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Home , Clan Mother, Hiawatha, Iroquois, Mohawk people, Treaty of Canandaigua

Chapter 2 The Clearings and The Woods: The Haudenosaunee () Landscape – Gendered and Balanced

Robert W. Venables

You who are wise must know, that different Nations have different Conceptions. A Haudenosaunee Spokesman addressing English Colonial Officials in 1744 Recorded by Benjamin Franklin1

The way a society divides up the land says a great deal about the way the society divides up itself. Lois Levitan, Center for the Environment, , 1998

Introduction: The Haudenosaunee and Their Landscape

The core homeland of the Haudenosaunee, also known as the Iroquois, stretches east to west across what is now upstate (Fig. 2.1). Haudenosaunee (“Ho-deh-no-show-knee”) means “People of the Longhouse” (Powless 2000:14). “Iroquois” was originally a pejorative used by Algonquian Indian enemies of the Haudenosaunee meaning “real adders” Ð that is, really nasty killers (Hewitt 1969a:I, 617).2 During the colonial period, however, the word “Iroquois” was used by the allies of the Haudenosaunee, the English, and even by the Haudenosaunee them- selves, so that today the Haudenosaunee often refer to themselves as “Iroquois.” The

R.W. Venables (B) Retired, Department of Landscape Architecture, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA e-mail: [email protected] 1Benjamin Franklin, “Remarks Concerning the Savages of [1783],” (1987: 970). 2The idea that the word “Iroquois” has its origin in the language of Basque fishermen off is put forward by P. Bakker, “A Basque Etymology for the Word ‘Iroquois’” in Man in the Northeast Volume 40 (1990), 89Ð93. This author is not convinced.

S. Baugher, S.M. Spencer-Wood (eds.), Archaeology and Preservation of Gendered 21 Landscapes, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-1501-6_2, C Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010 22 R.W. Venables

Fig. 2.1 Within this core homeland of the Haudenosaunee, the Confederacy’s five founding nations united as early as AD 1142. This original map by Fredricka René Davis includes her well-researched and carefully proportioned rendering of a typical longhouse, 20 feet wide and 200 feet long 2 The Clearings and The Woods 23

Haudenosaunee confederacy was founded as early as AD 1142 by the interactions of all the Haudenosaunee people. They ended a horrific civil war by responding to the spiritually-inspired messages of Deganawidah, a young man who is also known as “The Peacemaker”; Hayonhwatha (), an elderly man; Jigonhsasee, a pow- erful woman; and Tadadaho, a powerful but corrupt male leader whose mind was changed by the teachings of The Peacemaker (Wallace 1994).3 The Haudenosaunee confederacy originally consisted of five nations: from east to west, the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Onondagas, the Cayugas, and the Senecas. Each of these peo- ple speaks a slightly different language within a language family now known as “Iroquoian” (Lounsbury 1978:334Ð343). (The degrees of differences are similar to those between French, Italian, and Spanish within the Romance language family.) To reinforce their population, the Haudenosaunee adopted individuals from other Indian nations and even adopted whole nations such as the Tuscaroras. Because the English colonists referred to the Tuscaroras as the sixth nation of the Confederacy, the Haudenosaunee were widely known as “The Six Nations” (Morgan 1995:23; Bond 1952:94Ð95; Garratt 1985:81Ð86). The Haudenosaunee Ð “People of the Longhouse” Ð originally lived in multi- family longhouses that varied in size. One of the longest longhouses was built by the Onondagas in one of their towns that archaeologists have named the Howlett Hill Site. This town was about six miles southwest of present-day Syracuse. This Onondaga longhouse measured 334 feet long and 23 feet wide and was occupied by the Onondagas between AD 1380 and 1400. (Tuck 1971:77Ð82; Nabokov and Eston 1989:78Ð79, 82). Typical longhouses sheltered dozens of people and were constructed of arched saplings, poles, and large bark sheets. In 1743, John Bartram visited the Onondagas and described the longhouse he stayed in:

about 80 feet long, and 17 broad, the common [center] passage 6 feet wide; and the apart- ments on each side, 5 feet, raised a foot above the passage by a long sapling hewed square, and fitted with joints that go from it to the back of the house; on these joists they lay large pieces of bark, and on extraordinary occasions spread matts made of rushes, this favour we had; on these [raised] floors they set or lye down every one as he will (Bartram 1966:40Ð41).

Since the Haudenosaunee are a centuries-old confederacy of different Indian nations, the multifamily longhouse is a fitting symbol. “Haudenosaunee” is a ref- erence both to the physical longhouse and to the geopolitical symbol used by the Haudenosaunee to define their original territory. The Mohawks live along the Valley and are known as the Keepers of the Eastern Door. To the west of the Mohawks are the Oneidas. In the center, the Onondagas preside over the confederacy “capital” where the Grand Council, representing all the nations of the confederacy, meets. The Cayugas reside west of the Onondagas. Finally, the Senecas are the Keepers of the Western Door (Morgan 1995).

3The white roots refer to the teachings that reach out in all four directions from the of Peace, planted by the Peacemaker as a symbol of the Confederacy. 24 R.W. Venables

The intention of this chapter is to present Haudenosaunee concepts of a gen- dered landscape that will enrich the professional work of archaeologists, landscape architects, and preservationists. However, it is important to stress that while some Haudenosaunee concepts may be similar to those held by other Indian nations, each “First Nation” in the Americas holds its own unique worldview.

From Seascape to Landscape: The Haudenosaunee Gendered Origin Account of the World

The entire Haudenosaunee landscape is gendered. This is because the whole Haudenosaunee worldview is gendered, beginning with the origin account (what the West would term Genesis). This origin account is too complex to describe in a chap- ter that focuses on the physical landscape. But briefly stated, the Haudenosaunee origin account begins in a Sky World above this earth. Spiritual beings, both female and male, live in this Sky World. A male known as “Taronhiawakon” (“Holder of the Heavens”) is married to “Iotsitsisen” (“Mature Flower”). Pregnant, she falls from the Sky World down toward a primal sea where there is no land. Canadian Geese break her fall, interlocking their wings to form a lattice of support. A great agrees to allow Iotsitsisen to take refuge upon his back (Fig. 2.2). The turtle knew that muck lay at the sea bottom, and so , Otter, and Pickerel each try to reach the bottom to bring up some of the mud. Each of them dies. The little Muskrat then tries, and

Fig. 2.2 Sky Woman Ð Iotsitsisen (Mature Flower) Ð atop the turtle’s back. By John Kahionhes Fadden (Mohawk) 2 The Clearings and The Woods 25 although he also dies, he had managed to reach the sea bottom before drowning. When his tiny body floats to the surface, he has a bit of muck clutched in his paw. Other animals place the muck onto the turtle’s back. Iotsitsisen, who is also known as “Sky Woman,” begins to sing and to dance. As she dances upon the turtle’s back, both the muck and the turtle expand. The earth that Sky Woman magically creates becomes known as Mother Earth. And because Mother Earth is atop the great turtle, Sky Woman gives the new land the name “Turtle Island.” Sky Woman gives birth to a daughter, “Tekawerahkwa” (“Gusts of Wind”). The daughter is impregnated by the West Wind, and she gives birth to twin sons, “Okwiraseh” (“Sapling”) and “Tawiskaron” (“Flint”). In an extremely complex series of events, Sky Woman, her husband “Taronhiawakon” (“Holder of the Heavens”), her daughter, and the twins all contribute to the transformation of the world. Thus today’s landscape, according to the Haudenosaunee, is not a creation from a void undertaken by a single spiritual force. Instead, it is the transformation of a preexisting seascape into a landscape. This transformation is accomplished by spiritual forces who cooperate with exist- ing mortals such as the geese, fish, and . And, as a part of this transformation of the world, Okwiraseh (“Sapling”), inspired by his grandfather “Taronhiawakon” (“Holder of the Heavens”), creates the human beings.4

