The Six Nations:

Oldest Living Participatory Democracy on Earth

The Tree of Peace

by John Kahionhes Fadden

http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/#IaUN

The people of the Six Nations, also known by the French term, Iroquois [1] Confederacy,
call themselves the Hau de no sau nee (ho dee noe sho nee) meaning People Building a
Long House. Located in the northeastern region of North America, originally the Six
Nations was five and included the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and
Senecas. The sixth nation, the Tuscaroras, migrated into Iroquois country in the early
eighteenth century. Together these peoples comprise the oldest living participatory
democracy on earth. Their story, and governance truly based on the consent of the
governed, contains a great deal of life-promoting intelligence for those of us not familiar
with this area of American history. The original United States representative democracy,
fashioned by such central authors as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, drew
much inspiration from this confederacy of nations. In our present day, we can benefit
immensely, in our quest to establish anew a government truly dedicated to all life's
liberty and happiness much as has been practiced by the Six Nations for over 800
hundred years. [2]

Credits
 Figure 31. On June 11, 1776 while the question of independence was being
debated, the visiting Iroquois chiefs were formally invited into the meeting hall of the
Continental Congress. There a speech was delivered, in which they were addressed
as "Brothers" and told of the delegates' wish that the "friendship" between them
would "continue as long as the sun shall shine" and the "waters run." The speech
also expressed the hope that the new Americans and the Iroquois act "as one
people, and have but one heart."[18] After this speech, an Onondaga chief requested
permission to give Hancock an Indian name. The Congress graciously consented,
and so the president was renamed "Karanduawn, or the Great Tree." With the
Iroquois chiefs inside the halls of Congress on the eve of American Independence,
the impact of Iroquois ideas on the founders is unmistakable. History is indebted to
Charles Thomson, an adopted Delaware, whose knowledge of and respect for
American Indians is reflected in the attention that he gave to this ceremony in the
records of the Continental Congress.[19] Artwork by John Kahionhes Fadden.

from Exemplar of Liberty, Native America and the Evolution of Democracy,

Chp.8, "A New Chapter, Images of native America in the writings of Franklin, Jefferson, and
Paine"

Contents

1. Beaver Full Moon, 24 November 1996: Inauguration of Six Nations subtree

2. A Basic Call to Consciousness,

The Hau de no sau nee Address to the Western World,
Geneva, Switzerland, Autumn 1977
3. Forgotten Founders, Benjamin Franklin, the Iroquois
and the Rationale for the American Revolution, complete 1982 book

4. Oren Lyons Interview - Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan,

Onondaga Council of Chiefs of the Hau de no sau nee, 3 July 1991

5. Exemplar of Liberty
Native America and the Evolution of Democracy, complete 1990 book

6. Native American Political Systems and the Evolution of Democracy:

An Annotated Bibliography, complete 1996 living book

7. Reaching the Grassroots:

The World-wide Diffusion of Iroquois Democratic Traditions, April 2002

8. Borked! Tales From the Ramparts of Multiculturalism

9. Oren Lyons at the UN:

Opening Speech for "The Year of the Indigenous Peoples", 1993

10. Telling The Iroquois Story On CD-ROM

11. Oren Lyons: World Bank, October 3, 1995

Ethics and Spiritual Values and the Promotion of
Environmentally Sustainable Development
"50 Years of the World Bank, Over 50 Tribes Devastated"

12. Dating the Iroquois Confederacy

13. Guest Essay, Sovereignty and Treaty Rights - We Remember

14. Guest Essay, Haudenosaunee Environmental Action Plan

and articles related to the 1995 United Nations Summit of the Elders:

1. Summit of the Elders; Haudenosaunee Environmental Restoration Strategy

2. Principles for Environmental Restoration
3. Iroquois at the UN
4. Presentation to the United Nations
5. Demonizing the Big Glass House

15. Indian Magna Carta Writ In Wampum Belts

16. Iroquois Population in 1995

17. How Much Land Did the Iroquois Possess?

 Drawn by JOSEPH KEPPLER
SAVAGERY TO "CIVILIZATION"
THE INDIAN WOMEN: We whom you pity as drudges
reached centuries ago the goal that you are now nearing

