Deganawidah the Great Peacemaker

War and Peace

War and Peace. It seems like the two sides of human existence. So consider the thorny question about warfare - what exactly is war? (Spoiler alert - it’s not a simple as you think!) And if you can even find a reasonable answer to that, what causes warfare? What about peace? History seems like one long narrative of peace lurching towards yet another war followed by a quiet spell, repeat, wait, wash and repeat. It’s just never ending.

Along the way, especially during the age of exploration, or more accurately, the age of acquisition of peoples and lands, somehow Europeans came up with the concept of the “Noble Savage”. Perhaps this concept was as a way of gaining some hope for their own tragic history. Maybe it also allowed them to avoid acknowledging some very serious flaws in human behaviour that just wouldn’t go away. After all, this was also the age when some began to believe it was possible to have an ideal society and began scouring the earth looking for examples. After encountering peoples before unknown who had not had a Roman Empire, a “Dark Age”, an age of Absolutism and were now discovering unknown lands, had they found that lost golden age of eternal peace and harmony in these “primitive peoples.” After all, these peoples didn’t have steel weapons, no iron forges, no stone edifices, and it seemed “no religion too” as a great British influencer once wrote. So, in their eyes, they were “savages” and the were also “noble”.

It seems they got it wrong on all counts.

Indigenous peoples in North America shared the same experience of raw emotions of anger, loss, sorrow and resentment. Were Europeans any better than the Indigenous peoples at dealing with these raw emotions that lead to warfare? The hard fact is that both Europeans and Indigenous peoples in North America experienced life and death, war and peace in just about the same way. Only their circumstances of life were different.

Language and religion

The northeastern areas of North America were inhabited mainly but not exclusively by two distinct linguistic groups: the Algonquin-speaking peoples and the Iroquoian-speaking peoples. The Algonquins were by far the largest group and were the first to encounter Europeans. The Iroquoia were initially cut off from any interactions with Europeans until the French began penetrating deep into the Great Lakes using the Ottawa, St. Lawrence and French rivers. These waterways were the main trading routes of the peoples in the interior.

Vast regions of eastern North America were inhabited by these two linguistic groups of peoples. The Algonquin-speaking peoples inhabited lands stretching from the Atlantic Ocean inland up to sub-arctic territories and down the eastern seaboard along the Atlantic Ocean. Iroquois-speaking peoples inhabited the more central lands south of the Algonquins stretching down into areas now part of North Carolina and Tennessee as well as west into the Eire and Huron lake areas. Yet both the Algonquins and the Iroquois were not homogeneous nor especially unified. For example, although the Wyandot (Huron), Erie, Neutral and Haudenosaunee shared the same language group, little else unified them.

Long before the Europeans arrived, these two linguistic groups had contact with each other but not always peacefully. The Algonquins developed their own cultural bonds and associations that for the most part did not include the Iroquois peoples. This led to conflicts on the northern and eastern edges of Iroquoia. In the western and southern regions Iroquois-speaking peoples had, for the most part, competitive relations with other indigenous peoples.

However, unique amongst both linguistic groups was the enduring confederacy of five Iroquois nations. Somehow they had managed to develop an enduring Confederacy and a lasting “peace” amongst themselves. I put “peace” in quotes as problems still arose between them but not to the point of a fissure that would break the union. So what brought about this Confederacy. Was it a common language and culture?

It might be useful to consider the American Revolution. Surely the British Colonies in North America shared the same language and culture as the United Kingdom, except for Canada which had a substantial French-speaking population. Surely their shared languages and cultures would be a source of unity. Of course the distance of the colonies from the United Kingdom had caused some divergence. Decades of establishing new settlements and learning new ways of making a living in the new world but this benefited Britain as much as the colonies. English-speaking North American Europeans continued to use the tools and technologies learned or inspired by their home countries. New technologies and businesses emerged out of necessity and those innovations spread to Britain.

What about religion and culture? Both were primarily Protestant while French Canada were primarily Catholic. Yet the rift was between fellow Protestants not between Catholics and Protestants. So what caused the rift? The answer can be found amongst economic questions rather than culture, language and religion.

