The Warrior Maiden

The Oneida tribe is a Native American people that belong to the Iroquois Confederacy, which settled originally in upstate New York. The name that the people give themselves is derived from "Onayotekaono", meaning the "People of the Upright Stone". The story of the "Warrior Maiden" is not necessarily specific to the Oneida tribe, but it is actually a rather common legend among the Native American peoples. However, the story is to be found in different versions that are, for their most part, dissimilar and adapted to the particular tradition of each tribe. The Southern tribes, such as the Hopi people who are based in Mexico, have an almost entirely different version of the "Warrior Maiden" story. The Oneida version of this legend offers a memorable and very beautiful example of a true heroine: the young maiden, named Aliquipiso saves the Oneidas from their rival tribe, the Mingos, through unsurpassed courage and self-sacrifice.

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English: An Iroquois longhouse.

Map of the Finger Lakes region of New York State.

The legend has a great significance for the history and the culture of the Iroquois and of the Oneida people especially.

Thus, first of all, the story gives an example of a perfect heroine of the people, a maiden that was respected not only by those that knew her and saw her brave heart and her pure spirit, but also by all the following generations that remembered her name. Aliquipiso literally saves her people from dying of hunger, during a war with their most dangerous enemies, the Mingos. The legend is set evidently to a time before the arrival of the white colonizers. As the story has it, after a devastating invasion, the Oneida people found refuge from their enemies in the depths of the forests, in caves and desolate mountains where they were indeed protected but where they could die of hunger because of the...