The use of Indian women to provide an exemplar of feminist liberty continued into the
nineteenth century. On May 16, 1914, only six years before the first national election
in which women had the vote, Puck printed a line drawing of a group of Indian women
observing Susan B. Anthony, Anne Howard Shaw and Elizabeth Cady Stanton leading
a parade of women. A verse under the print read:

"Savagery to Civilization"
We, the women of the Iroquois
Own the Land, the Lodge, the Children
Ours is the right to adoption, life or death;
Ours is the right to raise up and depose chiefs;
Ours is the right to representation in all councils;
Ours is the right to make and abrogate treaties;
Ours is the supervision over domestic and foreign policies;
Ours is the trusteeship of tribal property;
Our lives are valued again as high as man's. [67]

Figure 38, from Exemplar of Liberty, Native America and the Evolution of Democracy,
Chp.11, "The Persistence of an Idea, Impressions of Iroquois liberty after the
eighteenth century"
On the Web:

 HAUDENOSAUNEE: People Building a Long House:

the Haudenosaunee Home Page, comprised of the traditional leadership of the Seneca, Cayuga,
Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk and Tuscarora Nations.
 Iroquois History (from First Nations/First Peoples Issues)
 Iroquois, Haudenosaunee website: Welcome to Me & U: Mother Earth & Us
o Welcome to Peace 4 Turtle Island
 Gayogoho:no (The People of the Great Swamp) Cayuga
 Kahniakehake (People of the Flint) Mohawk
 Onyota'a:ka (People of the Standing Stone) Oneida
 Onoda'gega (People of the Hills) Onondaga
 Onodowahgah (The People of the Great Hill) Seneca
 Ska-ru-ren (Those of the Indian Hemp) Tuscarora
 Oneida Indian Nation
 Six Nations Indian Museum
 The Iroquois Constitution at the
University of Oklahoma Law Center's Chronology of US Historical Documents
 Available In Both Languages: The Mohawk Language Standardisation Project,
and Kanien'kehá:ka Ohiatonhkwa'shón:'a Katokénhston Tekawennatáhkwen
This site contains a conference report on the Mohawk Language Standardisation Project
undertaken in 1993. The report is presented in Kanien'kehá and English. It contains extensive
orthographic information on the new writing standard and also contains valuable phonemic charts.
Also of interest is the inclusion of some archaic vocabulary.
 The Wampum Chronicles: Mohawk Territory on the Internet
 Wampum -- Native American Beadwork
 Native Nations -- Tribes of U.S. and Canada

The Guardian
by John Kahionhes Fadden

The eagle is the guardian bird of the Haudenosaunee,

and is often seen in images as being above the Tree of Peace.
 A Basic Call to Consciousness, The Hau de no sau nee Address to the Western
World,
Geneva, Switzerland, Autumn 1977

What is presented here is nothing less audacious than a cosmogony of the Industrialized
World presented by the most politically powerful and independent non-Western political body
surviving in North America. It is, in a way, the modern world through Pleistocene eyes.
Scholars and casual readers alike should question the significance, in the age of the Neutron
bomb, Watergate, and nuclear energy plant proliferation, of a statement by a North American
Indian people. But there is probably some argument to be made for the appropriateness of such a
statement at this time. Most of the world's professed traditions are fairly recent in origin.
Mohammedanism is perhaps 1500 years old, Christianity claims a 2000-year history, Judaism is
perhaps 2000 years older than Christianity.
But the Native people can probably lay claim to a tradition which reaches back to at least
the end of the Pleistocene, and which, in all probability, goes back much further than that.
There is some evidence that humanoid creatures have been present on the earth for at least
two million years, and that humans who looked very much like us were in evidence in the
Northern Hemisphere at least as long as the second interglacial period. People who are familiar
with the Hau de no sau nee beliefs will recognize that modern scientific evidence shows that the
Native customs of today are not markedly different from those practiced by ancient peoples at
least 70000 years ago. Indeed, if an Iroquois traditionalist were to seek a career in the study of
Pleistocene Man, he may find that he already knows more about the most ancient belief systems
than do the modern scholars.
Be that as it may, the Hau de no see nee position is derived from a philosophy which sees
The People with historical roots which extend back tens of thousands of years. It is a geological
kind of perspective, which sees modern man as an infant, occupying a very short space of time in
an incredibly long spectrum. It is the perspective of the oldest elder looking into the affairs of a
young child and seeing that he is committing incredibly destructive folly. It is, in short, the
statement of a people who are ageless but who trace their history as a people to the very beginning
of time. And they are speaking, in this instance, to a world which dates its existence from a little
over 500 years ago, and perhaps, in many cases, much more recently than that.
And it is, to our knowledge, the very first statement to be issued by a Native nation. What
follows are not the research products of psychologists, historians, or anthropologists. The papers
which follow are the first authentic analyses of the modern world ever committed to writing by an
official body of Native people.

