Deganawida
Deganawida, whose name translates to "two rivers flowing together," is a significant figure in Iroquois history, often regarded as a prophet and unifier. According to oral traditions, he was born to a virgin mother and faced attempts on his life by drowning, which he miraculously survived, leading his family to realize he was destined for greatness. He possessed a unique energy known as orenda, which inspired his vision of peace among divided tribes. Deganawida traveled extensively, advocating for the cessation of conflict and the establishment of a collective peace known as the Great Peace and Power and Law, or the Great Binding Law. This framework facilitated the unification of the Iroquois nations, enabling them to create one of the earliest forms of participatory democracy before European contact. His efforts culminated in the establishment of a grand council and intricate checks and balances, which are seen as foundational to modern democratic principles. Deganawida's legacy endures, with his teachings emphasizing the importance of public opinion and the rights of individuals within governance. The details surrounding his death remain unclear, but it is said he departed dressed in white, symbolizing the peace he represented.
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Deganawida
Iroquois founder and prophet
- Born: c. 1550
- Birthplace: Near present-day Kingston, Ontario, Canada
- Died: c. 1600
- Place of death: Unknown
Deganawida enlisted the aid of an orator and diplomat, Hiawatha, to spread his vision of a united and peaceful Iroquois Confederacy of separate nations, which had suffered from internal wars and feuds that nearly destroyed Iroquois civilization.
Early Life
Little is known of the early life of Deganawida (deh-gahn-ah-WEE-dah), whose name means, roughly, “two rivers flowing together.” Oral accounts maintain that he was the product of a virgin birth that surprised his mother and grandmother, both poor women who lived alone in the forest. They feared that the virgin birth might portend evil, so they tried to drown him three times in an icy river, only to find Deganawida safe at home after each attempt. His mother then came to realize that he was meant to live.
As a young man, Deganawida is said to have possessedorenda, a force or energy that enabled him to unite all things. He had dreamed of a mighty white pine tree, whose reaching roots united warring tribes as an eagle soared overhead. Deganawida had proposed that the weapons of war be buried under the roots of this white pine. He was a stutterer who could hardly speak, a manifestation that Iroquois oral history attributes to a double row of teeth.
Deganawida mourned the waste of war and the pain of torture. He asked the Huron, the tribe to which he was a part, to cease warfare, but they did not listen, so he set off to visit the Iroquois nations to the south and to the east. Oral tradition relates that Deganawida arrived in Iroquois country in a stone canoe.
Life’s Work
Deganawida traveled for many years through Iroquois land, presenting his vision of peace, but no one seemed ready to listen to a stuttering prophet. As he despaired, Deganawida met Hiawatha, who supported Deganawida’s vision, and they joined forces. With Hiawatha advancing their vision of peace, both men won agreement from each of the five Iroquois nations, one by one, over several years.
The toughest to convert from the ways of war were the Onondagas, who were led by an evil, twisted leader, the wizard Atotarho, who used magic to make birds fall dead from the sky and to kill members of Hiawatha’s family. After an epic battle, Atotarho agreed to follow the path of peace. Eventually, he became the chief executive of the grand council. The last of the five nations to agree to follow Deganawida’s law of peace was the Senecas, who came into the fold after a “sign on the sky,” probably a total eclipse of the sun, in what is now western New York State.
Deganawida sought to replace blood feuds that had devastated the Iroquois with peaceful modes of decision making. The result was the Great Peace and Power and Law (sometimes called the Great Binding Law, or Kaianerekowa) of the Iroquois, which endures to this day as one of the oldest forms of participatory democracy. The confederacy originally included the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas. Deganawida’s confederacy was founded before first European contact in the area, possibly as early as 900, or as late as 1550; debate has continued for many years about the confederacy’s age.
The Great Peace has been passed from generation to generation by use of wampum, a form of written communication using strings of shell beads, which outlines a complex system of checks and balances between the confederacy’s nations. A complete oral recitation of the Great Peace can take several days; encapsulated versions have been translated into English for more than one hundred years, but a close-to-complete version was not developed until the 1990’s.