Like Britain and the American colonies, the Iroquois Confederacy shared a similar language to other indigenous tribes around the Great Lakes, in the St. Lawrence valley and peoples further south along the Atlantic seaboard. Yet all these peoples didn’t join into a confederacy. For the most part, they fought amongst themselves. Only these five nations did find a unifying cause and it came from a surprising place.

Economic self-sufficiency

Economically, the Five Nations of the Confederacy were unique amongst the tribes around the Great Lakes. They were almost entirely self-sufficient. The Haudenosaunee had within their territories most if not all of their basic necessities. The forests provided plenty of wood for fires and materials to build their their housing - the Longhouse. Plenty of protein was available in the form of deer and other smaller animals and they had access to plenty of fish from the lakes in and around their territory. The meadows and grasslands provided fertile land for growing their crops. And they had access to flint from the eastern mountains for weaponry and for making fires. There wasn’t much else they needed. Their territory was large and sufficient for settlements and to relocate to newer areas as required.

If language, culture and economics were not the origin of the Confederacy, how then did some Iroquois-speaking nations manage to develop into a loosely connected but supportive grouping of shared interests? Entire books are devoted to answering this question so for detailed analysis you are best to refer to them. I have created a bibliography that lists a number of good books on this topic. The most satisfying answer is rooted in their Cosmological foundation story, a mythology of the Sky Woman and Turtle. And it involves two characters - one good and one evil - and a very powerful orator by the name of Deganawidah.¹ To understand its significance, we need to understand the basic family structure of Iroquois society.

Lineage, Clan and Village

Iroquois society formed around three concepts - Lineage, Clan and Village. Kinship in the Iroquois society was Matrilineal, that is, kinship was through the mother’s lineage and each Longhouse consisted of people of the same lineage. Clans were large communities of related kinships that coalesced under one of three or four representative symbols such as the Bear clan, Wolf clan or Deer clan. A village consisted of inhabitants of various clans which in turn consisted of families of various lineages. And all were members of one of the five nations inhabiting their ancestral territories. The Grand River Haudenosaunee website describes the clan symbols of some member nations:

Among the Haudenosaunee are groups of people who come together as families called clan. As a matrilineal society, each clan is linked by a common female ancestor with women possessing a leadership role within the clan. The number of clans varies among the nations with the Mohawk only having three to the Oneida having nine. The clans are represented by birds and animals and are divided into the three elements: water, land and air. The bear, wolf and deer represent the land element, the turtle, eel and beaver represent the water element and the snipe, hawk and heron represent the air element.²

As each village had several clans, a young man had plenty of opportunities for marriage amongst the various clans. In fact, it was more than an opportunity but a requirement that men and women could not marry someone from their own lineage. This meant that in any one Haudenosaunee village, members were intermarried amongst the various lineages and clans.

As a matriarchal society, decisions such as marriage or going out to war were made by the leading women of the village. The men may have shown themselves as leaders but they did not make the final decisions without consent from their leading mothers. This remained true for all Iroquois nations.

In Iroquois villages a rough division of authority apparently existed, in which women took primary responsibility for not only their children but the village as a whole, with its structures, food supplies, and surrounding fields. Men, by extension from their economic roles, were primarily concerned with the outside world, including dealing with other peoples through trade, diplomacy, or warfare. The “clearing” was the woman’s domain; the “forest” belonged to men.³

Of course, matriarchal societies did not prevent hostility between individuals or other villages or clans. Any number of reasons could cause hostility. If warfare did break out, the results were usually not good for the losing side. A common practice was to replace those lost in battle with a replacement from the losing side. This was known as a Requickening ceremony and it was a fearful thing when it happened to the victim. Few European captives had the courage to face such terror.

As an endless cycle, warfare would break out due to some injustice done, perceived or real, and someone’s son would die. These deaths would inevitably lead to another war, a peculiar type of war called a Mourning-War to obtain one or more captives to replace the lost sons in the previous war. The captives would then endure the Requickening ceremony and if the victim survived it, they were adopted into the family that lost a son as a replacement. They were treated as the actual lost son though it is hard to say how willingly they entered into this one-sided arrangement.