-- from the Introduction

 Figure 3. Peacemaker presents his vision. By John Kahionhes Fadden.
(from Chp.2, "Perceptions of America's Native Democracies", Exemplar of Liberty)

 COMPLETE BOOK:
Exemplar of Liberty, Native America and the Evolution of Democracy,
by Donald A. Grinde, Jr. and Bruce E. Johansen, 1990

from the Introduction:

We believe that American history will not be complete until its indigenous aspects have
been recognized and incorporated into the teaching of history. We have assembled here a mosaic
of fact and opinion which, taken together, indicates that the objective of the contemporary debate
should be to define the role Native American precedents deserve in the broader ambit of American
history. . . . Our thesis holds that the character of American democracy evolved importantly
(although, of course, not soley), from the examples provided by American Indian confederacies
which ringed the land borders of the British colonies. These examples provided a reality, as well
as exercise for the imagination -- and it is imagination, above all, that foments revolutions. In this
book, we attempt to provide a picture of how these native confederacies operated, and how
important architects of American institutions, ideals and other character traits perceived them. We
operate as much as we are able from the historical record per se, relaying as much of original
accounts as possible. . . .
We attempt to trace both events and ideas: life, liberty, happiness; government by reason
and consent rather than coercion, religious toleration (and ultimately religious acceptance) instead
of a state church; checks and balances, federalism; relative equality of property, equal rights
before the law and the thorny problem of creating a government that can rule equitably across a
broad geographic expanse. Native America had a substantial role in shaping all these ideas, as well
as the events that turned colonies into a nation of states. In a way that may be difficult to
understand from the vantage point of the late twentieth century, Native Americans were present at
the conception of the United States. We owe part of our national soul to those who came before us
on this soil.
 As is the case with many histories, this book proceeds along a time line. Except for a few
earlier premonitions, our historical study begins around 1600 with "Vox Americana," which
summarizes early English and French traders', missionaries' and settlers' accounts of native
political organization and attitudes toward liberty. "Perceptions of America's Native Democracies"
continues this theme with brief descriptions of how Native American nations that bordered the
British colonies ordered their affairs. "Natural Man in an Unnatural Land" examines the image of
American Indian peoples in European popular culture in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries;
"Ennobling `Savages'" considers the degree to which the same image was reflected in the works of
major French and British philosophers of the time. "Errand in the Wilderness" takes the story back
across the Atlantic for a detailed study of Roger Williams's use of native precedents for political
freedom and religious toleration. "The White Roots Reach Out" concentrates on the idea of
federalism as seen through the eyes of Benjamin Franklin and mid-eighteenth century leaders of
the Iroquois such as Canassatego and Hendrick (Tiyanoga), centering on the Albany Congress of
1754.
The revolutionary era begins with "Mohawks, Axes, and Taxes," an account of ways in
which the image of the Indian was reflected in propaganda and popular art between 1763 and
1776. "A New Chapter" compares the images of native America as utilized by Franklin, Thomas
Jefferson and Thomas Paine. The timeline resumes once again in "An American Synthesis," which
organizes events (between roughly 1775 and 1786) around the founding of the Sons of Saint
Tammany, a patriotic organization succeeding the Sons of Liberty, which combined European and
Native American ideas and motifs. "Kindling a New Grand Council Fire" continues the study into
the constitutional period. "The Persistence of an Idea" traces references to native ideas in
governance (particularly those of the Iroquois) through the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century
and thus concludes our analysis.

