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Names
The most common name for the confederacy, Iroquois, is of somewhat obscure origin. The first time it appears in writing is in the account of Samuel de Champlain of his journey to Tadoussac in 1603, where it occurs as "Irocois". Other spellings appearing in the earliest sources include "Erocoise", "Hiroquois", "Hyroquoise", "Irecoies", "Iriquois", "Iroquaes", "Irroquois", and "Yroquois", as the French transliterated the term into their own phonetic system. In the French spoken at the time, this would have been pronounced as [irokwe] or [irokwɛ]. Over the years, several competing theories have been proposed for this name's ultimate origin. The earliest was by the Jesuit priest Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix, who wrote in 1744:"name Iroquois is purely French, and is formed from the [Iroquoian-language] term Hiro or Hero, which means I have said—with which these Indians close all their addresses, as the Latins did of old with their dixi—and of Koué, which is a cry sometimes of sadness, when it is prolonged, and sometimes of joy, when it is pronounced shorter."In 1883, Horatio Hale wrote that Charlevoix's etymology was dubious, and that "no other nation or tribe of which we have any knowledge has ever borne a name composed in this whimsical fashion". Hale suggested instead that the term came from Huron, and was cognate with Mohawk ierokwa- "they who smoke," or Cayuga iakwai- "a bear". In 1888, J.N.B. Hewitt expressed doubts that either of those words exist in the respective languages. He preferred the etymology from Montagnais irin "true, real" and ako "snake", plus the French -ois suffix. Later he revised this to Algonquin Iriⁿakhoiw.

A more modern etymology was advocated by Gordon M. Day in 1968, elaborating upon Charles Arnaud from 1880. Arnaud had claimed that the word came from Montagnais irnokué, meaning "terrible man", via the reduced form irokue. Day proposed a hypothetical Montagnais phrase irno kwédač, meaning "a man, an Iroquois", as the origin of this term. For the first element irno, Day cites cognates from other attested Montagnais dialects: irinou, iriniȣ, and ilnu; and for the second element kwédač he suggests a relation to kouetakiou, kȣetat-chiȣin, and goéṭètjg – names used by neighboring Algonquian tribes to refer to the Iroquois, Hurons, and Laurentians.

An entry published in the Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America attests the origin of Iroquois to "Iroqu," Algonquian for "rattlesnake".

However, none of these etymologies gained widespread acceptance. By 1978 Ives Goddard wrote: "No such form is attested in any Indian language as a name for any Iroquoian group, and the ultimate origin and meaning of the name are unknown."

Culture
Stone pipe (19th-century engraving)

War
The Haudenosaunee engaged in tactics that the French, the British, and the Americans all considered to be cowardly, until the Americans adopted similar guerrilla tactics. The Haudenosaunee preferred ambushes and surprise attacks, would almost never attack a fortified place or attack frontally, or would retreat if outnumbered. If Kanienkeh was invaded, the Haudenosaunee would attempt to ambush the enemy, or alternatively they would retreat behind the wooden walls of their villages to endure a siege. If the enemy appeared too powerful, as when the French invaded Kanienkeh in 1693, the Haudenosaunee burned their villages and their crops, and the entire population retreated into the woods to wait for the French to depart. The main weapons for the Iroquois were bows and arrows with flint tips and quivers made from corn husks. Shields and war clubs were made from wood. After contact was established with Europeans, they adopted such tools as metal knives and hatchets, and made their tomahawks with iron or steel blades. It has been posited that the tomahawk was mostly not used in battle, but instead became associated with the Haudenosaunee through European depictions that sought to portray natives as savage and threatening. Before taking to the field, war chiefs would lead ritual purification ceremonies in which the warriors would dance around a pole painted red.