Where License Reigns With All Impunity An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity

by Stephen Arthur

"Their Policy in this is very wise, and has nothing Barbarous in it. For, since their preservation depends upon their union, and since it is hardly possible that among peoples where license reigns with all impunity -- and, above all, among young people -- there should not happen some event capable of causing a rupture, and disuniting their minds, -- for these reasons, they hold every year a general assembly in Onnontaé. There all the Deputies from the different Nations are present, to make their complaints and receive the necessary satisfaction in mutual gifts, -- by means of which they maintain a good understanding with one another." François le Mercier, 1668 (1) by Stephen Arthur

1 An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity Table of Contents

An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity...... 4 How Peace Came to the Rotinonshón:ni...... 5 "One Bowl": The Communal Economy of the Rotinonshón:ni...... 6 "We are left to answer for our women"...... 8 The Beaver Wars, which were Not Only about the Fur Trade...... 11 Kaianere'kó:wa as Constitution of a Stateless Polity?...... 16 Anarcho-Indigenism...... 21 Bibliography...... 23 Glossary...... 24 People...... 26 Places...... 27 Endnotes...... 28

2 An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity The traditional society of the Rotinonshón:ni (Iroquois), "The People of the Longhouse," was a densely settled, matrilineal, communal, and extensively horticultural society. The Rotinonshón:ni formed a confederacy of five nations. Generations before historical contact with Europeans, these nations united through the Kaianere'kó:wa into the same polity and ended blood feuding without economic exploitation, stratification, or the formation of a centralized state.

An Anarchist Study of the 3 An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity An Anarchist Study of the kleptocrats. In his view, "the kleptocracy" is Rotinonshón:ni Polity ultimately a function of material culture.(7)

Some Marxists agree with Diamond's Some historical materialists claim a densely perspective. They argue that in the transitions settled, agricultural population will inevitably from hunter-gather communism to feudalism, develop into a hierarchically stratified society, and from there to capitalism, society develops with a centralized state and an exploitative the industrial production of the social wealth economic redistribution system, in order avoid necessary for communism to become an option warfare while resolving blood feuds among its again. There is at least one strong counter members.(2) While this is a common example to this vulgar historical determinism occurence, it is not the only way these issues and unilinear cultural evolution: the formation have been resolved. Located along the and continued survival of the Rotinonshón:ni in southern banks of Kaniatarí:io (Lake Ontario), the northeast of North America. the traditional society of the Rotinonshón:ni (Iroquois),(3) "The People of the Longhouse," While critical of Marxism, Murray Bookchin was a densely settled, matrilineal, communal, acknowledges the cooperative and peaceful and extensively horticultural society. The internal nature of hunter-gather societies but Rotinonshón:ni formed a confederacy initially of also brings up the problems of external five nations: Kanien'kehá:ka (Mohawk), warfare. Oneniote'á:ka (Onedia), Ononta'kehá:ka (Onondaga), Kaion'kehá:ka (Cayuga) and "To members of their own bands, tribes, or Shotinontowane'á:ka (Seneca). Generations clans, prehistoric and later foraging peoples before historical contact with Europeans,(4) were normally cooperative and peaceful; but

these nations united through the ” “ toward members of other bands, tribes, or Kaianere'kó:wa ( the Great Good Way ) into clans, they were often warlike, even the same polity(5) and ended blood feuding sometimes genocidal in their efforts to without economic exploitation, stratification, or dispossess them and appropriate their the formation of a centralized state. land.... As to modern foragers, the conflicts between Native American tribes are too Jared Diamond hypothesizes that when numerous to cite at any great length... the stateless egalitarian hunter-gather societies tribes that were to finally make up the develop agriculture and experience population Iroquois Confederacy (the Confederacy itself growth, blood feuds and new resource was a matter of survival if they were not to all management problems challenge their ability to but exterminate one another), and the maintain horizontal political relationships and unrelenting conflict between Mohawks and economic communalism. (6) According to Hurons, which led to the near extermination Diamond, the material transition itself leads and flight of remnant Huron communities." inevitably to the State, which he refers to (8) as "the kleptocracy," and the most the oppressed can hope for by revolting is for a The conflicts Bookchin mentions occurred change in the rate of exploitation and around Kaniatarí:io and Lake Erie in the 17th oppression by installing a new group of

4 An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity

century and are often referred to as end the blood feuding. He convinced

“ ” the Beaver Wars, due to the connection with Aiewáhtha to eat only of the flesh of deer, not

the fur trade between indigenous and European man. Finally, he persuaded Aiewáhtha to give ’ people. Bookchin s description the conflict of up war and to help him bring peace to the

Kanien'kehá:ka and the Wendat (Huron) Iroquois.