The Longhouse and the Gendered Landscape

Since the Haudenosaunee are the People of the Longhouse, the longhouse is an appropriate place to begin a description of how the physical landscape of the Haudenosaunee is gendered. Each longhouse is a gendered landscape. Each long- house belonged to the women of one of the many “” that defined, and still define, extended families. Descent among the Haudenosaunee was, and still is, matrilineal (Hewitt 1990:54). Within each longhouse, everyone was related either directly or by marriage to the eldest female resident. A longhouse was entered through doors at either end Ð doors that were often sheltered by a smaller, roofed porch. A painted symbol of a was often above the door of each longhouse (van den Bogaert 1988:13; Morgan 1965:64Ð65). A new husband moved into the long- house of his wife, mother-in-law, and grandmother-in-law (Tooker 1990:210Ð214; Shafer 1990:77Ð78). Let us assume the new husband is a member of the Bear Clan (his mother’s clan). His new wife is a Wolf, and so every day he passes beneath the sign of the Wolf. Imagine now a small town in present-day America in which every mailbox along every street is emblazoned with the name of the wife, not the husband, who lives in and owns each home. Quite a contrast! Now imagine enter- ing a tall apartment building in a big American city and, in the lobby, seeing a list of apartments and a list of mailboxes that announce the names of the wives, not

4This account is a composite of what the author has learned over the years from elders and from sources such as Parker 1989: 59Ð73; Fenton 1998: 34Ð50; and Shenandoah and George 1998: 8 and 14. 26 R.W. Venables the husbands, who live here. Finally, imagine that all these homes and apartment buildings belong to women. There is no Donald Trump. Upon entering any Haudenosaunee longhouse, everything except the personal accessories and clothing of the men belongs to the women (Schoolcraft 1975:88Ð89; Morgan 1985:76; Brown 1990:190). If a Haudenosaunee woman wanted to divorce her husband, she put his belongings outside the door.5 The husband had to retreat to the longhouse of his mother, where he had to explain to her exactly why another woman had thrown him out. Because the murder of a woman also eliminated future children, the crime of killing a woman by a man was regarded as twice as serious as a man killing another man. But if a woman killed a woman, the crime was regarded as even worse. Murders were usually compensated by gifts, including gifts of Ð tubular shell beads, which were regarded as having spiritual life.6 Thus the compensation for a woman murdered by a man was twice that of a man murdered by another man, and even greater if the woman was killed by another woman. To spare a murderer of either sex, the aggrieved family received at least 10 strings of wampum. For a male murdered by another male, 10 strings of wampum; for a woman murdered by a man, 20 strings of wampum; and for a woman murdered by another woman, 30 strings of wampum (Hewitt 1990:63Ð64). All this may at first appear to be clear components of a Ð simply the gender opposite of the Western European and American system of . However, Haudenosaunee society is not a matriarchy, nor is it a patriarchy. Haudenosaunee society is far more intricate, because the premise is “balance.”

The Balance of All Life

“Balance” is the key word in Haudenosaunee society, and in fact the whole Haudenosaunee worldview is based on balance Ð not “either/or.” When things go wrong, as indeed they do in any and all human societies, the answers posed by the Haudenosaunee are based on the idea of finding ways to rebalance the situa- tion. Progress Ð the adaptation to new ideas Ð was important, but not as important as balance. In turn, balance does not work without equality, and thus equality per- vades the entire Haudenosaunee worldview. The Haudenosaunee believe that all life forms, including human beings, are equal and that all life forms have equal spiritual

5Placing the hapless husband’s belongings outside the door is an image based on personal conver- sations, usually spiked with humor, with Onondaga female elders, which began for this author in the spring of 1971 and continues till today. These oral traditions are supported by Morgan 1965: 66 and Brown 1990: 186Ð187. 6“Wampum” is a colonial English word from the Algonquin word “wam-pum-peh-ak” meaning a white string of shell beads which are animate Ð that is, shell beads that are alive and thus have a liv- ing, ongoing spiritual power. White beads were most often made from periwinkle shells. Wampum also includes purple shell beads, primarily made from quahog shells (Hewitt 1969b: II, 904Ð909; and Beauchamp 1901: 327, 333, and 338). 2 The Clearings and The Woods 27 consciousness Ð “souls.” , an Onondaga Haudenosaunee leader and a spokesman for the Haudenosaunee, noted in 1979: In our perception all life is equal, and that includes the birds, the animals, the things that grow, things that swim. All life is equal in our perception (Lyons 1980:173). All these life forms have different functions. “Female” and “male” are only cate- gories within the wider range of differences. Because all life forms are equal, all life forms must be equally respected, and thus the world functions through reciprocity. All beings in the world are therefore interdependent. Because differences among all beings contribute to an interdependent whole, the differences among beings are not “separate” functions. While all life forms are equal, all beings maintain differ- ent spheres of responsibility, different functions. Thus the roles of men and women were Ð and are Ð “different and equal,” not “separate but equal.” The nineteenth century-ethnologist analyzed this complex interdependence of women and men, and he concluded that “the complete equality of the sexes in social esti- mation and influence is apparent in all the narratives of early ” (Hale 1963:65). The Haudenosaunee worldview begins with the idea that each human being and every other being are exactly who the Creator intended. Every being has an equal soul; every being is equal; and every being has a divinely mandated, different func- tion. Thus the Haudenosaunee worldview applies to all life, not just human life. Hunters thanked the spirits of the animals they hunted before they began the hunt, and they thanked the spirits of those animals after they had completed a hunt, on the premise that the animals and the humans knew that all life was dependent upon the other (Engelbrecht 2003:4Ð5).7 In contrast to this Haudenosaunee view of interde- pendent life, note that in prayers given at American Thanksgiving dinners, families give thanks to the Judaic-Christian God for the turkey but they customarily do not directly thank the turkey. The Haudenosaunee concept of interdependent life in turn depended upon the idea that prayers and ceremonies could rebalance the value of a material life with intangible, spiritual actions. This even applied to enemies, as the Haudenosaunee ended wars in condolence ceremonies during which they accepted responsibility for the pain and death they had caused the other side, and asked the other side to do the same, as both sides were being watched by the Creator (Vimont 1896Ð1901, XXVII, 257Ð259; Jennings et al. 1985:127Ð153). Because the Haudenosaunee worldview is incorporative and seeks to bal- ance what is perceived to be a world inhabited by spiritually equal beings, the Haudenosaunee worldview is still evident today in their spiritual perception of the non-Indians who now occupy so much of their homelands. This view was articulated in 1979 by the late Leon Shenandoah, an Onondaga, while he was serving as the “Tadadaho” of the Haudenosaunee. The Tadadaho’s obligations include guiding the confederacy’s council of chiefs in their deliberations. Chief Shenandoah, referring to all the non-Indian human inhabitants throughout the Americas, remarked:

7In 1743, John Bartram observed a hunter thanking the spirit of a bear he had killed (Bartram 1966: 25). 28 R.W. Venables

For some reason, the Creator has allowed you to stay. I don’t know why. And I don’t think you know why. But I do know that we will have to work it out together (personal communication, , New York, April 1979). This is not to say, either in history or today, that the Haudenosaunee never made mistakes, for indeed they have and indeed they still do. But when they make mistakes, they ask different questions and pose different solutions based on their worldview Ð a worldview, it must be stressed, that is what the Creator intended them to follow, and not simply a human invention. This worldview is today not necessar- ily held by all Haudenosaunee, because many have become Christians. Especially in the nineteenth century, those who followed the traditional teachings of their ances- tors were called “pagans” by most non-Indians (New York State 1889:410). The Haudenosaunee who follow the old ways, including the teachings of , refer to themselves as “Longhouse.”

