The blog Grand River Rafting Blogs and Legends has a somewhat blustery, but very interesting post about a Native American nation called the Iroquoian Neutrals that controlled land along Lake Erie, inside Michigan and across southern Ontario during the 1600s.  Excerpt and link:

They had towns of over 2,000 people with smaller satellite villages and hunt-fish-farm camps. Their territory extended east to the Genesee River in the United States, across southern Ontario and beyond Lake St Clair. Their major towns were located deep within, between the Grand River and Hamilton. A safe distance from the warring western Sioux nations. But they were one day’s travel from the eastern Seneca and four days from the Huron-Petun.

Populations during early 1600’s were estimated between 20,000 to 40,000. Many interior villages had no palisades, with double palisaded towns up to 10 acres. Lesser villages had a single palisade enclosing 1-5 acres. Within, the longhouses were 30 ft wide and 120 ft long. With often 12 families per longhouse. And there was a longhouse code… that whatever nation was in their longhouse… was safe from physical death.

These Neutrals held power in a strange way. They had flint-chert beds along Lake Erie. But their edge was being the “artisans of flint napping.” They even repaired flint. This excelled skill and trade position may have been part of their “neutrality. They are the only known nation to actually remain in a constant state of neutrality between the warring Huron-Five Nations.

Full post:

http://grandriverrafting.blogspot.com/2008/12/i-am-attiwandiron-neutral-iroquoian-who.html

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