The five nations were named as follows:
| (English) | (French) | (Iroquois) |
| The Five Nations | Iroquois | Hodenosaunee (People of the Long House) |
| Mohawks, | Agniers, | Ganeagono (People of the Flint), |
| Oneidas, | Onneyutus, | Oneyotekiano (Granite People), |
| Onondagas, | Onontagués, | Onundagono (Hill People), |
| Cayuga, | Gogogouins, | Gwengwhehons (Muckland People), |
| Senecas. | Tsonnontouans. | Mundawono (Great Hill People). |
"The Six Nations, Indians in Canada," by J. B. Mackenzie, gives some modern characteristics of the Iroquois, observed on the Grand River, after a length of experience and intimate knowledge of the appearance and manners and racial customs, which may be quoted to illustrate the life of their ancestors of the period we are now treating. The reserve, the writer notices, comprises the Township of Tuscarora (about twelve miles square) with an insignificant strip of territory in the Township of Onondaga—both of these lying within the County of Brant and a small portion of the Township of Oneida, in the adjoining County of Haldimand.
The following present-day characteristics are noted: The Indian maintains a better average as to height than his white brother, say at about 5 ft. 8½ in. He is straight and is rarely "bowlegged." The Indian would appear to be built more for fleetness than for strength; litheness and agility are with him, marked characteristics. The dignity of chief among the Indians is attained upon the principle of heredity succession. In case of the death of a chief, this did not necessarily devolve upon the next of kin. The naming of his successor with the privilege of determining whether or not he fulfills, in point of character and capacity, the qualifications requisite to maintain worthily the position, is confided to the women of the dead chief's family, whose tribe has been deprived of one of its heads. They are given a wide latitude in choosing; so long as they recognize through their appointment the governing, basic theory of kinship to the deceased ruler, their nomination will be unreservedly approved.
The chiefs are looked upon as the fathers of the tribe. In the earlier days when the demon of war was about, wisdom and bravery were the chief requisites.
Oratory is still of supreme importance with the modern Indian. In this he is well equipped with a deep, powerful voice of rare volume and resonance. He has great facility of gesture and marvelous control of facial expression, which becomes the index of his emotions—a perfect mirror of his imaginative soul. It is no wonder then that, we hear of chiefs and orators of old haranguing for hours, for, even today, the undivided, keen attention bestowed on an orator, the unflagging interest evinced, the genuine and sympathetic appreciation his more ambitious flights evoke, the liberal applause exhorted by periods, when denunciation, scorn, or other strong mood that may possess the speaker is expressed—periods at which he has been aroused to withering, or flaming invective—all make us vividly realize the powerful oratory of their predecessors. The contemplative and esthetic bent of the Indian, living amidst nature's simplicities and deeply impressed by them, overflowed in the similes and metaphors of his speech. There is no doubt of his rightful claim to eloquence. The present-day Christian Indian "believes vaguely in the existence of a Supreme Being, though his idea of that Being's benignity and consideration relates solely to an earthly oversight of him, a parental concern for his daily wants. His conception of future happiness is wholly sensual—bound up, in many cases, with the theories of an unrestrained indulgence of animal appetite, and a whole-souled abandonment to riotous diversion. That estimate of an hereafter, which has gained his unreserved, his heartfelt approbation—one, in the more complete idealizing of which these coarser fancies constitute familiar adjuvants—adopts for cardinal, for constant factor, his thoroughgoing addiction, in some renovated state of being, to pastimes found congenial and appeasing in life—their undisturbed enthroning, as it were. Joyously, anticipation clings to a haunt delectable—happily and charmingly contrived to embosom spacious parks immure seductive coverts; refreshed soothingly his spirits by dreams of illimitable, virgin preserves, which should be stocked with unnumbered game, and where—equipped to perfection for the chase—he should plunge with satiety into its vehement pursuit."
"It has been said that the Indian, agog for some ample scheme of ethics, is much more prone to follow the evil than the moral practices of the whites.... There can be no doubt, I fancy, that were the Indian to be thrown continuously with a corrupt community amongst the whites—should he consort freely with a class with whom a lower order of morality obtains—his acquisition of higher knowledge, instead of giving him better and finer tastes, must inevitably make him more skilled in planning works of iniquity."
The writer draws attention to the sardonic delight the humorous Indian takes in perpetrating some dire practical joke on his victim. The same trait was shown in this early period, when the brave would calmly smoke his pipe and grimly watch the Christian missionary's finger forcibly placed in it, gradually frizzle away.
The modern Iroquois is a supremely indolent creature—fasting stoically when food does not come easily, but ever ready for unbounded feasting.
The effect of spirituous liquors on him is the same as of old, and justifies the attempts of the Montreal clergy to suppress its traffic to the natives. "Intoxicants," says the writer quoted, "when freely used by the Indian, cloud, often wholly dethrone his reason, annul his self-control; madly slaying all the gentler, enkindle and set ablaze all the baser, emotions of his nature, impelling him to acts vile, inhuman, bestial; with direful transforming power, make the man a fiend, leave him, in short, the mere sport of demoniac passion. It may be thought that this is an overdrawn sketch, and that, even if it were true—which I aver it to be—full exposure of its fearsome aspect, its sombre outlines, might well have been withheld."