The Balance of The Clearings and The Woods

Balance is found throughout the Haudenosaunee landscape. Haudenosaunee women were responsible for the longhouses, the towns of longhouses, and the communal agricultural fields. These areas were collectively known as “The Clearings.” Arthur C. Parker, a Seneca who was also one of the important archaeologists of the early twentieth century, described how the land was cleared of :

Land for cornfields was cleared by girdling the trees in the spring, and allowing them to die. The next spring the underbrush was burned off. By burning off tracts in the forest large clearings were made suitable for fields and towns (Parker 1968a:21). A similar method was recorded in 1760 by Warren Johnson, the brother of Indian Superintendent Sir William Johnson. Warren Johnson also noted that the cleared land was never more than what the Haudenosaunee needed:

When clearing Land, the[y] Set fire to the Timber, & burn it to ashes, which they Scatter about on the ground; they make Charcoal of Wood; they never clear more Land than Serves for their Own Use (Johnson 1921Ð1965:XIII, 195). In 1634, a Dutch colonist, Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert, visited sev- eral Mohawk towns. Some of the towns were stockaded (Fig. 2.3), while others were not. Although hilltop towns provided superior defenses when compared to towns in valleys or flatlands, the presence or absence of stockades was not related to their location. Thus stockaded towns could be found in lowlands as well as on hilltops, and towns without stockades could be found both on high and low ground (van den Bogaert 1988:3Ð5). Van den Bogaert and other Dutch colonists referred to large towns as “casteels” Ð castles Ð evidently because of their striking appearance on the landscape, whether on hilltops or in lowlands. But the “cas- teels” he described were not all stockaded (van den Bogaert 1988:5, 7, 27 at fn. 17). People from towns without probably took refuge in nearby fortified towns (van den Bogaert 1988:5, 7, 27 at fn. 17). , which Van den Bogaert 2 The Clearings and The Woods 29

Fig. 2.3 Typical longhouses within a . Note two clan symbols Ð Turtle and Wolf Ð at the entrances of two of the longhouses. A raised corn storage house (silo) is on the left. By John Kahionhes Fadden (Mohawk)

described as already devastating the , was another factor shaping the Haudenosaunee landscape. A dispersal of people lessened the quick spread of that disease and may explain the existence of Mohawk towns without stockades (Engelbrecht 2003:102). By the late , all the Haudenosaunee were dispersing into small satellite communities that would lessen the impact of European diseases. As matrilineages were decimated by disease, longhouses were giving way to smaller bark home called a Ganosote. By the beginning of the in 1775, log cabins and even cabins of “hewn plank” (Hubley 1887:160) were common (Jenkins 1887:173Ð175). Van den Bogaert described Onekahoncka, a Mohawk town on the south bank of the Mohawk River near what is now Fultonville. Onekahoncka

stood on a high hill. There were only 36 houses, row on row in the manner of streets, so that we easily could pass through. These houses are constructed and covered with the bark of trees .... Some are 100, 90, or 80 steps long; 22 or 23 feet high. There were also some interior doors made of split planks furnished with iron hinges. In some houses we also saw ironwork: iron chains, bolts, harrow teeth, iron hoops [and] spikes (van den Bogaert 1988:3Ð4 and 29 at fn. 18).

Because the Mohawks, along with the other Haudenosaunee, are a communal people, one can only wonder how the division of the longhouse interiors by doors with iron hinges might have altered the matrilineal dynamics of the longhouse and the town. To the west of Onekahoncka, Van den Bogaert described another town, also on the south bank of the Mohawk River, the 30 R.W. Venables

castle called TENOTOGE. It had 55 houses, some 100 steps and others more or less as large... . The castle was [in the past] surrounded with three rows of palisades. However, now there were only 6 or 7 [posts] left (van den Bogaert 1988:9). It is possible that the remaining stockade logs standing as silent sentinels around this Mohawk town had not been removed because smallpox had reduced the avail- able labor. The post molds of logs such as these may have a different consistency when compared to the post molds of the other logs in a palisade, and archaeolo- gists might consider the difference in post molds as a possible indication of labor exhaustion brought on by smallpox, rather than the equally compelling possibil- ity that these logs were newer replacements in an existing stockade. However one might interpret other sites, it is probably too late to interpret the Mohawk town of Tenotoge because archaeologists believe that this once formidable town now lies under the traffic speeding east and west along the New York State Thruway (van den Bogaert 1988:38 at fn. 62). In 1677, Wentworth Greenhalgh, an English trader, visited Onondaga and described how The Clearings Ð the main Onondaga town and corn fields Ð were very large; consisting of about 140 houses, nott fenced [no defensive stockade]; is situate[d] upon a hill thatt is very large, the banke on each side extending itself att least two miles, all cleared land, whereon the corne is planted (Greenhalgh 1849Ð1851:I, 15). The archaeologist James A. Tuck (1971:20 [map], 177Ð186) concluded that this town is the archaeological site known as “Indian Hill,” about 8 miles southeast of the present city of Syracuse, New York, and 8 miles east of today’s . The women’s fields at Onondaga and other Haudenosaunee towns were concen- trated in what scientists now know as the most fertile soil in , located in a band stretching from the Mohawk Valley through the northern sections of the . This fertile band also constitutes the core areas of the confed- eracy’s five founding nations (Engelbrecht:2 [Map 1] and 91 [Map 3]). The women were especially focused on the cultivation of corn, beans, and squash. These three crops are regarded by the Haudenosaunee as female and are known as “The Three Sisters.” In Haudenosaunee religion, these three crops sprang from the buried body of the daughter of Sky Woman (Parker 1968:5Ð119; Lewandowski 1989:41Ð45). The corn grew upward from her breasts. Recalling this source, the women planted the corn in mounds of earth shaped like breasts, a practice which simultaneously meant that the women were practicing nonintrusive agriculture (Fig. 2.4). In balance, the men were responsible for “The Woods” Ð all the lands, lakes, rivers, and streams beyond The Clearings.8 The extensive systems linking the rivers and lakes of The Woods were the main routes the men used to hunt, travel, and trade. There were also extensive trails crisscrossing the landscape, many of which

8I would like to thank Chief Irving Powless, Jr. (Onondaga), and Oren Lyons (Onondaga) for their insights into the complex nature of the Clearings and the Woods and for all the other insights they have generously shared with me since 1971. I am also grateful to Rick Hill (Tuscarora) for his insights regarding the Clearings and the Woods that he shared with me in 1998 and 1999. 2 The Clearings and The Woods 31

Fig. 2.4 Corn Woman, one of the Three Sisters, behind a mound planted with corn, beans, and squash. The “Tree of Peace,” planted by the Peacemaker as a symbol of the Confederacy, can be seen in the background on the right. The artist, John Kahionhes Fadden (Mohawk), notes that the dead branches at the mound’s base are “a symbol of how much of life grows from the bodies of other life”

were transformed into the highways of today. Two examples are Routes 5 and 20 that run eastÐwest across upstate New York.9 Trade was conducted from Clearing to Clearing within the Confederacy; with other Indian nations; and, eventually, with the Europeans (Engelbrecht 2003:137Ð138; Endreny 2005:1664 and 1666Ð1669). Although The Woods were the primary responsibility of the men, women and men both engaged in trade. The Woods also included the sites of abandoned towns and abandoned fields. Some abandoned fields had been vacant for and even centuries, while the more recently abandoned fields were being encouraged to rejuvenate their strengths by lying fallow (Engelbrecht 2003:99Ð101; Fenton 1978:296Ð321; Dennis

9Major Haudenosaunee trails, which can then be compared to a contemporary highway map, are defined in Morgan 1995 and Engelbrecht 2003: 175. 32 R.W. Venables

1993:105Ð111; Tooker 1984:109Ð123).10 Any abandoned towns and fields that were encountered while traveling through The Woods were, as a matter of cus- tom and religion, respectfully remembered as the residences of ancestors (Gibson 1992:593Ð595). The density of many parts of The Woods was described in 1743 by John Bartram: We observed the tops of the trees to be so close to one another for many miles together, that there is no seeing which way the clouds drive, nor which way the wind sets: and it seems almost as if the sun had never shone on the ground, since the creation (Bartram 1966:37). Because Haudenosaunee agricultural fields were the responsibility of women (Brown 1990:190Ð191), the locations of the fields and the towns reflected the choices of women. While men would have had an input regarding a town’s defen- sive location, even the best-defended town would fail if it was not located near fertile fields. When the women realized that their fields were becoming less fertile, they would know it was time to move to a town Ð something that occurred every

Fig. 2.5 A woman pounding corn, with braided ears of corn hanging in the background. The decorated castellated collar (rim) of the pot over the fire demonstrates a balance of aesthetics and practicality, as the collar supports a cord so that the pot can be suspended over the cooking fire. By John Kahionhes Fadden (Mohawk)