Each of the five Iroquois nations in Deganawida’s confederacy maintained its own council, whose sachems, or loved ones, were nominated by the clan mothers of families holding hereditary rights to office titles. The grand council at Onondaga was drawn from the individual national councils. The rights, duties, and qualifications of the sachem were outlined explicitly, and the women could remove (or impeach) a sachem who was found guilty of any of a number of abuses of office, from missing meetings to murder. A sachem was given three warnings, then removed from the council if he did not mend his ways, and a sachem guilty of murder lost not only his title but also deprived his entire family of its right to representation. The female relatives holding the rights to the office lost those rights, and the title transferred to a sister family.
The circumstances of Deganawida’s death are not known. After his work of unification, he is said to have dressed in shining white buckskin and paddled away in a luminous, white canoe.
Significance
The Iroquois Great Peace and Power and Law has been cited frequently, along with European precedents, as a forerunner of modern democratic traditions. Deganawida, for example, said that leaders’ skins must be seven spans thick to withstand the criticism of their constituents. The law pointed out that the sachem should take pains not to become angry when people scrutinized their conduct in governmental affairs. Such a point of view pervades the writings of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin.
Under Deganawida’s law, the sachem was not allowed to name its own successors, nor could it carry its title to the grave. The Great Peace provided a ceremony to remove the “antlers” of authority from a dying chief. The Great Peace also provided for the removal from office of a sachem who could no longer function in office adequately, a measure remarkably similar to the twenty-fifth amendment to the U.S. Constitution (1967), which provides for the removal of an incapacitated president or a president who dies while in office.
In some ways, the grand council operates like the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, which have conference committees. As it was designed by Deganawida, debating protocol in the grand council calls for debate to begin with the elder brothers. After debate by the older brothers, the younger brothers debate in much the same manner. Once consensus is achieved by the younger brothers, the discussion is then given back to the elders for confirmation. Next, the question is laid before a “judicial” council for its review and decision.
At this stage, the judicial reviewer can raise objections to the proposed measure if it is believed inconsistent with the Great Peace. Essentially, the “legislature” can rewrite the proposed law on the spot so that it accords with established law. When the reviewers reach consensus, a sachem who presides over debates between the delegations, is asked to confirm the decision.
Deganawida’s Great Peace also included provisions guaranteeing freedom of religion and the right of redress before the grand council. It also forbade unauthorized entry of homes all measures that sound familiar to United States citizens through the Bill of Rights. Public opinion is of great importance within the League of the Iroquois. Iroquois people can have a direct say in the formulation of government policy, even if a sachem chooses to ignore the will of the people. The Great Peace stipulates that the people can propose their own laws even when leaders fail to do so, adding them to the rafters of the metaphorical longhouse. This provision resembles provisions for popular initiatives in several states of the United States, as well as the mechanism by which the federal and many state constitutions may be amended.
Bibliography
Colden, Cadwallader. The History of the Five Nations. Ithaca, N.Y.: Great Seal Books, 1958. Colden’s work is an early (1727) Anglo-American account of the Iroquois Confederacy and its political system.
Mann, Barbara A., and Jerry L. Fields. “A Sign in the Sky: Dating the League of the Haudenosaunee.” American Indian Culture and Research Journal 21, no. 2 (1997): 105-163. This article makes a case that the Iroquois Confederacy was founded about 1142, not between 1450 and 1550, as most European-American scholars believe.
Wallace, Paul A. W. The White Roots of Peace. Santa Fe, New Mex.: Clear Light, 1994. This book provides an encapsulated account of the Great Peace’s founding epic.
Wilson, Edmund. Apologies to the Iroquois. 1959. Reprint. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1992. Wilson provides a modern-day account of the Great Peace’s workings in a historical context.
Woodbury, Hanni, Reg Henry, and Harry Webster, comps. Concerning the League: The Iroquois League Tradition as Dictated in Onondaga. Algonquian and Iroquoian Linguistics Memoir 9. Winnipeg, Canada: University of Manitoba Press, 1992. This is the first(and, to date, only) partial account of the Great Peace’s provisions. Earlier accounts have been only summaries.