”“ ” as “extermination or genocidal is inaccurate. Rather than a matter of ethnic According to a women ’s oral tradition, (13) cleansing or economic competition, that conflict Tekanawí:ta then approached the head clan is better understood as a civil war of political mother, Tsikónhsase.(14) Tsikónhsase, of the unification among Iroquois speakers. It is ironic Kakwa:ko (Neutral) nation, had provisioned that in Bookchin ’s tirade against modern warriors and also administered disputes. (15) anti-civilizationist mystification of the primitive, She agreed to support Tekanawí:ta ’s efforts for he acknowledges the formation as of peace if he agreed to codify into the Rotinonshón:ni polity that ended the warfare Kaianere'kó:wa several powers and among the Five Nations, but fails to reflect upon responsibilities for women: matrilineality of this momentous accomplishment or see how clans, the clan as the basis of popular much their achievement has parallels with his sovereignty, and the collective ownership of own political ideas. agricultural land by women. Barbara Mann, Shotinontowane'á:ka author and professor of How Peace Came to the Native American Studies, views the underlying Rotinonshón:ni conflict of the era in terms of the material culture of production. She describes the conflict as one between women-led agriculturists and the The story of the formation of the Rotinonshón:ni cannibalistic hunters, led by Thatotáhrho. has been passed down by oral tradition, by Tekanawí:ta's role was to unite the warring reciting the Kaianere'kó:wa. This recitation has factions, establish both farming and hunting as been done in at least five similar languages and modes of production, and abolish cannibalism. translated and transcribed into English in (16) multiple versions. There are many variations, and no definitive version. (10) Tekanawí:ta, Aiewáhtha and Tsikónhsase visited a series of Iroquois communities. Having In a version of the story common at gone to the Kanien'kehá:ka and gained their Ohswé:ken, (11) Tekanawí:ta was born under support, they visited the Oneniote'á:ka, gaining mysterious circumstances to a Wendat mother, their acceptance as well. Next they visited the along the Bay of Quinte. (12) After a difficult Ononta'kehá:ka, but were rebuffed by childhood, Tekanawí:ta left his community to Thatotáhrho. They then gained the support of bring the message of peace to the Iroquois. He the Kaion'kehá:ka, and finally visited the traveled south across Kaniatarí:io, where he westernmost nation--the Shotinontowane'á:ka. encountered Aiewáhtha preparing a meal. All of the Shotinontowane'á:ka were convinced Aiewáhtha, grieving for lost loved ones, was except their two principal war chiefs; these planning to a eat a man he had slain in were brought into agreement and designated vengenance. Tekanawí:ta conducted a as the ratihnhohanónhnha, the doorkeepers, condolence ceremony for Aiewáhtha, so as to

5 An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity responsible for protecting the long house of the to the rafters ” of the longhouse. Rotinonshón:ni from enemies to the west. The weapons of war Having convinced all were buried beneath the of the tree of peace, so that Shotinontowane'á:ka, there would be no they returned to the further war among the Ononta'kehá:ka, and nations of the there was a mighty Rotinonshón:ni. (19) struggle with (The English Thatotáhrho.(17) idiom, "burying the Tsikónhsase devised hatchet," originates with a solution, suggesting to Tekanawí:ta that the the Rotinonshón:ni.) The tree ’s four white roots council fire of the Rotinonshón:ni could be with of peace stretched to the cardinal directions, the Ononta'kehá:ka, and that Thatotáhrho spreading the good tidings. There were rules should become its keeper. (18) for adoption of individuals and whole nations, to follow the roots, find shelter beneath the tree of Tekanawí:ta had several other innovations for peace, and join the Rotinonshón:ni. The the Rotinonshón:ni polity. The fifty men who condolence ceremony for those who were in would make decisions through consensus at grief was described, as well as the use of the council fire were named roiá:ner, and they wampum. The Rotinonshón:ni would be guided would wear deer horns to represent that they by principles of "peace, power and had forsaken war and ate only the flesh of deer, righteousness." The last issue that Tekanawí:ta not of men. The roiá:ner were to have resolved was about hunting territory: skins "seven spans thick": they would be Tekanawí:ta declared that all Rotinonshón:ni patient, not easily offended. Tekanawí:ta would share the hunt and "eat of one bowl." named each of the roiá:ner, and stated that (20) their names would be requickened when they died (or were removed from office) and "One Bowl": The Communal returned to the clan mothers, the iotiiá:ner. The Economy of the Rotinonshón:ni iotiiá:ner had the responsibility of selecting new roiá:ner, though never the son of the previous "They still possess virtues which might roiá:ner. The iotiiá:ner would also have the cause shame to most Christians. No authority to recall roiá:ner from office. A hospitals are needed among them, because provision was made for further speakers to be there are neither mendicants nor paupers as added to the council at Ononta'kehá:ka, men long as there are any rich people among who had merit and had sprung up like a Pine them. Their kindness, humanity, and Tree--"ohnkanetoten." The ohnkanetoten would courtesy not only make them liberal with have voices but not votes; their appointment what they have, but cause them to possess would die with them and not be transferred. hardly anything except in common. A whole Further, the great good way, the