10Although written for high school students, an excellent summary of the balance between the Clearings and the Woods is related by Hazel W. Hertzberg, in a chapter she entitles “Patterns of Space: Forest and Clearing” in her The Great Tree and the Longhouse: The Culture of the Iroquois (1966: 23Ð34). 2 The Clearings and The Woods 33

10 or 20 years (Engelbrecht 2003:101). Since the town’s longhouses were under the direction of matrilineal clans, the layout of a town landscape and the interior use of the longhouses also reflected the directions of the women. This gendered landscape carried over into daily life. Thus when a husband killed a deer and brought the deer from The Woods into The Clearings, the deer became the responsibility of his wife and her clan. The women cooked the deer as well as other foods from The Woods such as fish and geese. The women also cooked the crops they raised (Fig. 2.5), using beautifully crafted clay pots they made (Engelbrecht 2003:82Ð83). Thus the decorated pots and potsherds found at Haudenosaunee archaeological sites and seen in museums are “women’s art” (Fig. 2.6). Moreover, the women created their pottery from another female: “Mother Earth” (Engelbrecht 2003:87). In fact, the women’s responsibilities centered around a female cycle. Mother Earth had been created by the spiritual power of Sky Woman. Mother Earth provided “The Three Sisters” (corn, beans, and squash), which had grown from the body of Sky Woman’s daugh- ter, and these “Three Sisters” were grown by the women in their fields in their towns that lay in their Clearings. Even more profoundly, as the women Ð and the men Ð worked at their tasks, they believed Ð and still believe Ð that their future children are just beneath the surface of Mother Earth, looking up at the current generation. When a Haudenosaunee man acquired trade goods acquired from other Indian nations or from the Europeans, those goods became the responsibility of the women as soon as those goods entered The Clearings. But the basic divisions between women and men of The Clearings and The Woods were practical and flexible. Thus in The Clearings, the men were the primary builders of the longhouses and of the stockades. The men helped clear the fields of trees by girdling, felling, and burning the trees. Although women usually harvested the crops, if the harvest had to be brought in quickly, the men assisted the women. Thus , President ’s ambassador to the Haudenosaunee, noted in a let- ter of October 8, 1794, how the Haudenosaunee “worked with uncommon zeal to get in their harvest of corn, the men & boys (which is not usual) assisting the women and girls, that it might be accomplished” (Pickering 1794:Reel 60, frame 203A). The flexibility of Haudenosaunee society was also seen when women, and chil- dren, helped the men fish in The Woods, where seasonal camps were set up on the banks of rivers and lakes. Both men and women traveled through The Woods Ð on trails or on waterways Ð to trade with other Haudenosaunee communities and with neighboring nations. Women, protected by the laws and customs of the Confederacy, could travel across The Woods without warrior escort, as noted in December 1634 when the Dutch colonist, Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert, encountered sev- eral women staying alone in a cabin. This was evidently one of the cabins the Haudenosaunee established throughout The Woods for the use of travelers (van den Bogaert 1988:3Ð4). That same month, while van den Bogaert was in a Mohawk vil- lage in the Mohawk Valley, he noted the arrival of three women. They were Oneidas from the area of to the west of the Mohawk towns. These three women had carried dried salmon at least 100 miles, salmon which they then sold in at least two Mohawk villages: 34 R.W. Venables

Fig. 2.6 A woman creating a clay pot, by John Kahionhes Fadden (Mohawk). Before the pots were fired, they were formed without the use of a wheel, making their balance and structure all the more remarkable. Castellated collars (rims) often included sacred effigies or small faces (maskettes), represented here by a small circle above the collar of the middle pot

Three women came here ...with some dried and fresh salmon.... They also brought much green tobacco to sell, and had been six days underway. They could not sell all their salmon here, but with it to the first castle [that is, a Mohawk village further east] (van den Bogaert 1988:6).

The Haudenosaunee system was/is not rigid because it is based on maintain- ing balance in the real world, not a world based on abstract principles. A balanced reality calls for pragmatic solutions. The principle of balance carried over into Haudenosaunee politics. All the chiefs in The Clearings are men, thus balancing the matrilineal nature of The Clearings. However, the responsibility of appointing male chiefs rests with the clan mothers after they have consulted with the women of their clan. A chief serves for life unless a , on the advice of the other women in her clan, deposes him. Such a removal must then be sanctioned by the male chiefs of the entire Confederacy’s Grand Council, and if approved, the chiefs of the Onondaga nation have the responsibility of finalizing the end of the deposed chief’s tenure (Fenton 1978:296Ð297, 306Ð307, 309Ð312). The symbol of leader- ship worn by Haudenosaunee chiefs is deer horns, and “dehorning” occurs when a 2 The Clearings and The Woods 35 chief is removed by a clan mother from his office (Tooker 1978:426, 424Ð428).11 There were also male leaders called “Pine Tree Chiefs” who held this temporary office for a specific purpose or emergency (Gibson 1992:465, 442Ð472; Fenton 1978:314). Religious ceremonies and government councils were communal, with shared responsibilities reflecting the Haudenosaunee concept of maintaining balance. For example, described the balance of a council meeting: The old Men sit in the foremost Ranks, the Warriors in the next, and the Women and Children in the hindmost. The Business of the Women is to take exact notice of what passes, imprint it on their Memories, for they have no Writing, and communicate it to their Children. They are the Records of the Council, and they preserve Tradition of the Stipulations in a hundred Years back, which when we compare with our Writings we always find exact (Franklin 1987:970). In preparation for the men’s roles as hunters and warriors, the men played the game of . These lacrosse games were usually played in The Clearings, but occasionally lacrosse could also be played in The Woods, as noted by the French officer Louis Antoine de Bougainville in 1758 (de Bougainville 1964:249).12 Today, lacrosse is still an integral part of Haudenosaunee life. The origin of lacrosse was spiritual. Historically, women placed the bets on the outcome of the lacrosse games played by men because the women possessed most of the goods that were either created in or brought into The Clearings. Lacrosse is more than a game because it involves sacred and religious components that are not a part of the sport played by non-Indians. A game can be played, for example, to help heal a sick woman, man, or child (Mitchell et al. 1978:8; and Vennum 1994:184Ð185).

The Interdependent Landscapes of Confederacy, Nation, and Clan

Haudenosaunee women and men did not (and do not) define themselves as only members of the Confederacy. Each person was and is a member of the Confederacy as a whole; a member of one of the confederacy’s nations; and a member of a specific clan. Matrilineal clans were the glue that tied people to the whole confed- eracy because unlike the individual nations that made up the Confederacy, the clans stretched across national boundaries to include the entire Confederacy. Through their clans, people from one nation literally had relatives in one or more other nations across the Confederacy. When visiting another town or village, women and men could stay within the longhouses of their respective clans. Visitors to towns

11Each Haudenosaunee nation in the Confederacy has a different language, and so the English word “chief” serves as a convenient term. In Mohawk, for example, the word for chief is “royaner” and in Seneca “hotiyanesho ” (Fenton 1978: 314). 12During the , during which this game was played, Mohawk Haudenosaunee who had been converted to Catholicism in the 1600s had moved back to the St. Lawrence Valley and fought on the side of the French, while their Mohawk brethren in the Mohawk Valley Ð some of whom were Protestants, while most were traditional Ð fought on the side of the British. 36 R.W. Venables where they did not have a clan affiliation, or visitors who were not Haudenosaunee (such as Europeans), were provided with special housing. The people in the towns and nations were also divided in half (each half is called a moiety by anthropolo- gists). This added still another dimension to a complex personal identity (Fenton 1978:312Ð314). The number of clans was severely reduced by an epidemic disease accidentally introduced by the Europeans, and it is therefore unknown if each clan once existed in every one of the nations within the confederacy. The names of these clans were Turtle, Snapping Turtle, Tortoise, Wolf, Snipe, Beaver, Ball, Hawk, Deer, Eel, Eagle, Pigeon Hawk, Plover, Killdeer, Heron, Big Bear, Younger Bear, and Suckling Bear. There may have been others (Speck 1955:29). Despite the European epidemics, the Turtle (Fig. 2.7), Bear, and Wolf clans survived in all six nations of the Confederacy (Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora) (Snow 1994:55; Fenton 1978:313). Other clans survived, such as the Deer and Eel, but not in all of the nations. Clans not only served to bind the Confederacy’s population, they sorted out who could marry whom Ð a clan member could not marry a member of the same clan (Speck 1955:29).

