Once upon a time, many moons ago, the vast ancestral Iroquoia tribe lived in the northeastern part of North America. Then, in about 1000 AD, they broke into many smaller tribes: the Mohawk, the Seneca, the Onondaga, the Oneida, the Cayuga, the Cherokee, the Susquehannock who were also called the Conestoga, the Wyandot who are also called the Hurons, the Wenrohronon, the Neutral, the Erie, the Tuscarora, the Nottoway and many others whose names have been lost to time. These tribes all spoke the same language, wore the same clothes, ate the same foods, lived in the same kinds of longhouses, but, as hunters and warriors, they were very territorial, violent, savage, brutal, cannibalistic and completely lawless. They fought hard against each other, took much land away from each other and took many scalps, even if those scalps belonged to their brothers from the same ancestral tribe. These men did not listen to their wives, their mothers or their grandmothers, even though these women were full of wisdom and longed for peace. Nor did these men care about their children, nor value life and life's continuance.
Then, on August 31, 1142 AD, although some say that this happened in 1451 AD, the sun was blotted out by the moon and the land of the Northeast was plunged into darkness. The people, who in all of their lives had never seen this before, were completely terrified. Shortly thereafter, a prophet came to the Mohawk people. He was of the Onondaga tribe and his name was Deganawida. Inasmuch as Deganawida, who was a favorite of the Creator, was of halting and broken speech, he brought with him a smooth-tongued disciple named Hiawatha, and Hiawatha spoke for him, as Aaron had spoken for his stuttering brother, the Prophet Moses. And so it was that this prophet, Deganawida, through his disciple Hiawatha, gave his message, which he had received from the Creator, to the Mohawk people, that all of the people who lived in longhouses, the Mohawk, the Seneca, the Onondaga, the Oneida and the Cayuga, should live as brothers in peace, that they should trade with each other, listen to the wisdom of their mothers and their grandmothers, and give up their barbarous and cannibalistic ways, at least in relation to each other.
The Constitution of the Iroquois Nations, which is what came out of Deganawida's message to the people, was between the Mohawks, the Cayuga, the Seneca, the Onondaga, the Oneida and the Tuscarora. There were fifty war chieftains who represented each of the five tribes, and each tribe had a different role in the Grand Council but no one tribe and no one role was more important than the other, and all were equal under the law, regardless of the size or wealth of the tribe that they represented. Each tribe also had its own designated specialty. The war chieftains of the Onondaga were the Executive branch. The war chieftains of the Mohawk and the Seneca tribes were the legislative branch. The war chieftains of the Tuscarora, the Cayuga and the Oneida tribes were the House of Representatives and the Voice of the People. The Clan Mothers were the Judicial branch, but since they were not part of the Grand Council, they probably heard their cases back in their own tribal villages.
When a question regarding trade and war was brought before the Grand Council, it passed through the Mohawk and Seneca (the legislative branch) council members, and then through the Oneida and Cayuga (the Representative) council members, and then through the Onondaga (executive branch) council members for final judgment. This process was used whether the question was brought by an individual or a war chief on behalf of his tribe. All individual members of the Iroquois League, whether they were male or female, rich or poor, commoner or chieftain, were equal under the law. If a war chief of the Grand Council was found guilty of murder, he was deposed and his Clan Mothers were deposed, and their titles were transferred to another war chieftain and Clan Mother of the tribe, and there was likely hell to pay.
The Grand Council were required, at all times, to be honest with no collusion or corruption because The Constitution of the Iroquois Nation was designed to promote unity between the five (or six) tribes, to protect the Iroquois against other non-Iroquoian tribes, to preserve human dignity, to promote peace, discussion and decision-making, and to protect the rights of the people within the tribes through a system of checks-and-balances. Freedom of speech and freedom of religion were also a large part of the Iroquois Constitution, slavery was outlawed, and women were given an unprecedented amount of personal and political power.
The tribes agreed that there was to be no more cannibalism. This, however, didn't seem to take, since there were reports of cannibalism among the Iroquois tribes as late as the 1600's, when the Great Law of Peace was already five hundred years-old. However, the Iroquois Constitution did not rule out brutally torturing non-Iroquoian captives taken in "mourning wars" and raids. However, it is possible that before the Constitution was devised, captives were tortured in order to break their spirits, and if their spirits would not be broken, that they were then killed and eaten by the entire Iroquois tribe so that they could partake of their enemy's strength, bravery and unbroken spirits, and that after the Constitution was devised, the adoption of the stoic enemy was substituted for cannibalizing him.
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