“ village must be without corn before any Kaianere'kó:wa, could be amended by adding individual can be obliged to endure privation.

6 An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity They divide the produce of their fisheries Oneniote'á:ka. The alliance of the equally with all who come" Oneniote'á:ka with the United States against Father Simon Le Moyne, 1657 (22) the rest of the Rotinonshón:ni broke the peace between the Rotinonshón:ni nations that had In the 17th century, the Rotinonshón:ni lived in stretched back to Tekanawí:ta's foundation, settled towns of as many as two thousand and resulted in profound consequences for all. people, surrounded by palisades. Population According to Sullivan ’s official report, the U.S. density averaged two hundred people per army burned forty towns and their surrounding acre. These were the densest communities in fields, destroying 160,000 bushels of corn; the Northeast, including those of European Anthony F.C. Wallace estimated "500... settlers, until the 19th century. (23) The dwellings in two dozen settlements... and communal fields surrounding Rotinonshón:ni nearly 1 million bushels of corn" were destroyed villages extended for up to six miles in radius. (25); and Allan Eckert estimated at least fifty Even after the Rotinonshón:ni population had towns and nearly 1,200 houses were burned. been greatly reduced by war and disease, they The American Revolution was more an were still very productive farmers. economic disaster for the Rotinonshón:ni than a military defeat.

Teiowí:sonte Thomas Deer describes the economics of the traditional Rotinonshón:ni as synonymous with contemporary concepts of communalism or socialism: “an emphasis is placed upon the survival and welfare of the collective as opposed to the success and comfort of the individual. Such societies are composed of a group who voluntarily participate in a cooperative livelihood that shares the burden of labor and as well the fruit of such labor. This concept is One indicator of quantity of Rotinonshón:ni reinforced by the Kaianere'kó:wa in its analogy production is taken from a military campaign of the bowl from which all Haudenosaunee against them under the orders of U.S. would share from." (26) Hunter Gray has President George Washington, who the referred to tribal communalism and the Rotinonshón:ni have named Rotinonshón:ni ethos of tribal (mutual) Ranatakárias--"Town Destroyer". (24) During responsibility as "strawberry socialism." (27) the American Revolutionary War, in 1779 the Sullivan-Clark military expedition attacked the In 1977, when Rotinonshón:ni delegates villages of all Rotinonshón:ni nations except the