Figure 10. "Our wise forefathers established Union and Amity between the Five
Nations. This has made us formidable; this has given us great Weight and Authority
with our neighboring Nations. We are a powerful Confederacy; and by your
observing the same methods, our wise forefathers have taken, you will acquire such
Strength and power. Therefore, whatever befalls you, never fall out with one
 another." Canassatego, the great Iroquois chief, advising the assembled colonial
governors on Iroquois concepts of unity in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1744.
Artwork by John Kahionhes Fadden.
(from Chp.6, "The White Roots Reach Out", Exemplar of Liberty)

 COMPLETE BOOK:
Forgotten Founders, Benjamin Franklin,
the Iroquois and the Rationale for the American Revolution,
by Bruce E. Johansen, 1982; inside Book Jacket Book excerpts

New additional formats: PDF | ASCII text

from the Introduction:

This book has two major purposes. First, it seeks to weave a few new threads into the
tapestry of American revolutionary history, to begin the telling of a larger story that has lain
largely forgotten, scattered around dusty archives, for more than two centuries. By arguing that
American Indians (principally the Iroquois) played a major role in shaping the ideas of Franklin
(and thus, the American Revolution) I do not mean to demean or denigrate European influences. I
mean not to subtract from the existing record, but to add an indigenous aspect, to show how
America has been a creation of all its peoples.
In the telling, this story also seeks to demolish what remains of stereotypical assumptions
that American Indians were somehow too simpleminded to engage in effective social and political
organization. No one may doubt any longer that there has been more to history, much more, than
the simple opposition of "savagery" and "civilization." History's popular writers have served us
with many kinds of savages, noble and vicious, "good Indians" and "bad Indians," nearly always
as beings too preoccupied with the essentials of the hunt to engage in philosophy and statecraft.
This was simply not the case. Franklin and his fellow founders knew differently. They
learned from American Indians, by assimilating into their vision of the future, aspects of American
Indian wisdom and beauty. Our task is to relearn history as they experienced it, in all its richness
and complexity, and thereby to arrive at a more complete understanding of what we were, what we
are, and what we may become.

from Chapter 3, Our Indians Have Outdone the Romans:

The Iroquois' extension of liberty and political participation to women surprised some
eighteenth-century Euro-American observers. An unsigned contemporary manuscript in the New
York State Library reported that when Iroquois men returned from hunting, they turned everything
they had caught over to the women. "Indeed, every possession of the man except his horse & his
rifle belong to the woman after marriage; she takes care of their Money and Gives it to her
husband as she thinks his necessities require it," the unnamed observer wrote. The writer sought to
refute assumptions that Iroquois women were "slaves of their husbands." "The truth is that Women
are treated in a much more respectful manner than in England & that they possess a very superior
power; this is to be attributed in a very great measure to their system of Education." The women,
in addition to their political power and control of allocation from the communal stores, acted as
communicators of culture between generations. It was they who educated the young.
Another matter that surprised many contemporary observers was the Iroquois' sophisticated
use of oratory. Their excellence with the spoken word, among other attributes, often caused
Colden and others to compare the Iroquois to the Romans and Greeks.
 Haudenosaunee Council
by John Kahionhes Fadden

 COMPLETE living BOOK:

Native American Political Systems and the Evolution of Democracy:
An Annotated Bibliography, by Bruce E. Johansen
Updated to November 12, 1997 (reflecting the author's continued gathering of
citations).

