User:Aidan Vogel/Mourning Wars

A Mourning War was a type of conflict fought between small groups of the Iroquois, considered a custom or tradition among them. Mourning Wars were fought for spiritual reasons, in the interest of protecting the spirituality of the tribes that were warring. These wars involved the capture of members of an opposing tribe to replace deceased members of one's own tribe in spirit. The captured members were typically either assimilated into the tribe or brought as slaves/prisoners to punish the opposing tribe.

The Beaver Wars are believed to be an intensification of the Mourning Wars.

Motivations
The Iroquois believed that in order to retain the spirituality of the tribe, then if someone should die at the hands of another tribe, then someone in that tribe must pay back the spiritual "debt". To repay the debt, tribes warred with each other to capture or kill the opposing members to avenge the deaths of their relatives and tribesmen. Due to the nature of these wars, and the commonality of them, Mourning Wars were much more tradition and custom rather than a temporary conflict.

Mourning Wars also provided the Iroquois with two opportunities in their society; one of which being that the wars acted as a population control, and the other being it gave the young men of the tribe a chance to gain combat experience. As Mourning Wars typically took the lives of more experienced warriors, the Mourning Wars gave young boys combat experience in small conflict, and a chance to replace the warriors that had been killed or were growing too old to fight. In a way they were very much a right of passage.

Practice
Mourning Wars were typically small scale conflicts, as they were between tribes and not between nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. Neither tribe were necessarily defeated in the conflict, as the ultimate goal was to capture or kill only to alleviate grief and provide a spiritual "replacement" for the deceased. After members of the opposing tribe were captured, they were typically assimilated into the tribe to spiritually replace the members of the tribe lost, or they were kept as prisoners or slaves to be tortured or mistreated as to avenge the deaths of their relatives.

Young warriors of each tribe were typically used as fighters so that they may gain combat experience in preparation for large scale conflict, as well as a sort of coming of age ritual.

The wars were considered to be part of tradition and custom rather than a conflict due to the spiritual nature of them and the commonality. Due to it being a custom it was a very important part of society and so due to this these wars happened very frequently for long periods of time.