7 An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity addressed the United Nations with their the Northeast. Wampum, in addition to economic ideas, they argued against European-manufactured goods, was permanent private property and excluding exchanged for beaver pelts with the others from the means of production. They Rotinonshón:ni. Among the Rotinonshón:ni, suggested that the concept of alienated however, it was not used as currency. A property results in slavery. They stated that hallmark of their diplomacy and gift exchange, their rejection of a commodity economy, their wampum functioned almost exclusively as a rejection of conspicuous consumption, and their political and social aid, used in the condolence ideas of eminently fair distribution would result in ceremonies, in the requickening of newly all people sharing in material wealth. Their selected leaders, and as a mnemonic device concepts of economy and labor would require for agreements and treaties. (31) an entire community of involvement, rather than isolated nuclear families. All people, they While the Rotinonshón:ni mode of production declared, have a right to food, clothing and was collective, it was divided by gender. Men shelter. No one should have a position of engaged in clearing the forest, hunting, fishing, economic power over anyone else, and there diplomacy, trade and warfare. Women focused should be no artificial scarcity created by on extensive horticulture, childcare and village property ownership.(28) life (32). Collective effort and communal ownership of the land did not, however, Did the Rotinonshón:ni have private property preclude individuals from working separately. historically? Historian Daniel Richter has To this extent, the communism of the argued that the Rotinonshón:ni economics only Rotinonshón:ni can be regarded as voluntary. superficially resembled communalism. Property ownership, however, derived from need and "Women worked in family unites in fields use, while abandoned property was free for the cleared by their clan brothers. So long as use by anyone. Further, that in times of each did her share of the labor, she also shortage, all was shared communally. (29) This shared in the communal harvest. Individual is an example of a usufruct (use rights) system women might also keep private plots, but of ownership, which many anarchists would they shared in the communal harvest only if approve of, including Bookchin: “an individual they also did their parts in the fields of the appropriation of goods, a personal claim to ohwachira. An ad hoc mutual aid society was tools, land, and other resources . . . is fairly sometimes formed by these women so that common in organic [i.e. aboriginal] societies. . . they could bring collective effort even to co-operative work and the sharing of resources fields not supervised by clan matrons “(33) on a scale that could be called communistic is also fairly common. . . But primary to both of "We are left to answer for our these seemingly contrasting relationships is the women" practice of usufruct." (30) "Hear and listen to what we, women, shall It bears mentioning that wampum, beads made speak, as well as the Sachems; for we are of shell and strung together, was used as the owners of this land, AND IT IS OURS! It is currency among cash-poor European settlers in we that plant it for our and their use. Hear us,

8 An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity therefore, for we speak things that concern Another anarchist anthropologist, David us and our children; and you must not think Graeber, described the overlapping councils by hard of us while our men shall say more to gender: you, for we have told them" Seneca women "Longhouses were governed by councils made up entirely of women, who, since they "We are left to answer for our women, who controlled its food supplies, could evict any are to conclude what ought to be done by in-married male at will. Villages were both Sachems and warriors. So hear what is governed by both male and female councils. their conclusion. The business you come on Councils on the national and league level is troublesome, and we have been a long were made up of both male and female time considering it; and now the elders of our office-holders. It ’s true that the higher one women have said that our Sachems and went in the structure, the less relative warriors must help you, for the good of them, importance the female councils had--on the and their children" longhouse level, there wasn ’t any male Sagoyawatha "Red Jacket", 1791(34) organization at all, while on the league level, the female council merely had veto power Anarchist anthropologist Harold Barclay has over male decisions--but it ’s also true that

pointed out that "Egalitarian does not … mean decisions on the lower level were of much that there is any equality between sexes and more immediate relevance to daily life. In between different age groups" and that "true terms of everyday affairs, Iroquois society sexual equality is a rarity."(35) By contrast, the often seems to have been about as close as Rotinonshón:ni are often held up as an example there is to a documented case of a of a matriarchy, though I disagree with the matriarchy." (37) semantics of that term. While the Rotinonshón:ni are both matrilineal and Another indication of differences between the matrilocal, and the women do have a role in Rotinonshón:ni and European settler society consensual politics and in selecting and comes from that same Sullivan expedition in removing men from leadership positions; 1779 that destroyed so many Rotinonshón:ni women do not wield power over men the way towns. While preparing to attack and destroy men wield power over women in a patriarchal the towns, General James Clinton even society. Anthropological archaeologist Dean remarked that the Rotinonshón:ni men never Snow, explains this very well: "Iroquois women raped women, and that some measures were not matriarchs, or Amazons, or drudges. needed to be taken to prevent American They were Iroquois women, who lived in a soldiers from raping. (38) Among the nonhierarchical society in which their role as Rotinonshón:ni, violence against women, food producers was properly appreciated and including spousal abuse, was harshly punished in which the elevation of some aspects of by a woman's kin. (39) A man who abused a kinship to political significance gave them woman could not be selected as a roiá:ner. influence that they might not otherwise have (40) had." (36) Divorce was easy and common, so much so