Since 1992, I have kept a bibliography of commentary on assertions that the Haudenosaunee
(Iroquois) and other Native American confederacies helped shape ideas of democracy in the early
United States. By 1995, the bibliography had reached roughly 455 items from more than 120
books, as well as newspaper articles and book reviews numbering in the hundreds, academic
journals, films, speeches, documentaries, and other sources. The bibliography was assembled with
the help of friends, as well as searches of libraries and book stores, and personal involvement in
various skirmishes of the debate. The number of references exploded during 1995 because I began
to search several electronic databases.
Before I explored these databases, I had been acquainted with the spread of the idea on a
more personal level, especially through debates in academia that have been chronicled with
Donald A. Grinde, Jr. in Akwe:kon Journal (now Native Americas) and the American Indian
Culture & Research Journal (1993.014, 1990.002). Now, I was watching the idea take on an
animus of its own, detached from its scholarly moorings. As the debate expanded in popular
consciousness, a grand cacophony of diverse voices debated the type of history with which we
will enter a new millennium on the Christian calendar. . . .
Despite its caricature as a horror story of "political correctness" and the jarring nature of
some of the debate over the issue, the idea that Native American confederacies are an important
early form of democracy has become established in general discourse. History is made in many
ways, by many people; the spread of the idea that Native American confederacies (especially the
Haudenosaunee Confederacy) helped shape the intellectual development of democracy m the
United States and Europe is an example of how our notions of history have been changing with the
infusion of multicultural voices. It is fascinating to watch the change in all its forms -- and the
debate over the issue in all its cacophonous variety. This bibliography comprises the "field notes"
of my journey.

-- from the Preface

 Reaching the Grassroots:
The World-wide Diffusion of Iroquois Democratic Traditions
by Bruce Johansen, April 2002

A new "influence" summary:

Immigrants from Europe often have borrowed from native peoples, embraced this knowledge as
their own, and then forgotten its origins. Meanwhile, the prevailing assumptions of the "winners'"
histories condemn Native Americans as primitive and brutish. The reconstruction of history in its
true complexity takes some work, since it often runs counter to the heavy weight of well-
established assumptions.

So it has been in the evolution of democracy, [Richard] Williams [executive director of the
American Indian College Fund] believes: "The political structure of the great Iroquois
Confederacy served as a model for democracy among the founding fathers, who wrote the
Constitution based on `we the people,' something unheard of in the aristocratic, feudal societies of
Europe. In fact, there is no word for `I' in any American Indian language, which was a profound
concept to the framers who closely studied the tribes' customs, government and culture."

The Six Nations Confederacy was and is likened to a longhouse

by John Kahionhes Fadden

Images of the Six Nations are identified by the style of hat they're wearing
located about the six smokeholes.

 Borked! Tales From the Ramparts of Multiculturalism, by Bruce E. Johansen

I removed a copy of Robert H. Bork's Slouching Toward Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism

and American Decline from our Library's new-books shelf with a sense of impending ironic
triumph. Would I be able to add yet another sliming of my life's academic work by a neo-
 conservative household name who has never heard of me?
After consulting Bork's index under "Iroquois Confederacy," on pages 306 and 307, I hit
pay dirt. I ceased to be a mild-mannered middle-aged professor of principally Norwegian
extraction who has spent 15 years at a Midwestern university teaching undergraduates how to
write newspaper stories and essays on Black Elk. Suddenly, I saw myself portrayed by Bork as a
primary sloucher toward Gomorrah in his pantheon of politically motivated assassins of western
civilization's most cherished canons, an advocate of the demon multiculturalism, and a bona fide
barbarian at the Gate. This is heady stuff for a professor from Nebraska.

 Oren Lyons at the UN: Opening Speech for "The Year of the Indigenous
Peoples", 1993

This proclamation brings home inspiration and renewed dedication to our quest for self-
determination, justice, freedom and peace in our Homelands and our Territories. Indeed, the quest
is a renewal of what we enjoyed before the coming of our White Brothers from across the sea. We
lived contentedly under the Gai Eneshah Go' Nah, The Great Law of Peace. We were instructed to
create societies based on the principles of Peace, Equity, Justice, and the Power of Good Minds.
Our societies are based upon great democratic principles of the authority of the people and equal
responsibilities for the men and the women. This was a great way of life across this Great Turtle
Island and freedom with respect was everywhere. Our leaders were instructed to be men of vision
and to make every decision on behalf of the seventh generation to come; to have compassion and
love for those generations yet unborn. We were instructed to give thanks for All That Sustains Us.
Thus, we created great ceremonies of Thanksgiving for the life-giving forces of the Natural World,
as long as we carried out our ceremonies, life would continue. We were told that 'The Seed is the
Law.' Indeed, it is The Law of Life. It is The Law of Regeneration. Within the seed is the
mysterious force of life and creation. Our mothers nurture and guard that seed and we respect and
love them for that. Just as we love I hi do' hah, our Mother Earth, for the same spiritual work and
mystery.