The Dual Identity of The Woods and Spheres of Responsibility

While The Clearings were and are in the national lands of only one nation (such as the Onondaga Nation),The Woods have a dual identity. The Woods are Confederacy lands, which means The Woods are the responsibility of all the five founding nations of the Confederacy (Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Tuscaroras). But The Woods are simultaneously recognized as being divided into the borders of those five founding Confederacy nations (Gibson 1992:460Ð461). The boundaries of these five nations are more accurately described as national spheres of respon- sibility and influence. In this context, The Woods are the equal responsibility of the Confederacy as a whole and, in their different locales, the responsibility of one of the five founding nations. Because there is no ultimate sovereign power, these simultaneous and equal responsibilities have no real parallel in Western law, includ- ing Western property law. These simultaneous and equal responsibilities are also what make the Confederacy a unique and delicate balance of equal responsibili- ties among its confederate parts. The concept of The Woods exemplifies a broader fact with regard to Haudenosaunee politics: the Confederacy is not centralized, and has no centralized supreme power with subordinate political entities such as the “federal-state” structure of the . The separation of territories into The Clearings and The Woods evidently existed in some form prior to the founding of the Confederacy. The specific details of the concepts could have been different Ð for example, before the Confederacy was founded, it is not known whether the women or the men controlled The Clearings. However, even before the founding of the Confederacy (Parker 1916:22), there was an established ritual expected whenever people wished to emerge from The Woods 2 The Clearings and The Woods 37

Fig. 2.7 The Turtle Clan, by John Kahionhes Fadden (Mohawk). The Haudenosaunee worldview of balance Ð of genders, ages, and all human characteristics Ð mean that all are equal but different, including differences in personalities and abilities and enter any of The Clearings. Approaching humans fell into two categories: those who came in peace and those who were enemies. Of course it was unlikely that ene- mies would announce themselves, but an announcement of peaceful intentions was ritualized. If one or more of those within an approaching party was Haudenosaunee or already respected by them, that person might go ahead and alert a town that vis- itors were close by (Bartram 1966:40). But if that was not possible, a person intent on conveying friendly intentions stopped at “The Edge of The Woods,”13 which of course was also the edge of The Clearings. At The Edge of the Woods, a person was expected to light a fire or to shout loudly. Whether the people in The Clearings were alerted by a messenger, by smoke, or by shouts, a male or female messenger, or even a group of women and men, customarily went out to ascertain the identity of

13Eight examples of the “Edge of the Woods” protocol from 1535 to 1794 are in William Beauchamp, Civil, Religious and Mourning Councils and Ceremonies of Adoption of the New York Indians (1907: 421Ð422). The “Edge of the Woods” also translates in English as the “Edge of the Forest” (Woodbury 2003: 432 and 128). 38 R.W. Venables the visitor and to escort the visitor or visitors into The Clearings and into the town.14 This concept was based on what the founder of the Confederacy, the Peacemaker, had done to announce his presence outside a town (Wallace 1994:54Ð55). Tradition records that leaders such as Hayonhwatha (Hiawatha), the Onondaga who assisted The Peacemaker, carried out this ceremony during the long process that led to the founding of the Confederacy. For example, when Hayonhwatha and some warriors approached a Mohawk town, he stopped before emerging from The Edge of the The Woods. As described by the Seneca archaeologist Arthur C. Parker:

This was the custom, to make a smoke so that the town might know that visitors were approaching and send word that they might enter without danger to their lives. The Mohawks knew the meaning of the signal so they sent messengers and invited the party into the village (Parker 1916:22).

When trade began with the musket-bearing Europeans, musket shots fired into the air became a new way to signal one’s emergence from The Woods into The Clearing. For example, in 1634, a group of Mohawks were escorting three Dutch traders west- ward, out of Mohawk lands and into the lands of the Oneidas. The Mohawk escorts stopped just a short distance from the first Oneida town Ð the first Oneida Clearing. One of the Dutchmen, Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert, wrote:

The Indians asked us to shoot. We fired our weapons, which we reloaded, and then we went to the castle town surrounded by a wooden palisade (van den Bogaert 1988:12).

In 1709, Abraham Schuyler and five other colonial New York emissaries accompanied Mohawks, Oneidas, and Cayugas to a council at the capital of the Confederacy, Onondaga. Following Haudenosaunee protocol, they intentionally stopped near Onondaga and waited for an escort into the town:

4 June [1709] early in the Morning being near to Onondaga we sent Wm Printop the Smith [a respected blacksmith] before us to Accquaint the that we, the Mohawks, Cayugas & Oneidas were coming to their Castle, upon wch Message they came out to meet us & made us Welcome (Wraxall 1968:70).

In addition, The Edge of Woods was and today remains a central, symbolic ceremony during the installation of a new chief (Gibson 1992:542). And words of greeting at a large gathering were, and are still today, known as “The Edge of the Woods” (Swamp 2000:13Ð14; Bartram 1966:58). “The Edge of the Woods” greeting, however, is given only after “the words that come before all else” Ð The Thanksgiving Address.

14A lone female messenger, carrying food, was sent out from an Oneida town when Mohawks brought Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert to them in 1634 (van den Bogaert 1988: 12). A group came out from Onondaga to meet Abraham Schuyler and five other white emissaries in 1709 (Wraxall 1968: 70). 2 The Clearings and The Woods 39

The Thanksgiving Address: A Summary of the Haudenosaunee Worldview

At public gatherings today, as in the past, someone gives “The Thanksgiving Address.” The content of The Thanksgiving Address follows a sequence of ideas, but the actual words vary with the speaker. The address can also be lengthy, or it can be brief. The purpose of the Thanksgiving Address is to remind all who are present that all life is interrelated and interdependent. A translation of a Mohawk version of the first point in the Thanksgiving Address, the greetings to the people, begins with these words: Today we have gathered and we see that the cycles of life continue. We have been given the duty to live in balance and harmony with each other and all living things (Swamp et al. 1993:1). After this greeting, thanks are extended to Mother Earth; the Waters; the Fish; the Plants; Food Plants; Medicine Herbs; the Animals; the Trees; the Birds; the Four Winds; the Thunders who bring rain; the Sun; Grandmother Moon; the Stars; to all Spiritual Messengers; and to the Creator. The Thanksgiving Address is completed with the Closing Words.15 The Thanksgiving Address acknowledges that other mortal beings consciously and willingly give their lives so that the humans can survive. The reciprocity offered by the humans is respect, ceremonies, and prayers, all of which are believed to be a spiritual benefit equal to the tangible sacrifice of other beings. The context of all this interdependence is defined as each being following the instructions of the Creator. Thus the medicine herbs are thanked, along with the women and men who know how to use the herbs: Now we turn to all the Medicine Herbs of the world. From the beginning, they were instructed to take away sickness. They are always waiting and ready to heal us. We are happy there are still among us those special few who remember how to use these plants for healing. With one mind, we send greetings and thanks to the Medicines and to the keepers of the Medicines (Swamp et al. 1993:13). A part of the gift that other mortal beings bring to humans is that these beings teach the humans significant lessons. Thus the deer and other animals are thanked: We gather our minds together to send greetings and thanks to all the Animal life in the world. They have many things to teach us as people. We see them near our homes and in the deep forests. We are glad they are still here and we hope that it will always be so (Swamp et al. 1993:135). Thanksgiving was not confined to public occasions. Every morning and every evening, the clan mothers in all of The Clearings gave thanks on behalf of all the people in their towns (Fenton 1998:47). In The Woods, the hunters gave thanks before and after the hunt, with thanks specifically addressing those particular ani- mals who gave their lives that day (Engelbrecht 2003:4Ð5; Bartram 1966:25). And

15A Seneca version of the Thanksgiving Address is Clayton (2000: 7Ð11). 40 R.W. Venables each Haudenosaunee individual could give thanks whenever so moved. Another method of communicating with the spiritual world was the use of tobacco, either dropped by an individual into a fire or smoked in a pipe, with the rising smoke bringing thanks up to the spiritual world (Engelbrecht 2003:54Ð60,47Ð59).