Another anarchist anthropologist, David 9 An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity that Jesuit missionary Father Jacques Bruyas, sentence of doom upon the traditional while regarding divorce as the greatest sin quasi-matriarchal system." (47) Kahentinetha among the Rotinonshón:ni, explained Horn, the editor of Mohawk Nation News, has that "There is as great ease in breaking asserted that the polity's "structure has been marriages as in making them -- the husband modified to accommodate the Gai'wiio. For leaving his wife, and the wife her husband, at example, instead of the Clan Mothers pleasure." (41) Since the husbands lived with appointing the Chiefs according to the Old Way, their wives' kahwá:tsire (matrilineal clan), in in the Gai'wiio the Chiefs select the Clan divorce former husbands had to leave the Mothers." (48) home. While the majority of the property as it was held in common through the matrilineal Over time, individual households of nuclear clan, personal possessions were always kept families replaced the traditional longhouses as distinct between a husband and wife. (42) residences. The situation had so changed by Children remained with the mother after 1850, when Lewis Henry Morgan published his divorce, (43) a contrast to the paternal classical ethnographical study The League of ownership of children which was the standard in the Ho-de'-no-sau-nee, or Iroquois, he the continent's European settler society until it observed that women, and only women, were was replaced by maternal preference in punished for adultery by public whipping. (49) In custody in the 1920s. Kanatiiosh (Barbara 1924, an elected band council, rather than the Gray) has argued that "western law emerges traditional polity, governed Ohswé:ken; women with a structure based on hierarchy, which I were initially deprived of suffrage. (50) At believe is attributed, to their treatment of Onondaga, Tonawanda and Tuscarora, the women as secondary citizens. Whereas, iakoiá:ner never lost their rights to select Haudenosaunee law emerges with a roiá:ner. (51) democratic structure based on equality and At the same time Rotinonshón:ni rights and goodwill for all." (44) responsibilities were under attack, female European settlers were gaining some of those Family planning was essential to women, who very rights. The contradiction is made even had the responsibility for farming, and often more glaring in the examination of American chose to limit the number of children for whom feminism by Women's Studies professor Sally they were responsible at any one time. There Roesch Wanger, who found that the gender were many abortifacients and fertility medicines relations among the Rotinonshón:ni were an known to Rotinonshón:ni herbalists. (45) inspiration to suffragists in the United States like Christian missionaries, and later in the early Matilda Joslyn Gage, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 19th century the Shotinontowane'á:ka prophet and Lucretia Mott. (53) While Gage had been to Ganioda'yo, who codified Karihwí:io or Gaiwiio court for attempting to vote in U.S. elections, ("the good message"), preached against she pointed out that her adoption as divorce and abortion, while emphasizing the Karonhienhá:wi into the Wolf kahwá:tsire relationship of husband and wife over that of granted her a voice in selecting roiá:ner--giving mother and daughter. (46) Wallace, a her more political representation by adoption psychological anthropologist and historian, into the Kanien'kehá:ka nation than she had in regarded the reforms of the Karihwí:io as "the the U.S. (54)

10 An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity "We cannot hold on to a concept of the This difference in regards to suffrage was warrior that is gendered in the way it once something well known to Rotinonshón:ni. was and that is located in an obsolete view Gawasco Waneh (Arthur Parker) wrote in of men's and women's roles. The battles we 1909: "Does the modern American woman are fighting are no longer primarily physical; [who] is a petitioner before man, pleading for thus, any idea of the indigenous warrior her political rights, ever stop to consider that the framed solely in masculine terms is outdated red woman that lived in New York state five and must be rethought and recast from the hundred years ago, had far more political rights solely masculine view of the old traditional and enjoyed a much wider liberty than the ways to a new concept of the warrior that is twentieth century woman of civilization?" (55) freed from colonial gender constructions and articulated instead with reference to what Modern feminists might regard the traditional really counts in our struggles: the qualities division of roles according to gender as less and actions of a person, man or woman, in than egalitarian. Some contemporary battle." (56)

Rotinonshón:ni would agree, and argue that traditional gender role division is obsolete, while 0.0.1. The Beaver Wars, which were also pointing out that some of that division had Not Only about the Fur Trade its origin in colonial gender roles imposed by European cultural imperialism. One example is "I take thee by the arm to lead thee away. the concern raised by Taiaiake Alfred: Thou knowest, thou huron, that formerly we comprised but one Cabin and one country. I

