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Christians comprised “perhaps twenty percent of the Iroquois population of
approximately 8,600” (Richter 1985:8), and that “among individual nations of the
confederacy, about the same percentage applies to Oneidas, Onondagas, and Senecas,
with something less than twenty percent of Cayugas and well over twenty percent of
Mohawks” (Richter 1985:8) cannot be supported.
However, Christians or no Christians, the influence of the Huron and other
groups who lived on Seneca territory also seems to be an area in need of further
research. Besides improving our understanding of how Christianity may have been
spread by these “third parties,” learning more about the lives and status of such
villagers may additionally help us grasp the mechanisms behind the often
misunderstood Iroquoian notions of “adoption,” “slavery,” and the “mourning-war
complex” (Richter 1992:32-38; Lynch 1985). The word “slavery” as it has been used
by other scholars (Starna and Watkins 1991) is particularly problematic in the study of
Iroquoia owing to the word’s overt economic connotations and the variability of
prisoner treatment that the historical sources express.
Politics aside, when focusing on strictly religious matters we are left at
something of an impasse. History has shown varying degrees of religious syncretism,
as well as compartmentalization. On the more extreme side, Romans adopted the
Greek gods entirely and just changed the names; conversely, many “Creole” traditions
that arose in the Americas appropriate various elements of West African, Caribbean
and Catholic spirituality. Nevertheless, even with an archaeological record of
Christian-themed items and a historical record that relays several decades of
missionary activity, syncretism is a problematic idea to employ in the Seneca case. For
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