I visited Arizona back in June and spent some time in the Navajo nation. Since that visit, my interest in the North American indians has grown tremendously. I recently started reading a book called 500 Nations about the history of the NA indians. Yesterday I read a section on the Iroquois Confederacy. You are correct kagemusha, they did have a form of democratic government. IIRC, there were two tribes (Mohawk & Seneca I think) that were a kind of senior ruling council and two other tribes (don't recall their names) were a junior council. Then there was the Onondaga (spelling?) tribe that would settle ties in voting. The book suggests this arrangement may have been an influence on the Founding Fathers when they were forming the government for the fledgling USA. It is interesting stuff. When I was in school, it is now apparent that we didn't learn nearly enough about the NA indians. However, it is a pretty sad story in the end.