THE GREAT LAW AND THE LONGHOUSE, William N. Fenton, University of
Oklahoma Press, Norman 1998

This summary uses appropriate designations for the Haudenosaunee,
restricting derogatory names to direct quotations, including chapter
titles.

This weighty tome begins with a preface (pp. xiii-xvi) outlining
William Fenton's life long study of the Haudenosaunee from the
1930s, his connection to eminent and learned Haudenosaunee, academic
activity, including "the Conference on Iroquois Research" from 1945
to the present.

There are the obligatory acknowledgements (pp. xvii-xviii), a
pronunciation guide (p. xix) and a list of abbreviations (pp.
xxi-xxii).

The Introduction, "The Five Nations and Their Traditional History"
(pp. 3-16), specifies the three periods of Sapling, Deganawidah, the
Peacemaker and of Handsome Lake. The sources (archaeological,
literary and ethnological) are enumerated. The cultural significance
of the condolence ceremony is mentioned. There are the historical
encounters by the French and the Dutch, the arrival of the English,
the Beaver Wars, treaties, wampum, alcohol, peace chiefs, war chiefs
and the extent of European awareness of Haudenosaunee ways. There
are far ranging warfare, the arrival of distant refugees, including
the Tuscaroras, European goods and weapons, the divisive impact of
the Seven Years War, the American Revolution, the early treaties
with the United States, the migrations to Canada and continuing
consequences of European borders and the weight of European
governments.

Chapter One, "Culture Patterns" (pp. 19-33), introduces
"Upstreaming," moving backwards in history from what is known, sets
the geographical background: trees, herbs, animals, territorial
limits, noting the later far ranging drives for beaver, discusses
contentious population estimates, postulating some twenty thousand
Haudenosaunee prior to the 1633 smallpox epidemic. There are:
hunting by men and farming by women, natural cycles, including
movements of towns because of depleted soil, the longhouse,
tatooing, matrilineal clans, moieties, local ways, achieving
consensus, the prevalence of warfare from the Seventeenth Century
and concerns to replace by adoption those lost as populations
declined.

Chapter Two, "This Island, the World on the Turtle's Back" (pp.
34-50) names some erudite Haudenosaunee (e.g. Hewitt, Gibson,
Newhouse) and outlines cosmogonic myth: Sky Woman pregnant, Sky
Chief jealous, a dream feast, Sky Chief pushing Sky Woman down,
animals seeking earth for turtle's back where Sky Woman reposes, Sky
Woman causing vegetation growth, Sky Woman's daughter pregnant with
quarreling twins, Good-minded and Evil-minded. After birth, they
create good and evil things, contend and Good triumphs. Good-minded
returns the sacred four times to convey the clan system,
thanksgiving ceremonies, first fruit ceremonies and botanical
knowledge.

Chapter Three, "Early Versions of the League Legend" (pp. 51-65):
The Deganawidah legend is highly significant. Europeans knew of it
since the mid Eighteenth Century. John Gibson is Fenton's main
source. The three elder brothers (Flint Folk, Onondaga and Seneca)
may be viewed as paternal uncles of the younger brothers (Cayugas
and Oneidas). Joseph Brant's and John Norton's material on the
League's founding is summarized: disunity, Deganawidah's travels and
convincing of national leaders, including Thadodaho (awarded wing
and staff as keeper of the Council fire). David Cusick's 1825
history is mentioned and Beauchamp's citing of Ephraim Webster for a
Sixteenth Century League foundation date.

Chapter Four, "Ethnologists Discover the League Legend" (pp. 66-84):
Henry Morgan met erudite Haudenosaunee (including wampum keepers) at
Six Nations and Onondaga. They provided a Fifteenth Century date for
the origin of the League. Reference to a solar eclipse in the
Deganawidah legend points some to the eclipse of June 28, 1451.
Confederacies, including the Haudenosaunee one, are very democratic.
Bruce Trigger highlighted the ritual nature of Haudenosaunee
councils. Hale's version noted the role of Hiawatha, the sorcery of
Thadodaho, the opportunity for all willing to join the Great Peace
to do so, etc. Hewitt's describes Thadodaho's oppression of
Hiawatha, polite behaviour, wampum making, ceremonial occurrences
and peace making chiefs, "patient, long-suffering and courageous" p.
79. Wampum belts at Six Nations record relations with many peoples
of the Eastern Woodlands, but not the origin of the Confederacy or
significant interactions with Europeans. There was Seth Newhouse and
efforts to write down the Great Law.

Chapter Five, "Chief Gibson's Account" (pp. 85-97), includes:
Deganawidah's virgin birth, marvellous canoe, concept of the
extended house and the Great Law, reformation of the cannibal, visit
to the Flint Folk, dispatch of Hiawatha to the lake where ducks
uncover wampum shells, visiting the other nations and setting the
use of antlers as emblems of chiefship. There is Wallace's
enumeration of nine elements of the Deganawidah myth, a myth Fenton
sees as fluid. The League's founding may have been an evolutionary
process.

