54mm resin kit. Sculpted by Eduard Perez Delgado. Boxart by Massimo Moro. kit includes: 10 pieces.
“People of the Great Hill” or “Keepers of the Western Door”, as they called themselves, the Seneca were one of the founding tribes, around 1570, of the Iroquois League made up together with four other groups: Mohawk, Onondaga, Cayuga and Oneida.
The powerful Confederation, also known as the Five Nations between 1715 and 1722, became known as the League of Six Nations when the Tuscarora group joined. Established originally to the south of Lake Ontario, in the great territory defined as the “Plains of San Lorenzo”, as excellent warriors, the Seneca were among the first peoples to “know” the Europeans and consequently fire-arms. These acquaintances thus allowed them to subdue almost all the peoples in the Eastern area and on the Atlantic Coast. In fact, following the defeat of the Erie, they became the most powerful group in the League, expanding over the whole territory between Lake Erie and the Allegany chain. The Seneca had mainly an agricultural economy but they were also skilful in the production of ceramics and basket- and mat-weaving. Being of a patriarchal family, they had elected council directives with quite democratic rules and the women had the authority to expel those delegates whose behaviour was not condoned. Due to their proximity to the respective territories, they often found themselves in contact with the bellicose Hurons in what are incorrectly defined as intertribal “wars”. These “wars” generally took place in summer and rather had the traits of a “country picnic” (Champlain: “this war has the characteristics of an organised sport” – Bishop, 1949:147) where the men during the trip hunted and fished. Before the first contacts with the whites, the main weapon was the club with a stone head or with a wooden ball. At close quarters this was a feared weapon, usually made out of hornbeam wood and up to 60 cm long, with a big knot or a ball at the end, of around 12-15 cm in diameter. This weapon was gradually abandoned in favour of the commercial metal tomahawk. Moreover, with the adoption of the rifle, wooden weapons gradually disappeared.