The Woods: “One Bowl”

The Haudenosaunee were grateful to the animals and other mortal beings for the food and other benefits that they provided. However, when the Peacemaker founded the Confederacy, the Creator had instructed him that competition among the nations of the Confederacy for the benefits offered by the other mortal beings would cause dissension and weaken the Confederacy’s unity. Such dissension would also distract people from recognizing their spiritual obligations to be grateful to these beings. Thus the Peacemaker made the Confederacy responsible for all of The Woods, defining the right of all Haudenosaunee to hunt anywhere within “The Woods.” Deganawidah symbolized this by calling The Woods “one bowl” (also translated as “one dish”) (Gibson 1992:457Ð461). The chiefs affirmed this: We shall only have one dish (or bowl) in which will be placed one beaver tail and we shall all have coequal right to it, and there shall be no knife in it, for if there be a knife in it, there would be danger that it might cut some one and blood would thereby be shed (Parker 1916:103). According to the Seneca archaeologist Arthur C. Parker, “one bowl” signifies that they will make their hunting grounds one common trace and all have a co- equal right to hunt within it. The knife being prohibited from being placed into the dish or bowl signifies that all danger would be removed from shedding blood by the people of these different nations of the confederacy caused by differences of the right of the hunting grounds (Parker 1916:103).16

Different Trees in a Different Forest: The Clearings and the Woods

Physical space is just one dimension of the Haudenosaunee environment. Because the philosophical premises of the Haudenosaunee are very different from “Western” beliefs, the Haudenosaunee pose different questions and different solutions. These are more than just choices of different paths through the same forest, because the Haudenosaunee believe the trees and all the beings within the forest have spiri- tual components that are equal to human spiritual identities (“souls”). Thus the entire reality for traditional Haudenosaunee is different. When compared to the

16The Mohawk leader described the Woods in 1789, noting that “Our Ancestors made no Distinction in a Nation [did not define boundaries of lands according to one of the Confederacy’s individual nations]; they held their Lands in common” (Brant 1861: 340). 2 The Clearings and The Woods 41

Western beliefs brought by white settlers and the ever-active missionaries, the Haudenosaunee perceived, and still perceive, different trees in a different forest. The Haudenosaunee view of the landscape has always been based on the premise that both humans and non-humans are consciously interactive. The environment is interdependent spiritually as well as biologically. From this strong sense of inter- dependence comes a stress on “communal” ethics. The entire world is alive with the spiritual energies of all these beings Ð deer, eagles, trout, and all others. Each species has its own function, assigned by the Creator, and each species has a sense of its own community. Each species has religious instructions that have been pro- vided by the Creator and which each species is obliged to carry out. All beings are equally conscious of the other beings. There are no unconscious objects, no inferior beings. There are simply beings with different functions. In this sense, all beings, with their equal souls, are our relations, our relatives. Communal human ethics are thus a logical extension of how the Haudenosaunee perceive a communal, interde- pendent world. Since the Creator filled the world with symbiotic, equal souls who nevertheless carry out specific functions, the most logical premise upon which to base an organized human community was also communal.

The Seventh Generation

The “seventh generation” is a key to Haudenosaunee environmental ethics. The Haudenosaunee believe that individual humans and human communities must be responsible for taking actions that positively affect seven generations hence. Thus they must also avoid actions that might negatively affect the future generations, as far ahead as “the seventh generation.” The Haudenosaunee are constantly reminded that they should always think about the seventh generation because they believe that the next generation waiting to be born Ð their children and the children of all beings Ð is just beneath the surface of the ground looking up at the current gen- eration.17 This imagery is consistent with the Haudenosaunee concept of “Mother Earth,” the womb of magical earth that has rested on the back of the great turtle since the transformations begun by Sky Woman.

Transformations in The Clearings and The Woods

The spiritual/ethical foundations of the Haudenosaunee, and consequently their landscape, were severely challenged and almost destroyed by their experiences with the invading Europeans. Three major factors especially corrupted their cultural values: epidemic diseases, the beaver trade, and the American Revolution.

17This common image used by the Haudenosaunee is expressed in a variety of ways; for example, as “those yet unborn, whose faces are coming from beneath the ground” (Wallace 1994: 89; Gibson 1992: 699; and Shenandoah 2000: 213). 42 R.W. Venables

The first factor was the continuing impact of epidemic diseases, especially small- pox. Epidemic diseases undermined Haudenosaunee confidence in their religion, because the question became, “Why, if we are following our spiritual instructions, is this happening to us?”18 Conversion to was one alternative taken by many Haudenosaunee during the seventeenth century (Vecsey 1997:19Ð20, 23Ð24, 97Ð108, and passim). But conversions undermined traditional beliefs and the entire cultural landscape Ð Christianity does not allow for the equality of all life, or that all life forms possess souls. Smallpox was an epidemic disease accidentally introduced by the Europeans along the Atlantic coast. The disease quickly spread along Indian trade routes that had existed for thousands of years and linked all geographic sections of North America. The earliest known smallpox epidemic was introduced by the Spanish in 1524 and, carried along Indian trade routes, reached the Haudenosaunee by 1535, spreading as far as the Senecas at the western end of the Confederacy (Dobyns 1983:313Ð317, 326 fn. 6). Smallpox was followed by other devastating epidemics during the 1500s: typhoid, measles, bubonic plague (the black death), influenza, measles, and syphilis (Ramenofsky 1987; Thornton 1987; Verano and Ubelaker 1992). Syphilis, a disease which was probably a hybrid of a mild form in the Caribbean with a more virulent form from Europe, would eventually make its way into Haudenosaunee country (Dobyns 1983:34Ð35).19 Had the most virulent form of syphilis existed prior to the arrival of the Europeans, it is unlikely that the Haudenosaunee would have had the sexual freedom that was recorded by the Europeans. In 1653, Adriaen Cornelissen van der Donck was surprised to find a unique blend of sexuality and modesty among the Haudenosaunee, as “both men and women” were

extremely liberal and uninhibited in their relations. But foul and improper language, which many of our [Dutch] people think amusing, they despise. Kissing, romping, pushing, and similar playful frolicking, popularly known as petting, and other suggestive behaviour one is unlikely to see among these people. They speak scornfully of it when done in their presence. And if they see Hollanders behaving in that fashion they tell them sarcastically: “Shame on you; if you are so inclined, wait till nighttime or you are alone” (van der Donck 1996:115). The impact of smallpox is illustrated by the Mohawks’ experience in 1634. That year, smallpox reduced the Mohawk population, according to one modern estimate, “from 7,740 to 2,830 in a matter of months” (Snow 1994:99Ð100). Estimates are

18This philosophical issue pervaded European thought when the Black Death (Bubonic Plague) struck Europe in the late 1340s, helping to undermine the and encouraging the Renaissance and, later, the Protestant Reformation. The same philosophical issue was raised by the European Jews persecuted by the Nazis. See Norman Cantor, In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made (2001); and Arno J. Mayeer, Why Did the Heavens Not Darken? The Final Solution in History (1988). The impact of diseases throughout the world’s cultural landscapes is in William H. McNeill, Plagues and Peoples (1976). 19Warren Johnson noted in his journal that the Haudenosaunee had “the French Disease,” meaning syphilis, but also that the Haudenosaunee “cure the French Disease well, by herbs; they have got it, & other Disorders, very much among them” (Johnson 1921Ð1965: XIII, 194Ð195). 2 The Clearings and The Woods 43 all that can be made, for there are no reliable figures from the era. More devastating epidemics followed, spreading throughout Haudenosaunee country. The losses from these epidemics were combined with losses from war. While reliable statistics are not available from the past, the colonists at least recorded overall impressions of the epidemics’ tragic impacts. A Dutch traveler, Jasper Danckaerts, poignantly wrote in 1680 that the Haudenosaunee and other Indians

are melting away rapidly ... . I have heard tell by the oldest New Netherlanders [Dutch] that there is now not 1/10th part of the Indians there once were, indeed, not 1/20th or 1/30th and that now the Europeans are 20 and 30 times as many (Danckaerts 1996:210).

