<Lynn Gottlieb>

November/December 2006

Featured Story

Indigenous Democracy: The Great Law of Peace of the Haudenosaunee

by Lynn Gottlieb

The Haudenosaunee, or Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy, is among the most ancient continuously-operating governments in the world. Long before the arrival of the European peoples in North America, our people met in council to enact the principles of peaceful coexistence among nations and in recognition of the right of peoples to a continued and uninterrupted existence. European people left our council fires and journeyed forth in the world to spread principles of justice and democracy which they learned from us and have had profound effects upon the evolution of the Modern World.
— Haudenosaunee Statement to the World, April 17, 1979

How are we going to recreate a society where the women are going to be healthy?
— Katsi Cook, midwife, environmental justice activist quoted in Winona LaDuke, All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life

Gayanashagowa

The Great Law of Peace of the Haudenosaunee

I Dekanawidah
With the chosen leaders of the Confederacy of Five Nations,
Plant the Tree of Great Peace.
I name this tree the Tree of the Great Long Leaves.
Under the shade of this Tree of Great Peace
We spread the soft white feathery down of the globe thistle
As seats for you.
There beneath the shade of the spreading branches of the
Tree of Peace
You shall sit and watch over the Council Fire of the Confederacy of
Five Nations.
All affairs of the Five Nations shall be transacted at this place.
Roots spread out from the Tree of Great Peace
One to the North
One to the East
One to the South
One to the West
These are the Great White Roots
Their nature is Peace and Strength.
If any person or nation outside the Five Nations
Accepts the Law of Peace
They may trace the Roots to the Tree
And if their mind is clean
And they promise to obey the decisions of the League
They are welcome to take shelter under the Tree of Long Leaves.
When the chosen leaders assemble
The Council Fire is kindled.
Adodarhoh, Onondaga chosen leader, shall formally open the
Council.
Then Adodarhoh, the chosen leaders, and the Fire Keepers
Announce the subject for discussion.
The smoke of the Confederacy’s Council Fire shall ascend
And pierce the sky so that all nations may see
The Council Fire of the Great Peace.
When the chosen leaders of the Confederacy assemble for Council
The Onondaga chief shall open Council by expressing gratitude
To all chosen leaders, their relatives
And offer thanks
To the earth where people dwell
To the streams of water, pools, springs, and lakes
To the maize and fruits
To medicinal herbs and trees
To the forest trees for their usefulness
To the animals that serve as food and give their pelts for clothing
To the great winds and lesser winds
To the Thunderers,
To the sun, mighty warrior
To the moon
To the messengers of the Creator who reveal the Creator’s wishes
And to the Creator who gives all things useful to people
And is the source of life and health.
Then shall the council open.
The council shall not sit after darkness has set in.

****

All the business of the Confederacy of Five Nations shall be conducted by the two combined bodies of the chosen leaders. First the question shall be passed upon by the Mohawk and Seneca elder brothers. Then it shall be discussed and passed by the Oneida and Cayuga younger brothers. Their decisions shall be referred to the Onondaga Fire Keepers for final judgment.

If through any misunderstanding or obstinacy on the part of the Fire Keepers they render a decision at variance with that of the Two Sides, The Two Sides shall reconsider the matter and if their decisions are jointly the same as before they shall report to the Fire Keepers who are then compelled to confirm their joint decision.

When an important matter or a great emergency is presented before the Confederacy Council and the nature of the matter affects the entire body of the Five Nations, the chosen representatives of the Confederacy must submit the matter to the decision of their people and the decision of the people shall affect the decision of the Confederacy Council. This decision shall be a confirmation of the voice of the people.

The rites and festivals of each nation shall remain undisturbed and shall continue as before
(joining the Confederacy) because they were given by the people of old times as useful and necessary for the good of people.

The women of every clan of the Five Nations shall have a Council Fire burning in readiness for a council of the clan. When in their opinion it seems necessary for the interest of the people, they shall hold a council and their decisions and recommendations shall be introduced before the Council of the chosen leaders by the War Chief for consideration.

The women of the clans shall pick the chosen representative. He shall be of good mind, married and with children, so he will love his people and his nation as he does his own children. [Women possessed the power to choose the representatives of each tribe, and could remove a chosen leader from his position.]

We now uproot the tallest white pine tree.
Into the hole we cast all weapons of war.
Into the depths of the earth
Down into the deep currents flowing to unknown
regions
We cast all weapons of strife
We bury them from sight.
Now we plant a Great Tree.
Thus shall the Great Peace be established.
Hostilities shall no longer be known among the
Five Nations.
Only Peace shall be known to united people.