 Telling The Iroquois Story On CD-ROM, by Bruce Johansen

The two-volume Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas prefaces its treatment
of this subject with a defense of the fact that "this history of Native Americans has been written by
Euro-Americans and Euro-Canadians." Despite a "growing number of Native Americans who are
writing about their past," the reader is told, "the professional study of Native American history
remains largely the domain of historians and anthropologists Of European descent."
"Professional study" is a problematic phrase here, because Native American authors have
been telling their own story in the English language since at least the days of George Copway,
who also could run 60 miles a day, roughly two centuries ago. What is one to make of such a
statement poised against the literate lives of Arthur Parker, Luther Standing Bear, Gertrude
Bonnin, or Vine Deloria, Jr.? In our time, the academic landscape teems with Native people who
have the requisite degrees, academic positions and publication records to write excellent
encyclopedia entries.
 Figure 32. In 1775, treaty commissioners at Albany recall the words of Canassatego.
By John Kahionhes Fadden.

(from Chp.8, "A New Chapter, Images of native America in the writings
of Franklin, Jefferson, and Paine", Exemplar of Liberty)

Akwesasne Notes New Series, Fall, 1995:

 Dating the Iroquois Confederacy, by Bruce E. Johansen, pp. 62-63.

The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy, one of the world's oldest democracies, is at

least three centuries older than most previous estimates, according to research by Barbara Mann
and Jerry Fields of Toledo University, Ohio.
Using a combination of documentary sources, solar eclipse data, and Iroquois oral history,
Mann and Fields assert that the Iroquois Confederacy's body of law was adopted by the Senecas
(the last of the five nations to ratify it) August 31, 1142. The ratification council convened at a site
that is now a football field in Victor, New York. The site is called Gonandaga by the Seneca.

 Guest Essay, Sovereignty and Treaty Rights - We Remember, by G. Peter

Jemison, pp. 10-15.

I want to talk about our original treaties because we not only made treaties with the United
States, but we also made treaties with other foreign countries, and perhaps the first one that we
made was with the Dutch. We used a wampum belt. That is, a two row wampum belt with two
parallel lines on a field of white. We used wampum belts to help us commemorate our treaties.
 Wampum, as you may know, is made of shell, a combination of quahog and the periwinkle shell,
cut and made into tubular beads and then strung into a belt. The purpose of the belt, to use an
anthropological term, is as a mnemonic device for remembering important ideas, so that when the
reader of the belt holds it in his hands, the idea literally comes from the belt.[2]
These two parallel lines signify this to us: On the one hand, we are travelling in our canoe,
down the river of life, and travelling in a parallel line in their boat are those Europeans or Euro-
Americans who are here on our land, Turtle Island. We are travelling along and we have an
agreement with one another. I am not going to get out of my canoe and get into your boat and try
to steer it, and I am going to ask you not to get out of your boat and get into my canoe and try to
steer it. We are going to allow one another to exist. We are going to accept the notion, that we are
sovereign, that we have our own form of government and that you have yours. We have our own
way of life, and that you have yours, and that we are not trying to convince you to be us; we are
trying to convince you that because of our long history here, we have a knowledge of this place
where we live. And so, we use this two row wampum belt even now, as the basis for all of the
other treaties that we made after this time.

 Guest Essay, Haudenosaunee Environmental Action Plan, by F. Henry Lickers,

pp. 16-17.

Over the past 18 months, the Haudenosaunee Environmental Task Force has labored on a
document which would begin the process of detailing the environmental impacts that the western
society has had on our lands and territories. . . .
The Haudenosaunee Environmental Restoration, An Indigenous Strategy for Human Sustainability
document was compiled and edited for presentation to the United Nations Environmental
Program.

 Summit of the Elders; Haudenosaunee Environmental Restoration Strategy, pp.

66-69.