"We cannot hold on to a concept of the 11 An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity know not by what accident we became cousins." separated. It is time to unite again. I have Bookchin (58)

twice before come to seek thee, —Once at Montreal, speaking to the French In thy As pointed out earlier, the Rotinonshón:ni were absence; the 2nd time, at Quebec. It is for not primarily a foraging society. The majority of the third time that I now come. ” their food came from horticulture, so they faced 1656 (57) no need to relocate into territory held by others due to overhunting. In the early years of Bookchin rarely examines the Rotinonshón:ni European colonization, disease greatly polity, and the few times he addresses it in reduced indigenous populations before the print, he is dismissive. In the course of his settlers arrived in large numbers. During the dismissals he often repeats the common Beaver Wars, there was actually much more academic myth that the conflicts of the 17th available land per capita, due to this population century, misnamed "the Beaver Wars," were reduction, than there had been before the fought over economic control of the fur trade. arrival of the Europeans. While warfare did take While it is true that the primary European on cultural and economic attributes, interest in the conflict was to secure access to understanding the Beaver Wars only in terms of large quantities of low-cost beaver fur (in the fur trade and the role of warfare in culture is exchange for goods produced solely for far too simplistic. Bookchin is right about the indigenous consumption), there were other, linguistic and cultural similarities between the potentially more important, reasons for the Wendat and Rotinonshón:ni, and that itself is Rotinonshón:ni involvement in those conflicts. the key to understanding the determination with which the Rotinonshón:ni prosecuted their wars "Warfare was endemic among our with the Wendat, Kakwa:ko, Erielhonan (Erie), prehistoric ancestors and in later native Tionontati (Petun), Wenrohronon (Wenro), and communities, notwithstanding the high, Susquehannock nations. almost cultic status enjoyed by ostensibly peaceful "ecological aborigines" among Bookchin mentions the rise of "cultural white middle-class Euro-Americans today. attributes" of warfare. One such attribute When foraging groups overhunted the game practiced by the northern Iroquois-speaking in their accustomed territory, as often peoples, not only the Rotinonshón:ni, was the happened, they were usually more than mourning war. When people died in the Iroquois willing to invade the area of a neighboring communities, the grieving relatives expected group and claim its resources for their own. the dead to be symbolically replaced as soon Commonly, after the rise of warrior as possible. Quite unlike the European settlers' sodalities, warfare acquired cultural as well notion total war, a mourning war was ultimately as economic attributes, so victors no longer ritualistic, and was not aimed at the eradication merely defeated their real or of an enemy or seizure of their territory. Rather, chosen "enemies" but virtually exterminated the goal was to take captives, who would them, as witness the near-genocidal replace the dead. Losses among warriors destruction of the Huron Indians by their involved in the mourning wars could also be linguistically and culturally related Iroquois called on to be replaced. Large-scale

12 An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity casualties were rare, and when they did occur, Cayuga nation, while most of them headed they were considered great tragedies. Since south. (60) disease was regarded as a hostile attack by unknown agents, those who died from sickness Darren Bonaparte cites an old oral tradition had to be replaced by mourning war. This about the Kaniatarowanénhne (later known as process of replacing the dead by assigning the St. Lawrence river): "[T]here was once a their names and responsibilities to others is great confederacy that had villages on the St. referred to as requickening. Lawrence River. After a shooting star destroyed one of their villages on the St. Mourning war had at one time often involved Lawrence, the confederacy broke down, cannibalism and torture, but these practices leaving two or three smaller confederacies in had completely died out of Rotinonshón:ni their wake who eventually became hostile to society by the 18th century. Central to the each other. The Huron Confederacy, north of Rotinonshón:ni polity was the ceremony of Lake Ontario, and the Iroquois Confederacy condolence. Tekanawí:ta gave this ceremony were two of those; a third would be the people to Aiewáhtha, to help with his grief so that archaeologists refer to as the "St. Lawrence peace would be possible between them and Iroquoians." (61) Thatotáhrho. Condolence would allow for blood feuds to end, and for people within a nation to When Jacques Cartier first explored the be requickened, with the use of wampum, into Kaniatarowanénhne in 1535, he encountered new titles to replace the dead. Condolence has Iroquois-speaking communities all along the been seen as a replacement for the mourning river between major settlements of Stadacona wars. Some critics argue the Rotinonshón:ni (near Quebec City) and Hochelaga (Montreal). polity simply caused the nations of the When Samuel de Champlain came to the river confederation to redirect their blood fueds in 1603, those Iroquois-speaking communities outward. were gone. By the early 17th century, “[t]he Jefferson County Iroquoians had disappeared, The warfare among Iroquois-speaking nations probably absorbed by the Iroquois. The St. had begun long before European contact Lawrence Iroquoians had been incorporated added fuel to the fire, with its contributions of into the Huron confederacy, as had people epidemic disease, firearms, and other metal from other clusters around modern Toronto, the weapons. The Rotinonshón:ni emerged out of a Trent River valley, and elsewhere just north of period of war, but it is noteworthy that not all Lake Ontario, ” (62) although some may have Iroquois-speaking nations of the Great Lakes also joined the Kanien'kehá:ka. (63) joined the great peace. Despite being close relatives to the Five Nations, the The first published account of contact between Susquehannocks did not join the Europeans and the Rotinonshón:ni is Rotinonshón:ni. In the late 1500s, they moved Champlain ’s. In 1609, he and his Algonquian their villages south to the river that still bears allies encountered a group of Kanien'kehá:ka their name. (59) Linguistic similarities between near Crown Point. Champlain introduced the Susquehannocks and Cayuga suggest that Rotinonshón:ni to the use of firearms by killing some Susquehannock were adopted into the fifty of them including three Kanien'kehá:ka

