A constitutional league of peace in the stone age of America : $b The League of the Iroquois and its constitutionHewitt, J. N. B. (John Napoleon Brinton)
History
A constitutional league of peace in the stone age of America : $b The League of the Iroquois and its constitution
Hewitt, J. N. B. (John Napoleon Brinton)
Indians of North America; Iroquois Indians
Deganawida having descended from the top of the lodge went forward
to meet his host. Because of his recent experience Hiawatha was very
much pleased to have a guest who brought him the wonderful message of
peace and righteousness and power. The result of this conference was
the conversion of Hiawatha to the reform program of Deganawida and
his agreement to aid in the work of bringing about the change in the
attitude and relation of men one to another.
According to tradition, Deganawida gave him his name after his
conversion, and Hiawatha became a loyal and enthusiastic disciple
of Deganawida and gave up everything in order to devote all his
energies and time to the work of establishing the projected league or
confederation of peoples in accordance with the principles expounded by
Deganawida. He indeed undertook several very important missions for his
great teacher and acquited himself with great credit.
The most effective and unscrupulous opposition the two reformers
encountered in their work came from the noted Onondaga chief, Atotarho
(Watatotarho), a wizard and sorcerer who was feared far and near, who,
during the years in which the league was being brought into being,
removed by secret means, it is said, the seven daughters (some versions
say three) and then the wife of Hiawatha, his opponent.
No place is given by tradition as Hiawatha’s birthplace, although some
analysts declare that he was a half-brother of the fierce chieftain
Atotarho (Watatotarho), of the Onondaga, his pitiless antagonist.
This tradition asserts that he lived among the Mohawk and married the
daughter of a chief there and that he himself became a chief among
these people. His name is still on the list of titles of federal Mohawk
chiefs.
In the other version of the tradition of the founding of the league of
the Iroquois Hiawatha is treated as the chief actor in the conception
and establishment of this confederacy instead of the real founder,
Deganawida. But from a careful survey of the narrative of events herein
this version is found to be much less faithful to facts than the one
first mentioned.
It appears that in this tradition the several missions upon which his
mentor, Deganawida, sent him, were fused together in such wise as to
make them merely a series of events or episodes in a single journey of
Hiawatha, which he was alleged to have made in despair, going directly
southward from the Onondaga council lodge; on this journey he was said
to “have split the sky,” meaning merely that he took a course directly
south. Herein, too, he fled from Onondaga because of vexation of
spirit for the loss of his children by the will of the great sorcerer,
Atotarho (Watatotarho).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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