THE JOURNEY OF THE PEACEMAKER
The five nations of the Iroquoian Confederacy, Mohawk, Onieda, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca,
in what is now New York State, still recite the many stories of this message.
Principle among these are:
Passage across the waters of Ontar:io in a white stone canoe.
Born at Eagle Hill near present day Belleville, Ontario as a Huron,
Deganawedah, grew quickly to manhood. After teaching the Hurons, he was
inspired to cross the sacred waters of Ontar:io to address the confusion and distress
of the people and to create the great long house of the Iroquoian Confederacy,
Mohawk, Onieda, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca, in what is now New York State.
Encounter with the cannibal.
Among the first encounters of the Peacemaker was
with a man making a soup of another man’s body. Observing this through a smoke
hole in the long house roof, the man saw a reflection of the Peacemaker’s image
in the soup. Seeing Deganawedah’s beautiful countenance healed him of any desire
to eat of another man.
Visit to Jigonsase, the first Clan Mother.
Jigonsase tended a campsite near
Niagara Falls where the warriors often stopped for food and rest on their way
across the great gorge. When the Peacemaker visited her, she told him of the
terrible conditions all across the territories which the warriors had shared
with her. In this way he was able to plan his work.
Testing by the Mohawks.
Initially the Mohawks who resided at the eastern end
of the territories did not trust the Peacemaker. To satisfy themselves the tested
him. In the evening they placed him on a branch of a tree over the gorge at the
Cohoes Falls. The cut the branch and he fell to the bottom. The next morning
they saw smoke in the adjacent woods, and when the went there Deganawedah was
sitting waiting for them to hear his message.
Cleaning up of the Tadadaho, the principle chief.
The Onondagas were the last to except the message of confederation
because fear of their degraded and tyrannical leader. Deganawedah came singing
to him with the appointed Chiefs including the first one Hayehwahtha and the
first Clan Mother Jigonsase to comb the snakes from his hair. They made him Tadadaho,
the keeper of the central fire of the new Council.
The first Council of fifty chiefs.
The first Council of fifty Chiefs met in a circle around the central
fire at Onondaga - the doorkeepers of the east and west, and Elder Brothers,
the Seneca and Mohawk; the Younger Brothers, the Onieda and Cayuga, and the Fire
Keepers, the Onondaga - to carry out the protocols of consensus taught to them
by Daganawedah. Then the Peacemaker walked into the woods and was never seen
again. His work among the Iroquois was finished.
"When the Stars revolve about the North Pole, they are longing for our growing consciousness"
Jeleuddin Rumi 13th c. Sufi poet