13 An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity affected by epidemic diseases. There were roiá:ner, one of whom carried the name unprecedented calamites for Rotinonshón:ni Aiewáhtha.(64) This was a huge defeat by the and Wendat societies, and the cultural tradition standards of the mourning wars. The French of mourning war called for replacement of all continued to ally themselves with the the dead through warfare. Algonquian and the Wendat, and the Rotinonshón:ni began trading with the Dutch by Natoway combines a number of oral traditions, 1614. In 1615, Champlain led Wendat and historical, and archeological research with his Andastes in an attack on the Rotinonshón:ni at narrative of "The Great Epic." In it, he relates an Ononta'kehá:ka village, killing many, that differences in wealth developed among the including another roiá:ner. In the central nation Wendat, based on the Jesuit policy of only of the Great Longhouse, the Ononta'kehá:ka trading with those Wendat who converted to village was the council fire and symbolic heart Christanity. Jesuits and Christanity were also of the Rotinonshón:ni. (65) Firearms and forged blamed for the disease within the community, blades were now part of warfare between and some traditional Wendat voluntarily joined Iroquois-speaking peoples. (66) From the with the Kanien'kehá:ka and perspective of the Rotinonshón:ni, access to Shotinontowane'á:ka to attack Wendat guns and metal became a priority, driving their converts to Christianity, even going so far as to trade with the Dutch, who were willing to trade lead them in battle. (68) Graeber notes the these for beaver pelts. It became necessary to changes in economic structure of the Wendat, secure a stable supply of pelts, and to deprive but not the Rotinonshón:ni: "Delage argues that their enemies of the same. among the Huron, new regimes of property and the possibility of personal accumulation, really In 1634, a plague of smallpox hit the emerged only among converts to Christianity; Rotinonshón:ni, halving their population (67) among the Five Nations, they do not seem to and forcing relocations for the entire five nations have emerged at all." (69) as they fled diseased villages. While already engaged in wars with multiple indigenous Snow has claimed that during the final nations and the French, and with changes to Rotinonshón:ni campaign against the Wendat in 1648, more than a thousand Wendat fled their villages, and seven hundred were taken prisoner or killed. In the following fall, the Kanien'kehá:ka-Shotinontowane'á:ka army numbered over a thousand men, including adopted Wendat who had been "fully integrated" into Rotinonshón:ni society. By 1651, another group of five hundred their economy and material technology, it must Wendat were brought into the have seemed an apocalyptic scenario. The Shotinontowane'á:ka nation, but were given Wendat and other nations were similarly autonomous control of their village. (70) affected by epidemic diseases. There were 14 An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity Iroquoia. These numbers are likely low-end

The Beaver Wars continued. The Erielhonan, estimates …. [T]he number of captives taken with Kakwa:ko and Wendat refugees among by the Iroquois during the Beaver Wars was them, were dispersed westward or absorbed on average two to three times greater than into the Shotinontowane'á:ka, Ononta'kehá:ka, the number of enemies they killed. Both and other Rotinonshón:ni nations. (71) By scenarios illustrate that the acquisition of 1657, the Rotinonshón:ni had defeated their enemy captives to replace Iroquois Iroquois-speaking enemies to the north and population losses was the primary factor in west. Kanien'kehá:ka and Shotinontowane'á:ka the Beaver Wars, which were not a series of

went to Quebec to convince Wendat refugees conflicts designed to impose Iroquois control “ to return with them. According to Snow: A over the fur trade, but rather an Iroquois fight village of perhaps 570 Hurons was built near for survival, one vast, prolonged mourning the three Mohawk villages that existed there at war." (74)