Chapter Six, "Themes and Elements of the League Legend" (pp.
98-103), mentions the extended house, civil order, condolence and
requickening, kinship, matrilineage and metaphors.

Chapter Seven, "The Good Message of Handsome Lake" (pp. 104-119),
recounts emigration to Canada, land loss, loss of livelihood, loss
of self-esteem, Burnt House, Quakers, Cornplanter, Handsome Lake,
women cultivating sixty acres of corn, deer skinned, venison left to
rot, skins traded for whiskey, lumbering and rafting, Handsome
Lake's visions, his favouring traditional ways, including,
"hospitality, generosity and mutual aid" (p. 113), his opposing
whiskey, etc., his travels, influence, rejection by many in an
egalitarian and factional society, his death in 1815 and the
continuing survival of his faith.

Chapter Eight, "Problems in Iroquois Political History" (pp.
120-131), describes themes: troubles, personification, thanking
heaven, dream guessing, magic numbers, reciprocity, requickening,
unanimity, path and the longhouse. Prehistory is raised. The
southern hypothesis (migration from the southeast) was gradually
dropped in favour of an archaeological support for development in
traditional territory. Archaeologists suggest a mid Fifteenth
Century date for the founding of the League. Linguists have made
fascinating studies developing opinions on Proto-Iroquoian society
and on the time frames going back four thousand years for the
division into northern and southern branches of the language family.
The Huron League is mentioned and:

   Warfare between the Hurons and the Five Nations began much later
   over the fur trade, and there is no evidence for it in
   prehistoric times (Trigger 1985:108). p. 130

Chapter Nine, "The Historical Paradigm of the Condolence Council"
(pp. 135-140), mentions sources (Gibson, Hale, Hewitt, Beauchamp,
Michelson, Fenton) and notes the Condolence Council's significance
for understanding treaty councils. He breaks it down into five or
sixteen parts and underlines the reciprocal aspect between the
mourners and those uplifting them.

Chapter Ten (pp. 141-162) describes a 1945 installation ceremony for
Cayuga chiefs.

Chapter Eleven (pp. 163-179) recounts the 1951 installation of
Onondaga chiefs.

Chapter Twelve (pp. 180-190) explores the generally consistent
elements of the Requickening Ceremony and notes its recorded
occurrence from the greeting of Cartier at Hochelaga in 1535 and in
treaty making from 1645. This chapter is essentially a listing and
description of a number of such condolences from those dates into
the late Eighteenth Century with the observation that basically the
same ceremony occurred into the Twentieth Century.

Chapter Thirteen (pp. 191-202): mentions sources for the fifty
League titles, lists them, explores usages of kinship terms as
applied to League member states and to components within states.
Mention is made of anthropological classifications into egalitarian,
decentralized entities, very centralized states and those in the
middle. Haudenosaunee are the first kind.

   The equable person is the ideal leader. He is one who consults
   his colleagues and the people and who operates by consent. He
   never bosses or orders anyone around. His great prestige,
   occasionally translated into joint action with fellow leaders,
   constitutes a kind of diffuse power. pp. 197-198

He notes assigned responsibilities to pairs of people, one from each
moiety, very different from Western individual responsibility, age
grades, linguistic leadership usage, including the often punned
designations of colonial governors and the separation of civil and
military leadership.

Chapter Fourteen (pp. 203-214): matrons, civil chiefs and war chiefs
are the three kinds of leaders. Treaty making was usually a duty of
war chiefs, one reason title holders are less prominent in European
written records. Fenton outlines title appearance in those records,
notes recorded mention of the yearly grand councils at Onondaga and
explains Haudenosaunee concepts concerning the 1777 raking up of the
central fire (due to disease deaths, not factionalism) and the
appropriate condolence ceremony confirmed continuity, carrying the
fire to Grand River and to Buffalo Creek. The pattern of seating
arrangements and procedures of consultations by nation, by clan and
by moiety are presented.

Chapter Fifteen (pp. 215-223): quoted are League bylaws concerning
matrons' duties, replacement of matrons rejecting warnings to act in
a clear headed way, condolence, warning of chiefs and replacement of
those refusing to act in a clear headed way.

Chapter Sixteen (pp. 224-239): beads from shells on Long Island,
etc. have been uncovered in Western New York dating from some four
thousand five hundred years ago, though beads complying with
determining wampum criteria of size, shape and species are no more
than eighteen hundred years old. Wampum was highly valued. With it
Europeans acquired Native attention and furs. In time treaty belts
became impressive in size and number of beads. Fenton speaks on
reading wampum belts, lists belt symbols and remarks on four belts
(Hiawatha, post Columbian, 6,916 beads; Washington 1775 or 1789,
10,000 beads; evergrowing tree, "the widest extant belt, being fifty
rows deep; it measures 31.5 by 14.5 inches"; Covenant Chain c. 14 by
27 inches).


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