The proposed Summit is a combination of several months of intense work, both by United
Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and the task force established by the Confederacy to
review the range of environmental hazards to which their communities have been exposed and to
document as precisely as possible, the sources and nature of these hazards, as well as to design a
plan of action for their remediation and the environmental restoration of the territories in question.
...
We, the Haudenosaunee, bring our case to the United Nations to draw international attention
to the environmental issues affecting the indigenous communities in North America.
Having made a major contribution to the Rio Earth Summit in bringing about Chapter 26 of
Agenda 21, we maintain that our traditional strategy for sustainable development practices and
coexistence is a model for the future survival of humanity on earth. We are committed to
continuing our sustainable economic practices.

 Principles for Environmental Restoration p. 70.

o Chapter 26 of Agenda 21 formulated at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit recognizes the right
of the indigenous communities and their representatives to undertake reviews as well as
develop environmental strategies with regard to land and water based pollution. . . .
o The restoration must not be confined just to removing the wastes and pollution, but must
also be extended to the social and cultural dimensions of the communities, the nations
and the Confederacy. . . .
o As sovereign governments, the Haudenosaunee have complete jurisdiction over native
territories. The Haudenosaunee jurisdiction should extend cooperatively to the
surrounding areas that impact the ecosystem of the native territories. . . .
 o Haudenosaunee should be assured adequate international legal resources that must ensure
that the U.S. and Canadian legal systems recognize a right to full compensation for
collective and individual damages from the effects of environmental pollution.
 Iroquois at the UN, by Doug George-Kanentiio, p. 71.

The hard work of the Haudenosaunee on behalf of the world's native populations have won
for them many friends at the UN. . . . On July 18 the Confederacy had official representatives from
all six nations . . . at the UN to give testimony about conditions on Iroquois territory. . . .
This document summarizes the current conditions on Iroquois lands and offers concrete
solutions to return Mother Earth to her former state. It proposes the creation of an indigenous
environmental learning center to study problem areas and offer solutions. This center would also
coordinate information, define economic development strategies and assist in the preservation of
culture.

 Presentation to the United Nations

by Carol Jacobs, Cayuga Bear Clan Mother, pp. 116-117.

Among us, it is women who are responsible for fostering life. In our traditions, it is women
who carry the seeds, both of our own future generations and of the plant life. It is women who
plant and tend the gardens, and women who bear and raise the children. It is my right and duty, as
a woman and a mother and a grandmother, to speak to you about these things, to bring our minds
together on them. . . .
In making any law, our chiefs must always consider three things: the effect of their decision
on peace; the effect on the natural world; and the effect on seven generations in the future. We
believe that all lawmakers should be required to think this way, that all constitutions should
contain these rules. . . .
. . . we are a powerful people. We are the carriers of knowledge and ideas that the world
needs today. We know how to live with this land: we have done so for thousands of years and
have not suffered many of the changes of the Industrial Revolution, though we are being buffeted
by the waves of its collapse.
Our families are beyond the small, isolated nuclear families that are so convenient to big
industry and big government and so damaging to communities.

 Demonizing the Big Glass House by Jack Wandell, pp. 118-120.

The Haudenosaunee Report commends the European Parliament, which earlier this month,
in a stringing rebuff to Europe's biotechnology industry, rejected a directive that would have
granted legal protection to patents on life forms. Many members of the European Parliament view
all patenting of life forms as unethical and morally reprehensible.[2]

" . . . We are instructed to carry a love for one another and to show a great respect
for all the beings of this earth. We were shown that our life exists with the tree life, that
our well-being depends on the well-being of the vegetable life, that we are close relations
of the four-legged beings. In our ways spiritual consciousness is the highest form of
politics. . . .
"We must recognize our enemies, the forces of darkness that now march across all
lands in the Four Sacred Directions, throwing the shadow of death and destruction even
into the seventh generation to come. . . .
"We must stand together, the four sacred colors of humankind, as the one family
that we are in the interest of peace. . . .
"Our energy is the combined will of all people with the spirit of the natural world,
to be of one body, one heart and one mind for peace. . . . "
 The above words were spoken by Tadodaho, Chief Leon Shenandoah, not on July 18 of this year,
but at the 40th Anniversary celebration of the UN.