****

Gayanashagowa is one of the foundational spiritual visions of Turtle Island – as its original inhabitants named North America – and a profound contribution to the sacred task of establishing peace among the nations of the world. The Great Law of Peace has endured for over a thousand years. It was given by Dekanawidah, known as the Peacemaker, to the peoples who came to form the Haudenosaunee League of Six Nations. According to the oral and wampum traditions of the Haudenosaunee, this act of disarmament, reconciliation, and establishment of indigenous democracy occurred sometime between 1000 and 1400 B.C.E. Dekanawidah transformed warring clans into what was originally a Five Nations Confederacy by “envisioning the Haudenosaunee as one united extended Longhouse in which each nation had its own hearth,” according to the Mohawk writer Kanatiiosh. He was able to institutionalize a balance between individual, cultural, and tribal expressions and needs and a transcendent, global method of governance that benefited the well-being of the whole.

As Kanatiiosh has documented, the Great Law of Peace and its system of government as practiced by the Iroquois League influenced the authors of the U.S. Constitution: “One of the framers, John Rutledge of South Carolina, chair of the drafting committee of the constitution, read portions of the Iroquois Laws to members of the committee asking them to consider a philosophy coming direct from this American soil.” George Washington, Ben Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson were all well acquainted with the system of governance of the Great Law, she has shown.

The Great Law of Peace includes a system of federalism that balances the Confederacy as a whole with individual tribal rights. It specifies separation of powers, protection for religion, and checks and balances among the various forms of Confederacy governance. The Great Law also provides for the most direct form of democratic rule: all the people must be called upon to decide issues that have an impact upon the entire nation ... such as going to war.

Imagine the power to go to war dependent upon the people’s ability to come to consensus! Under the Great Law, without consensus, decisions of such magnitude could not be carried forward. Alternative solutions could then emerge until consensus was finally reached.

The use of council gatherings remains widespread throughout Turtle Island. In council, each person speaks from the heart. Other participants do not interrupt or question the speaker.
Council promotes consensus-building, which is a cornerstone of constructing mutuality in relationship and peace among diverse groups. Because all voices must be heard to achieve consensus, each person is invested with the ability to give or withhold consent, and thus make his or her voice count.

The Great Law of Peace also invested the human community with responsibility for keeping peace for the sake of all Creation. The ceremonial prayers to open council and for the purpose of burying strife honor all living beings as having a valuable place in the earthly Longhouse.

Written sources based on indigenous oral knowledge:

The Influence of the Great Law of Peace on the United States Constitution: An Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Perspective by Kanatiiosh from St. Regis Mohawk Lands.
All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life by Winona LaDuke, South End Press, 1999.
Akwesasne Notes, Akwesasne Mohawk Territory, Rooseveltville, New York.
The Mohawk Nation Web site, among many sites that offer translations of the Great Law of Peace.

Oral source:

Tom Dostou, Algonquin neighbor to the Iroquois. I have experienced the wisdom of many indigenous nations through friendships, shared struggles, and invitations to ceremony that have flowed in many directions. I would especially like to honor Tom Dostou and Lauren Littlebird, who recently completed a 300-mile PeaceWalk through Wabanaki, Wanpanoag, Narragansett, Mohegan, and Pequot lands to the Fellowship of Reconciliation’s headquarters in Nyack, New York with a message of “peace and reconciliation between our peoples here on Turtle Island as well as for all our relations throughout the earth, especially in the Middle East.” They came to be present at an Interfaith Inventions Peace Camp this summer and to share indigenous teachings and their own loving wisdom with a group of Jewish, Muslim, and Christian children. As we built our interfaith community, I saw the Great Law of Peace manifest in the full-hearted care that Tom and Lauren showed all of us. From wrapping sunburned bodies in aloe, to cooking fry bread, telling stories, praying traditional prayers, and watching over the peace of the children, their example reminded me that all the Great Laws are only effective if they live in us.

Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb is cofounder of the Muslim-Jewish Dialogue and director of Interfaith Inventions Peace Camps, as well as an author, playwright, and performer. Lynn and Hector Aristizabel perform Play With Borders: Voices from Israel and Palestine, and offer workshops on social and spiritual transformation through theatre and ceremony. Lynn currently serves on the National Council of FOR.