The second factor was the beaver trade. When the Haudenosaunee began hunt- ing and other fur-bearing animals as economic resources in order to obtain guns and trade goods (Hunt 1940), the reciprocal arrangement between fur-bearing animals and the Haudenosaunee was corrupted. But guns were especially necessary because if the Haudenosaunee did not acquire them, they would be conquered by the French in Canada and the Indians allied with the French. The choice between ethics and survival is an old dilemma in all human history, and the Haudenosaunee chose survival. Moreover, one reason many Haudenosaunee became Christians was that Christianity allowed them to see fur-bearing animals as the European colonists saw them: inferior beings without souls, and thus more easily blended into pure economics. The third major factor was the American Revolution. Because so many Haudenosaunee warriors fought as allies of the British, Britain’s surrender to the new United States was a disaster. The Haudenosaunee were not included in Britain’s surrender terms in the of Paris in 1783. Yet Britain confidently transferred to the new United States all the royal claims Britain had to Haudenosaunee lands. These claims were founded on the absurdity that had a right to Haudenosaunee lands because of “the right of discovery.” This “right” began with Columbus in 1492Ð1493, and it was perpetuated by the English in 1496 by King Henry VII and his “explorer” John Cabot. Cabot landed in Canada in 1497 (Commager 1973:5Ð6). Grants based on “discovery” from Elizabeth I (to Sir Walter Raleigh 1584) (Commager 1973:6Ð7), James I (to the Jamestown colonists in 1606) (Commager 1973:8Ð10), and every subsequent monarch perpetuated this myth.20 Although the Haudenosaunee protested these absurd claims,21 the Haudenosaunee endured a series of unjust and often illegal treaties from 1784 until

20In 1823, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the right of discovery to be valid with regard to U.S. land claims (Marshall 1973). In 2005, the allegedly liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg specifically upheld the right of discovery in an Oneida Haudenosaunee case. U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, City of Sherrill, New York v. Oneida Nation of New York et al., March 29, 2005 (544 U.S. 2005), 3 fn 1. 21For example, Aaron Hill (Kanonaron), a Mohawk leader, declared in 1783 that “The Indians were a free People Subject to no Power on Earth, that they were the faithful Allies of the King of England, but not his Subjects” (Aaron Hill at , May 18, 1783, in Maclean 1783B. 103: 177). 44 R.W. Venables

1857: 46 treaties with the State of New York and 10 treaties with the United States. These treaties transferred most of the Haudenosaunee lands to New York State Ð most of The Woods and The Clearings (New York State 1889:190Ð403; Kappler 1972:5Ð6, 23Ð25, 34Ð39, 50Ð51, 327Ð331, 512Ð516, 517Ð518, 537Ð542, 767Ð771, 1027Ð1030). Between 1799 and 1815, a reformation of Haudenosaunee religion and culture helped the Haudenosaunee rebalance the values which had been nearly lost because of the excesses of the . It also helped them recover from the American Revolution. The Haudenosaunee Reformation occurred just as their land base was being reduced to ever-smaller reservations. The Woods were now increasingly occu- pied by strangers. Ironically, both New York and the United States recognized the right of the Haudenosaunee to hunt, fish, travel, and trade throughout all the lands ceded to the whites. But in the Woods, the indigenous animals, fish, birds, trees, and other beings were dying off and were being replaced by the plowed fields and domesticated animals of the . On the Haudenosaunee reservations, the people increasingly felt that they were “alone” Ð recall that they regarded all the other beings as their equals, with souls. Moreover, each nation’s surviving Clearings Ð the towns Ð also stood in isolation, no longer connected to each other by the physical link of The Woods. Whatever lands were left Ð reservations Ð were by default “Clearings,” although the reservations’ various town centers were physically rimmed with woods. Between 1799 and 1815, a Haudenosaunee teacher, Handsome Lake (Ganio dai io 1735Ð1815), received messages from spiritual beings, and he transmitted these messages to the people. The message Ð the “Gai wiio” or “The Good Word” Ð was a synthesis of the old ways with the new messages (Wallace 1970:184Ð337).22 Not all Haudenosaunee accepted these teachings. The Christian Haudenosaunee resisted, but so did those Haudenosaunee who wanted to continue the old ways. Some who opposed the teachings were accused of witchcraft. Fear of male as well as female witches had existed among the Haudenosaunee centuries before Handsome Lake and was hardly unique to Haudenosaunee society. But in 1807, an epidemic caused many deaths. At least one old woman was killed when Handsome Lake pointed her out during a council meeting (Parker 1968b:11; Wallace 1970:292, 289Ð302). Among the many spiritual instructions given to Handsome Lake, one included how the Haudenosaunee men could make a living in The Clearings and adapt to the loss of the men’s direct relationships with The Woods. Since the land bases

22The spiritual messages given to Handsome Lake are widely known to non-Indians in vari- ous English translations as the “Code of Handsome Lake.” But would one translate the “Ten Commandments” as the “Ten Commandments of Moses”? This subtle use of words is important to the contemporary Haudenosaunee. They are confident that Handsome Lake was inspired by spir- itual forces. From the Haudenosaunee point of view, the Code was “taught by” Handsome Lake, but the Code is not really “of” or “by” him. According to Handsome Lake’s own statements, he was simply the transmitter of the spiritual messages he received. “The Gai Wiio” or “The Good Word” is preferred. 2 The Clearings and The Woods 45 were so small, and since the Haudenosaunee were completely surrounded by Euro- Americans, spiritual messengers assured Handsome Lake that he could tell his followers that men could now farm in The Clearings, and use white agricultural methods. This meant that the men would replace the women as the primary farmers ( 1968:38). Did this result in a loss of status for the women? From a “Western” point of view, “Yes.”23 In the Western tradition, status is measured in part by comparing individuals with other individuals. An accumulation of data regarding the status and rights of Haudenosaunee individual women would conclude that each indi- vidual found their status diminished. However, from the Haudenosaunee point of view, the answer is “No.” “The Good Word” reestablished balance, the primary value of the Haudenosaunee. This balance was defined within the entire commu- nally based society. The Good Word sanctioned a redistribution of what was left of the Haudenosaunee land base. Facing the reality of reduced possibilities, the Haudenosaunee women who followed Handsome Lake’s teachings believed that, within their communal ethic, this redistribution was logical and not at all a loss of power or status. The Woods of the men was being destroyed. A balanced society meant that the men had to have a practical function. Both the women and the men recognized the crisis, especially because the men were consuming even more alco- hol than they had during the colonial period (Wallace 1970:233Ð234, 278). From a Haudenosaunee point of view, balance was maintained within the reality of new circumstances because the women continued to maintain control of The Clearings through their clans and the clan mothers, their female leaders. Furthermore, the women and the clan mothers still appointed the male chiefs, and the traditional matrilineal kinship system was continued. In fact, nineteenth-century feminists such as in New York State observed the Haudenosaunee balance of women and men and concluded admiringly that Haudenosaunee women enjoyed far more rights than white American women (Wagner 1996; Wagner 1998; Gage 1998:5, 332Ð334).