These Mourning-Wars and associated Requickening ceremonies were very important for the Iroquois. A bereft mother could demand that their deceased kin be replaced by a captive. It didn’t matter from where; she simply demanded a replacement for her lost kin. The combination of the power of the mother, her pain and raw emotions coupled with a man’s honour to fight heroically in battler ensured this warfare was sure to happen. And so it went on until all were satisfied or weary of it, or in the case of some peoples like the Eire nation, completely decimated.

Hiawatha and Deganawidah

This vicious cycle of hostility between individuals, villages and tribes led to greater and greater loss of life like an endless flow of blood streaming through Iroquois societies. The mothers bereft of a son, a father, an uncle demanded a Mourning-War to replace their lost kin using war prisoners created a continual state of warfare. Amongst all this carnage emerged a tragic figure from the unwritten pages of history that would change Iroquois life forever. His was a Onondaga whose name was Hiawatha, which means He makes rivers in the Ojibwa language or He who combs in the Iroquois. He experienced the loss of all of his children and was driven mad by it all. He had lost all of his daughters in warfare and like any man in his position experienced an overwhelming grief at this loss. Surely over the long shadow of history, many a father and mother experienced this anguish that cannot find reprieve only to sink into the utter depths of despair. Without anything left to live for, this poor man left his village in a state of delirium and hysteria and entered the thick forests to grieve alone.

As Hiawatha wandered aimlessly amongst the thick forests away from his people, he encountered a mythological person who would change his life and the lives of his people. Hiawatha met The Great Peacemaker Deganawidah, known also as Tekanawí:tawas, who was considered to be of supernatural origin. Peacemaker taught Hiawatha Condolence Rituals which if he followed them would bring healing and release from his anguish. To reinforce his message, Deganawidah offered Hiawatha a Wampum Belt. He then consoled Hiawatha by drying tears from his eyes, opening his ears and then unstopping his throat. Hiawatha found peace.

As his tears abated, Hiawatha absorbed the words of Deganawidah and responded with peaceful words. His anguish was assuaged. Like a child soothed by the tender words of his mother, so Hiawatha found peace through the words of Deganawidah. But he didn’t stop there. His people needed to experience the same peace. He needed to bring this healing to his people. This was to be his great message to his people.⁴ Hiawatha needed to show his people the peace Condolence Rituals would to the peoples of the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida and Mohawk. This was not going to be easy but it would be achieved with endless patience as he spoke his message around meeting fires.

Tadadaho

Before he could convince them though, he had to face a seemingly intractable enemy named Tadadaho. He was the principal chief of the Onondaga village from which Hiawatha came. He was a “evil killer who brought terror and fear to all”. His evil expressed itself as a writhing head of hair that appeared to be made out of snakes. Hiawatha needed to overcome this formidable foe before he could deliver his message of peace. Undeterred, Hiawatha did the impossible and convinced many Mohawk, Oneida, Cayuga and Seneca peoples of his message

But Deganawidah, Hiawatha needed To cure Tadadaho of his evil ways. So Deganawidah, Hiawatha and those convinced of their message of peace “smoothed the tangle of Tadadaho’s hair, cured his bodily deformities by rubbing them with wampum beads, and calmed his mind with the Words of Condolence.”⁵ This was a fitting image of a mind made right and sane. The Peacemaker had first healed Hiawatha’s mind then helped bring peace to Tadadaho. Hiawatha suffered from his own tragedies while Tadadaho caused great sufferings to others - the Peacemaker healed both.

This is an incredible story of redemption and healing and had a profound affect on the lives of the Iroquois that adopted it. Pain can be healed. Suffering is not endless. Sorrow is part of life but should not overtake life. Peace can be found even under the most tragic of circumstances. In many ways, the Condolence Rituals were as powerful to these people as any other religion and myth. That it endures to this day shows the power of this message.

The Great Peace

Healed and restored to sanity, both Hiawatha and Tadadaho preached their message throughout all the five nations. Its effect led to them forming the Great League of Peace and Power. As this message came from two great men of the Onondaga, the Great Fire of the League, essentially its capital, was to be placed in Onondaga territory.

The Haudenosaunee Confederacy or the Five Nations Iroquois Confederacy was not a political agreement. It had little if anything to do with what some Americans believe to be a precursor to their American Constitution and form of Government. It was not a binding legal agreement. It wasn’t a matter of legal interpretation. It purely was a matter of the mind, a state of being. It was a means of working out problems between individuals, villages, and especially nations within the Confederacy. And it was overseen by a League Sachem (or sagamore) who was the most senior chief amongst chiefs of the Confederacy.

