Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- About the Cover
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Prologue: The Prehistory of Power: Souls Spirits, Deities
- Part One Kings and Emperors
- 1 Divine Kingship in Mesopotamia
- 2 Pharaohs among the Indestructibles
- 3 Kingship among the Hebrews
- 4 The Deification of Roman Emperors
- 5 The Deva-Rajas in India and Southeast Asia
- 6 The Chinese Mandate from Heaven
- 7 The Japanese Imperial Cult
- Part Two Empires before the Common Era
- 8 The Legendary Empire of the Sumerians
- 9 Legendary Empires of Preclassical Greece
- 10 Patriarchs, Exodus, and the Epic of Israel
- 11 Legendary Empires of Ancient India
- 12 The Legendary Founding of Rome
- Part Three Founders
- 13 Moses: The Israelite Lawgiver
- 14 Buddha and Legends of Previous Buddhas
- 15 The Savior Narratives
- 16 Muhammad, the Qur’an, and Islam
- 17 The Virgin Mary through the Centuries
- 18 Tonantzin and Our Lady of Guadalupe
- Part Four Empires of the Common Era
- 19 Narrative Inventions of the Holy Roman Empire
- 20 The Epic of Kings, Alexander the Great, and the Malacca Sultinate
- 21 The Franks, Charlemagne, and the Chansons de Geste
- 22 The Legendary Kingdom of King Arthur
- 23 Ethiopian Kings and the Ark of the Covenant
- 24 Narratives of the Virgin Queen
- Part Five Ideologies
- 25 Discovery: The European Narrative of Power
- 26 Epics of the Portuguese Seaborne Empire
- 27 Dekanawida and the Iroquois League
- 28 The New England Canaan of the Puritans
- 29 The Marxist Classless Society
- 30 Adolph Hitler: Narratives of Aryans and Jews
- Epilogue: A Clash of Narratives
- Bibliography
- Index
- About the Author
27 - Dekanawida and the Iroquois League
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 December 2020
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- About the Cover
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Prologue: The Prehistory of Power: Souls Spirits, Deities
- Part One Kings and Emperors
- 1 Divine Kingship in Mesopotamia
- 2 Pharaohs among the Indestructibles
- 3 Kingship among the Hebrews
- 4 The Deification of Roman Emperors
- 5 The Deva-Rajas in India and Southeast Asia
- 6 The Chinese Mandate from Heaven
- 7 The Japanese Imperial Cult
- Part Two Empires before the Common Era
- 8 The Legendary Empire of the Sumerians
- 9 Legendary Empires of Preclassical Greece
- 10 Patriarchs, Exodus, and the Epic of Israel
- 11 Legendary Empires of Ancient India
- 12 The Legendary Founding of Rome
- Part Three Founders
- 13 Moses: The Israelite Lawgiver
- 14 Buddha and Legends of Previous Buddhas
- 15 The Savior Narratives
- 16 Muhammad, the Qur’an, and Islam
- 17 The Virgin Mary through the Centuries
- 18 Tonantzin and Our Lady of Guadalupe
- Part Four Empires of the Common Era
- 19 Narrative Inventions of the Holy Roman Empire
- 20 The Epic of Kings, Alexander the Great, and the Malacca Sultinate
- 21 The Franks, Charlemagne, and the Chansons de Geste
- 22 The Legendary Kingdom of King Arthur
- 23 Ethiopian Kings and the Ark of the Covenant
- 24 Narratives of the Virgin Queen
- Part Five Ideologies
- 25 Discovery: The European Narrative of Power
- 26 Epics of the Portuguese Seaborne Empire
- 27 Dekanawida and the Iroquois League
- 28 The New England Canaan of the Puritans
- 29 The Marxist Classless Society
- 30 Adolph Hitler: Narratives of Aryans and Jews
- Epilogue: A Clash of Narratives
- Bibliography
- Index
- About the Author
Summary
Perhaps the least known founder of a law code is Dekanawida, the legendary creator of the Iroquois League of Five Nations and The Great Law of Peace. The Great Law established a remarkable democratic system among Native American tribes in the Northeastern United States before Columbus landed in the New World. It amalgamated several tribes into a federation while Europe and the rest of the world labored under the tyranny of monarchy. It established women as the ultimate voices who would decide who would represent their tribal interests. In the fifteenth century it was unquestionably the most advanced government in the world. The associated legend of Dekanawida suggests he was the sole founder. Following this belief, the anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan suggested that the League and Law “was not of gradual construction […] but was the result of one protracted effort of legislation” (1851, 57), a claim that is both difficult to prove and contrary to the way legal systems develop. Nevertheless, various dates have been proposed. The weight of scholarly opinion on the founding of the League has settled on the late fourteenth or fifteenth centuries. But soon after the typescript was completed (1900), William Canfield (1902) linked it to a solar eclipse of 1451. The Indian scholar Paul Wallace (1946) concurs; Dean R. Snow (1982) has explored the documentary evidence and Barbara A. Mann and Jerry L. Fields (1997) have reexamined the astronomical connection. Subsequent research by Native American scholars has settled on 1450 CE. However, the Council of the Confederacy at Six Nations Reservation near Brantford, Ontario, that produced the first written version of the Great Law, suggested an earlier date of 1390, which was followed with a commemorative medal marking the 500-year anniversary of its founding. Kayanesen Paul Williams, who has done the most exhaustive study of the League and the Law of Great Peace, concludes that “there is no clinically provable date of the creation of the League. […] It is enough […] that the League predates European contact” (Williams 2018, 80, 82).
Several decades ago Paul Wallace set aside the idea of a single date, contending that the League “had taken much longer in the building, decades or even generations” (1946, 67). Internal evidence supports an extended period of development. The procedures of this multitribal confederacy, its associated ceremonials, and a cluster of symbols enhancing the law have very deep cultural roots.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Invented History, Fabricated PowerThe Narratives Shaping Civilization and Culture, pp. 305 - 314Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2020