Preservation and Continuity: The Clearings and the Woods Today

Today, the Haudenosaunee people are dispersed. Factions among the Haudeno- saunee fought on both the British and Patriot sides during the Revolution, and after the war many of the pro-British faction removed to Canada. Then, in the decades

23For example, see Wallace (2003: 57Ð67). A stark example of this viewpoint is that of Barbara Alice Mann, who asserts that the prohibition of abortions in the teachings of Handsome Lake was “one of its main woman-crushing innovations” (Mann 2000: 262). Previously, women did perform abortions using a now-unknown herb. However, in terms of “balance,” the fact was that the Haudenosaunee population was in decline, and a “rebalance” of the population meant that more children were necessary. 46 R.W. Venables following the , some of the Haudenosaunee were forced by the State of New York and the U.S. governments to remove to while others were forced to take up lands in Oklahoma. Thus reservations of various Haudenosaunee nations can now be found in New York, , , Wisconsin, and Oklahoma (Hauptman 1986:x [map] and xi [map]). Despite the fact that the governments of Canada and the United States con- tinually break the treaties and agreements made with the Haudenosaunee, the Haudenosaunee persevere.24 The traditional Haudenosaunee still perceive all life as having equal souls but different functions. But this worldview has been under- mined since the 1600s, when Christian missionaries Ð both Catholic (Vecsey 1997: passim; Shoemaker 2006:93Ð116) and Protestant (Huey and Pulis 1997:13Ð15; Bilharz 1995:101Ð112; Perdue 1998)25 Ð began converting the Haudenosaunee. This has had its greatest impact on Haudenosaunee views of The Woods because traditional Christianity does not admit the existence of souls among non-human beings. Furthermore, Christianity’s Genesis dictates a hierarchy Ð the Genesis Pyramid Ð with an order that gives priority to human males, followed by human females, followed by the rest of Creation (Venables 1980:94; 82Ð85). The result is that the balance so central to the Haudenosaunee worldview is no longer fol- lowed by those who have either converted to Christianity or have simply accepted a secular way of life. Other factors, especially government-sponsored boarding schools, dramatically altered Haudenosaunee life in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Venables 1995: passim). In the twentieth century, employment off the reservations increased, and with these employment opportunities, government insti- tutions such as the Internal Revenue Service and Social Security subtly shifted the Haudenosaunee into the use of the last names of fathers. Canada mirrors these same issues (Fiske 2006:336Ð366). In Canada and the United States, there are about 150,000 Haudenosaunee.26 More than half of the Haudenosaunee are “urban Indians,” living in the cities that

24The most flagrant recent example is the Supreme Court Case City of Sherill, New York v. of New York et al., decided on March 29, 2005. This decision violated the 1794 in several ways, not the least of which was the assertion by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing the majority opinion, that the United States claims over the Haudenosaunee were based on the “doctrine of discovery,” an entirely fictitious legal claim begun by Columbus in 1492, perpetuated by the monarchs of Europe including the rulers of Great Britain, and continued by the U.S. government as the heir to British claims. City of Sherill, New York v. Oneida Indian Nation of New York et al., No. 03-855, 544 U.S. March 29, 2005, page 3 at footnote 1. 25Bihartz (1995) notes that under the influence of the Quakers, some Senecas seceded from the Confederacy in 1848 to form the “Seneca Nation.” Guided by white ideals, these Senecas promptly disenfranchised the women, who did not regain any voting rights until 1964 (Bihartz 1995: 109Ð 110). 26This is the author’s estimate. Population figures are especially elusive because in the United States people have the right to “self-identify” themselves as Indians on census forms without pro- viding any proof whatsoever. There is also the issue of generations of intermarriage among many Haudenosaunee people, so that a strong identity with their Haudenosaunee heritage has all but evaporated and may exist only to claim university scholarships or other “minority” programs. 2 The Clearings and The Woods 47 lie beyond the reservations. Some Haudenosaunee enterprises such as gas stations or what are now the most profitable enterprise, gambling , are in The Clearings, such as the one at the Mohawk reservation in the St. Lawrence River Valley 5 miles east of where the Seaway International Bridge links New York State with Cornwall, Ontario (mohawkcasino.com). Others, such as the Oneida Turning Stone in Verona, New York (turningstone.com), are in The Woods Ð lands repossessed by the Oneidas after being forced off the lands in the 1800s by New York State and the U.S. government. The homes of the Oneidas Ð the new Clearings Ð are not on the grounds of the casino. Most Haudenosaunee town sites Ð The Clearings Ð lie beneath contemporary cities, towns, or farms. This is because the Europeans and their descendants chose to settle exactly where the Haudenosaunee had settled, for these locations were geographically the most advantageous. Railroads, highways, airports, suburbs, and shopping malls have destroyed other sites. Hilltop locations, such as Castle Creek north of Binghamton, New York, have been disturbed by pothunters. But some evi- dence has managed to survive even at sites that were plundered. A major problem is the fact that Haudenosaunee towns were built of wood, and thus the surface reveals little to the public, and thus the public is not conscious where The Clearings were located. This invisibility is in contrast to the Southwest, where stones were used in the great Anasazi Pueblo sites such as Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, and where sites remain as stunning reminders of the past. Most reservations in both Canada and the United States have seasonal festivals where non-Indians are welcomed. Many also have cultural centers that strive to edu- cate the public on the history and culture of the Haudenosaunee, and some of these have reconstructed longhouses such as those at Akwesasne on the St. Lawrence River. Within the core homeland of the Haudenosaunee, New York State has just one publicly funded historic site dealing specifically with the Haudenosaunee: Ganondagan, in Victor, New York south of Rochester. Ganondagan was destroyed by the French in 1687. Three hundred years later, in 1987, Ganondagan became the first (and only) New York State historic site focusing upon the Haudenosaunee (Faber 1987).27 The site has a reconstructed longhouse based on archaeological and historical records. The site is being interpreted to the public by Haudenosaunee and non-Indian staff, and by dedicated volunteers. The educational programs at Ganondagan are based on Haudenosaunee oral history, including lectures by elders, as well as on historical documents and archaeological data. A major emphasis at Ganondagan is the role of Jigonhsasee, the powerful woman who helped The Peacemaker establish the Confederacy. Gardens there include traditional herbs and corn, beans, and squash Ð “The Three Sisters.” The longhouse is covered with spe- cially manufactured panels of composite materials that reproduce the appearance of bark. On the roof, sliding rectangles of these simulated bark sheets can be moved

27In 1981, this author prepared an initial report on the history of the site for the State of New York’s Department of Parks and Recreation. 48 R.W. Venables from the inside by long poles to close the roof in rain or snow. The interior is furnished with reproductions of pottery, ladles, and tools. Sleeping and storage plat- forms line both sides of the interior, and sunlight cascades through the smoke holes on the roof above fire pits. Standing inside, the visitor can easily imagine how the longhouse would have been when a clan mother and her female relatives managed the daily tasks of The Clearings. The Mohawks have recovered one of their traditional Clearings at the old Mohawk town site of Kanatsiohareke on the north shore of the Mohawk River. Here, for more than two centuries, white farmers planted the same fields as the Mohawks before them. In 1993, the Mohawk leader Tom Porter (Sakokwenionkwas, The One Who Wins) reestablished the first Mohawk community in the Mohawk Valley since the American Revolution ended in 1783. On newly purchased lands on the north shore of the Mohawk River at what is now Fonda, New York, Chief Porter and his friends used a tractor to plow and plant corn on the very same fields their ances- tors used on the north shore of the Mohawk River. Although Tom Porter eventually retired to live on the Mohawks’ Akwesasne reservation in the St. Lawrence River Valley, Kanatsiohareke remains an active community (Porter 2006). Despite all the pressures from the non-Indian world, most Christian Haudenosaunee and all traditional Haudenosaunee take pride in knowing in which matrilineal clan each individual belongs. Equally important, The Clearings are still home to lacrosse games. “” is still played outside. But in the 1930s, a new adaptation of lacrosse evolved among the Haudenosaunee in Canada, which then spread to the other Haudenosaunee reservations: “.” Box lacrosse is played indoors on “an indoor concrete, asphalt or hardwood floor, which is 200 feet long and 90 feet wide ... enclosed by a four foot high boarding” (Mitchell et al. 1978:159, 224). The field houses in which these games are played are major focal points of The Clearings. High school and college teams in Canada and the United States frequently count Haudenosaunee players among their finest players. The Haudenosaunee lacrosse team, the “Iroquois Nationals,” is made up of players from both sides of the Canadian-U.S. border, and the team travels the world to play the lacrosse teams of nations as far away as Australia. Today, the Haudenosaunee are exploring a “new landscape.” Each Haudeno- saunee reservation now has its own Web site, designed and staffed by the newest generation of Haudenosaunee women and men (sixnations.org). These Haudenosaunee work in The Clearings, reaching into the newest expanse of The Woods.

Acknowledgments I would like to thank my friend Chief Irving Powless, Jr. (Onondaga Nation), for all the insights he has shared since we met in 1971. Without his patient guidance, this chapter and indeed my entire career since 1971 would not have taken the path that it has. I would also like to thank my friend of three decades, John Kahionhes Fadden (Mohawk Nation), for his wonderful and perceptive portrayals of three significant spiritual and physical insights of the Haudenosaunee worldview. 2 The Clearings and The Woods 49

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