From the "Trail of Tears" to Wounded Knee and Little Bighorn, the narrative of American history is incomplete without the inclusion of the Native Americans that lived on the continent before European settlers arrived in the 16th and 17th centuries. Since the first contact between natives and settlers, tribes like the Sioux, Cherokee, and Navajo have both fascinated and perplexed outsiders with their history, language, and culture. In Charles River Editors' Native American Tribes series, listeners can get caught up to speed on the history and culture of North America's most famous native tribes in the time it takes to finish a commute, while learning interesting facts long forgotten or never known. Among all the Native American tribes, the Iroquois peoples are some of the most well documented Native Americans in history. Indigenous to the northeast region of what is now the United States and parts of Canada, they were among some of the earliest contacts Europeans had with the native tribes. And yet they have remained a constant source of mystery. At the same time, the Iroquois are a confederation of several different tribal nations that include the Seneca, Oneida, Onondaga, Mohawk, Cayuga, and the Tuscarora.

Among these groups, the most famous is the Mohawk, who refer to themselves as Kanien'kehá:ka ("People of the Place of Flint"), but pop culture has a very different image in mind when it comes to the Mohawk (and the Iroquois as a whole). Those unfamiliar with the group associate them with the conspicuous Mohawk haircut, and images of a warlike people who scalp their enemies are still constantly evoked. The Mohawk were mentioned in James Fenimore Cooper's classic 1826 novel The Last of the Mohicans, an entertaining novel that led to many misconceptions about the Mohawk and continues to do so.