The Great Peace was based on a shared common belief and mutual trust built around the Condolence Rituals that were intended to inform its adherents to listen to one another’s problems and issue. They would express their grievances around the Great Fire. As Hiawatha found peace internally through these rituals, so too could the Five Nations find peace externally amongst themselves. Good Thoughts would lead the Confederacy to find a peace. It was a matter of making such thoughts a priority. And it worked.

Beneath the missionary’s [Hiawatha] ethnocentric language lie some penetrating insights about the nature of the League and its Grand Council. The Sachems’ job was to prevent a “disuniting [of] their minds.” In a nutshell that was what the Great Peace was all about, for to Indians of seventeenth-century eastern North America, peace was primarily a matter of the mind. As one student of eastern Indian legal cultures explains, “‘peace’ … did not imply a negotiated agreement backed by the sanctions of international law and mutual self-interest. It was a matter of ‘good thoughts’ between two nations, a feeling as much as a reality.” In a noncoercive society, “where license … [reigned] with all impunity,” words and good thoughts were tremendously important, for only if everyone shared in the climate of good will could peace be preserved. Condolence rites eased grief and calmed troubled minds. The resulting emotional climate was “peace,” not only for individuals but also for the lineage, clan, and village to which they belonged and for the outsiders against whom they might otherwise make war.⁶

The Great Peace was and still is a profound institution. It forged a powerful alliance of Iroquois of diverse backgrounds and experiences, despite their sharing of the same language and culture. It would eventually become a power that would cause other indigenous nations to respect and fear them. It was a strength even the Europeans came to understand. Issues were discussed and discussed and discussed until all were in agreement. The Great Fire was exactly that - a place to gather and resolve matters of vital importance for the Confederacy.

The Great Peace was preserved through the efforts of the Sachem:

A League Sachem, a man entrusted with preserving the Great Peace, had to be of a special sort. The chiefly virtues most prized in Iroquois folklore are those associated with harmony and consensus: imperturbability, patience, good will, selflessness. “The thickness of their skin shall be seven spans—which is to say that they shall be proof against anger, offensive actions and criticism,” the Peacemaker decreed of the League Sachems. “Neither anger nor fury shall find lodgment in their minds and all their actions shall be marked by calm deliberation.” A character of such restraint—even passivity—is almost by definition unsuited to the kind of strong and decisive leadership that state-organized societies expect, for, should a League Sachem exercise such command and thus necessarily provoke political opposition, he would cease to be a man of peace. “And when it shall come to pass that the chiefs cannot agree,” the Peacemaker prophesied, “then the people’s heads will roll.”⁷

One of the most well-known Sachems of the Six Nations was the Mohawk Joseph Brant (1743-1807) after whom the Canadian city of Brantford is named. Others were the Seneca Cornplanter (1750-1831), the Seneca Red Jacket (1750-1830) and the Mohawk John Smoke Johnson (1792 – 1886) or Sakayengwaraton. The Shawnee Tecumseh (1786-1813), though not Iroquois, was held in regard as a Sachem. This great leader fought with the British during the War of 1812.

A lasting peace

The Deganawidah myth⁸ solved for the Confederacy a very intractable problem that many of the indigenous tribes of Eastern North America could not solve. Warfare amongst the Five Nations would have consumed them were in not for the Confederacy. The Deganawidah myth and Great Peace established a lasting peace amongst the League Iroquois. Many challenges would face the Confederacy, not the least the arrival of Europeans and their diseases. But the Confederacy would outlive those challenges. Hundreds of years after its emergence from Hiawatha’s message of peace to his peoples, it is still a living message amongst the Haudenosaunee.

When our young Seneca man entered his Longhouse after that dangerous journey out in the waters, he knew where he belonged. In the great order of his community his fears and loss of his catch he would find peace. After a harrowing journey, he would experience the wiping of tears from his eyes, the opening of his ears to instruction and the speaking of words which assured his family he wouldn’t do such foolishness again.

Next: The Longhouse

Footnotes