 Indian Magna Carta Writ In Wampum Belts, Six Nations Shows Treaty Granting
Them Independent Sovereignty as Long as Sun Shines, pp. 64-65.
By Howard McLellan, reprinted from The New York Times, June 7, 1925.
 Iroquois Population in 1995, by Doug George-Kanentiio, p. 61.

It is not unreasonable to guess the Iroquois numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Physical
evidence seems to sustain this argument because there is virtually no place within our aboriginal
territories which was not settled, cultivated or otherwise occupied by the Iroquois. . . .
According to the Canadian and U.S. census there are 74,518 Iroquois in North America, the
majority of whom live north of the border.

 How Much Land Did the Iroquois Possess?, by Doug George-Kanentiio, p. 60.

Prior to European colonization the Iroquois exercised active dominion over most of what is
now New York State. Of the 49,576 square miles of the state the Iroquois held title to about 4/5 of
the total area (approximately 39,000 square miles). . . .
All together the Iroquois Confederacy held as its own 24,894,080 acres of some of the most
beautiful and resource wealthy lands in all of North America. Yet traditional Iroquois were careful
custodians of the earth for nowhere in this broad expanse of territory was there a single polluted
stream, hazardous waste site or open landfill.

Figure 36. In his Defence of the Constitution of . . . Government in the

 United States, John Adams discussed the Iroquois political system. By
John Kahionhes Fadden.

Adams' Defence was a critical survey of world governments and he

included a description of the Iroquois and other Native American
government in his analysis. In his preface, Adams mentioned the Inca,
Manco Capac, and the political structure "of the Peruvians." He also
noted that tribes in "North America have certain families from which
their leaders are always chosen."[30] Adams believed that American
Indian governments collected their authority in one center (a simple or
unicameral model), and he also observed that in American Indian
governments "the people" believed that "all depended on them."[31]
Later in the preface, John Adams observed that Benjamin Franklin, the
French Philosophes and other "great philosophers and politicians of the
age were "attempting to "set up governments of . . . modern Indians."[32]

(from Chp.10, "Kindling a New National Grand Council Fire,

Native American liberty and the U.S. Constitution", Exemplar of Liberty)

Credits
This collection of documents and images has been made possible
by the generosity and support of the following authors:

 Bruce E. Johansen --
Professor of Communication and Native American Studies University of
Nebraska at Omaha, Bruce gave permission to reproduce Forgotten Founders and
Exemplar of Liberty in their entirety here for which we are extremely grateful. He
also made available his "living document" version of Native American Political
Systems and the Evolution of Democracy: An Annotated Bibliography which we
will continue to update as he sends citations discovered as time goes on. Bruce
can be contacted at bjohansen@mail.unomaha.edu.
 Donald A. Grinde --
Professor and Chair of American Studies at the University of Buffalo, Don gave
permission to reproduce Exemplar of Liberty in its entirety here for which we are
extremely grateful.
 John Kahionhes Fadden --
John has generously made some of his artwork available, documentation on the
Six Nations and given permission to include all the drawings he created for
Exemplar of Liberty. We are also indebted to John for allowing us to reproduce
other images he provided us copies with that are included on this page. John can
be reached at:

Six Nations Indian Museum

HCR 1, Box 10
 Onchiota, NY 12989
518/891-2299

1. Regarding the origination of the word Iroquois,

Another matter that surprised many contemporary observers was the Iroquois' sophisticated use of
oratory. Their excellence with the spoken word, among other attributes, often caused Colden and
others to compare the Iroquois to the Romans and Greeks. The French use of the term Iroquois to
describe the confederacy was itself related to this oral tradition; it came from the practice of
ending their orations with the two words hiro and kone. The first meant "I say" or "I have said"
and the second was an exclamation of joy or sorrow according to the circumstances of the speech.
The two words, joined and made subject to French pronunciation, became Iroquois. The English
were often exposed to the Iroquois' oratorical skills at eighteenth-century treaty councils.

-- from ``Chapter 3, "Our Indians Have Outdone the Romans",'' Forgotten Found