lake Ontario.

Being centrally located, they are considered the "Keepers of the Fire" (honatjisdané·daˀ in Onondaga) in the figurative longhouse that shelters the Five Nations. The Cayuga and Seneca have territory to their west and the Oneida and Mohawk to their east. For this reason, the League historically met at the Haudenosaunee government's capital at Onondaga, as the traditional chiefs do today.

In the United States, the home of the federally recognized Onondaga Nation is the Onondaga Reservation. Onondaga people also live near Brantford, Ontario on Six Nations territory as part of the Bearfoot Onondaga First Nation and Onondaga Clear Sky First Nation. This reserve used to be Haudenosaunee hunting grounds, but much of the Confederacy relocated there as a result of the American Revolution. Although the British promised the security of Haudenosaunee homelands, the 1783 Treaty of Paris ceded the territory over to the United States.