clan mothers
Lineage's female elders
Clan mothers are senior women who hold authority in matrilineal societies, particularly among the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) and other Indigenous nations of North America.
They typically select and can remove male chiefs, oversee clan membership, and make decisions about adoption, names, and community welfare.
The position passes through female lineage: The clan mothers chose the new sachem.
The term sometimes extends metaphorically to influential elder women in any group.
- maternalOf or like mothers
- matriarchFemale family leader
- elderSenior figure of authority
- council fireCeremonial tribal meeting blaze
- inheritanceProperty received from ancestors
kinship · longhouse · wampum belts · ceremony · lineage · sovereignty · tribal nations · adoption rights · peacemaker · governance · oral history · chief · ancestral wisdom · grandmother · heritage preservation · ritual · ancestry · decision
- Native AmericansCherokee, Apache, Navajo, Sioux, Mohawk
- CherokeeCherokee Nation, Cherokee syllabary, Sequoyah, Trail of Tears, stickball
- IroquoisIroquois, Mohawk, Iroquois Confederacy, Oneida, Onondaga
- HaudenosauneeMohawk Nation, Cayuga, Onondaga, Mohawk, Seneca
- Haudenosaunee Lawwampum belts, council fires, war chiefs
- ICWAtribal courts, tribal membership, tribal nations, native children, indigenous children
clan motherspatriarchs
Male ancestral leaders
war chiefs · headmen · chieftains · paterfamilias · tribal chiefs
clan mothersautocrats
Rulers with unchecked power
dictators · kings · warlords · absolute monarchs · colonial administrators