"The exhibitions of heroism and fortitude by the red man under the sufferings of martyrdom, almost surpass belief . . ."
-Lewis Henry Morgan, League of the Ho-dé-no-sau-nee or Iroquois
League of the Ho-dé-no-sau-nee or Iroquois (1851) was the first of several important books Lewis Morgan wrote on kinship and social structure, theories of social evolution, and the ethnography of the Iroquois. Morgan is regarded as a pioneer in the field of anthropology, whose career began when his work as a railroad lawyer took him in the territories occupied by the Iroquois. Morgan spent nearly a decade studying the culture and the structure of their society, and this book is the first he wrote (with the help of a fellow lawyer) on his findings.