Introduction
If there is one symbol by
which the Rotinonhsón:ni
are most
well-known, it is the wampum belt that honors a founder of our
confederacy, an Onondaga man of many sorrows named Aionwà:tha.
Aionwà:tha’s wampum
belt was the inspiration for the flag flying
proudly from one end of Iroquoia to the other. This iconic
image-a white chain of four squares and a pine tree on a purple
background-could not have been better conceived by a Madison Avenue
advertising firm, for it is universally accepted by the people it
represents. It is sewn in our clothing, tattooed on our skin, and
incorporated into the logo of practically every company and sports team.
It is the meaning of the belt
that resonates with the
Rotinonhsón:ni. It represents not only The Great Law
of
Peace that unified the
Five Nations, but an imagined “golden
age”
before European contact…as well as the hope that not all of our glory
days are behind us.
Aionwà:tha’s story, the
epic of confederation, is essentially a
sequel to the Rotinonhsón:ni creation story. Told in
sequence, there is no better introduction to our cultural world.
When the stories first caught
my interest, I asked the question that
many ask: Which of the
written
versions is considered
“definitive?” I
was told that there really is no such
thing. Instead, there are a number of versions recorded at
various times throughout history, sometimes in the native tongue,
sometimes in translation, each of them forming a part of the overall
tradition. While some have sought in vain for just such a
definitive version, the true strength of these cultural epics is their
variety. This means they’ve been fully digested by wide range of
people, and are expressing themselves through us in all our
diversity. What would it say about our confederacy if we all told
the same story the exact same way?
This is not to say that there
never was a definitive version of either
of these stories. At one time, there may well have been. I
have no doubt that both are based on true events. (The world was
created, and I’m pretty sure the confederacy was too.) As you read this
book, you will see that an evolution occurred with each new telling
that reflected the times of each particular storyteller. I
present several versions of the confederation epic, some in their
entirety, in the order in which they appeared. The length of some
quotes goes against the grain of modern conventions, but I felt the
rarity of the sources warranted the extra attention given them.
That being said, this is not
an exhaustive collection of all the known
versions, nor a point-by-point comparison of each of them. For
the confederation epic, I focus mainly on the characterization of
Aionwà:tha and Tekanawí:ta,
the principals actors of the
drama, and how their roles evolved over time.
The chronological focus of
this book is essentially “pre-contact,” but
the sources I draw from are “post-contact.” The earliest of these
is over three and a half centuries old, recorded by a Dutch
settler. There is no doubt that the experience of colonization
colored the way each of our chroniclers saw the past, whether native or
colonist, just as our own experiences color the way we look back on
history today. Nevertheless, a chronological focus on the
colonial era will have to await another book-its unmistakable shadow
will have to suffice for this one.
You will notice that my use
and definition of “living history”
throughout the text is slightly different than the way historical
re-enactors employ the term. My concept of living history goes
beyond getting dressed up in period clothing, although it can include
that if one is so inclined.
As I have come to understand
it, a nation or people with a living
culture also have a living history. A living history is one that
evolves with a people as time goes by, getting more complex as we need
it to be. An example of this is the way a modern version of the
creation story explains how Europeans, Africans, and Asians were
created, when the original story only mentioned Native Americans.
A living history is free to incorporate new information about the
past. It may not bear any resemblance to a more “empirical”
history recognized by scholars, but it contains a wealth of information
on other levels.
That is not to say that a
living history is simply an oral tradition,
or, as the federal government’s lawyer fighting your land claim might
suggest, historical revisionism. A living history can incorporate
information found in historical documents, museum collections, and
archaeological artifacts, in addition to that which is conveyed from
tribal elders. The common wisdom says our ancestors were not a
literate people, capturing their words only in petroglyphs and wampum
belts, yet the texts I present say otherwise. Somehow, the
Iroquois of old made sure their stories made it to print, either by
telling them to some European scribe, or by learning to read and write
themselves. Their efforts allow us to “time travel” to recover
details of the story that may have been lost along the way.
Reading their words, you will find that something of their spirit and
attitude comes through-something that isn’t hard to recognize as our
own.
Ultimately, a living history
is one that has come to life in the minds
of the people, an inner reality in which our ancestors continue to
guide us. Eventually their story becomes our story…and goes on and on
forever.