the time … [A] decade later Jesuit missionaries would note that two-thirds of the Mohawk The descendents of captured Wendat village of Caughnawaga was made up of Huron adoptees were fully integrated into and Algonquian captives and adoptees. ” (72) Rotinonshón:ni society and treated as equals. Tionontati and Wenrohronon were also One notable example is Joseph Brant, attacked, dispersed, and absorbed by the Thaientané:ken, who was descended from Rotinonshón:ni. Wendat captives adopted by the Kanien'kehá:ka both on his father and mother ’s The post-dispersal history of the five nations of side. (75) Thaientané:ken went on to become a the Wendat, as described by John Steckley, ohnkanetoten, and led war parties against the holds that the Ataronchronnon (Bog) United States during the Revolutionary War. disappeared, the Atahontaenrat (Deer) joined His efforts helped establish the community at the Shotinontowane'á:ka in an independent Ohswé:ken, the Six Nations reserve along the community, Arendaeronnon (Rock) joined the Grand River. The town of Brantford is named Ononta'kehá:ka, and the Atinniawenten (Bear) for him, as is the Tyendinaga Mohawk joined the Kanien'kehá:ka. The Community at the Bay of Quinte. It should be Atingeennonniahak (Cord) remained as the sole noted again that various versions of the Wendat nation. (73) Kaianere'kó:wa hold that Tekanawí:ta originated from the Wendat nation, that the In his military history of the Rotinonshón:ni, iakoiá:ner Tsikónhsase came from the Daniel P. Barr compares accounts of the Kakwa:ko nation, and even that Aiewáhtha was conflict and determines that: from the Ononta'kehaka nation, was adopted by the Kanien'kehá:ka, and became a roiá:ner "Between 1631-1663, the Iroquois attacked there. From the perspective of many Iroquois the Hurons at least 73 times. More than 500 speakers, they were the same people; Huron people are recorded as having been membership among the warring nations could killed during these raids, with an astonishing be quite fluid. 2,000--one-fifth of their post epidemic population--captured and deported to Warfare with the Susquehannock continued.

15 An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity Over time, more of them were adopted into the common. The Beaver Wars might best be seen Rotinonshón:ni, often into the Oneniote'á:ka as bloody civil war among Iroquois-speaking nation. The last Susquehannocks were not people in the context of a larger series of adopted, but were massacred by English devastating tragedies, not a genocidal conflict settlers from Maryland. “By spring of 1669, a based on resource acquisition. Increasingly, the permanent village of Indian Christians had Beaver Wars are being referred to as the grown up around Raffeix ’s Saint Francois Iroquois Wars--which seems far more Xavier des Pres mission. The first settlers were appropriate since the majority of the a diverse group of 'free Iroquois' and Erie, participants were Iroquois-speakers. Further Huron and Susquehannock adoptees of the context is provided by considering that the Oneidas. ” (76) They were later joined by many Beaver Wars were contemporary with the Kanien'kehá:ka, and eventually this community Thirty Years' War on the European continent, moved to Kahnawà:ke. and with the English Civil War. All three were fought with similar weapons. In his "Great In 1713, most of the Iroquois-speaking Epic," Natoway depicts the Beaver Wars as a Taskarorahaka (Tuscarora) nation, which had usurpation of authority by the ohnkanetoten and been warring with North Carolina settlers, war captains, leading the longhouse of the relocated to live among the Rotinonshón:ni. By Rotinonshón:ni to fracture, and finally to crumble 1722-1723, they were incorporated as the during the American Revolution. (80) Sixth Nation of the Rotinonshón:ni, living autonomously from the others. They were not On August 27, 1999, the four surviving nations invited to have roiá:ner in the council, but would of Wendat came together in a "tree of be represented by the Oneniote'á:ka and brotherhood" under the unity proposed by the Kaion'kehá:ka. (78) Peacemaker of "peace, power, and righteousness" with leaders who have While there may have been economical and skins "seven span thick". It seems that the cultural motivations for Rotinonshón:ni message of the Kaianere'kó:wa was finally participation and prosecution of the Beaver received by all of the Wendat. Wars, the result was far from genocide of their opponents--rather, it was the political unification 0.0.2. Kaianere'kó:wa as of most northern Iroquois-speaking peoples Constitution of a Stateless under the Kaianere'kó:wa. It bears Polity? emphasizing that, according to Wallace, "[a]doption was so frequent during the Some have been tempted to submit a particular bloody centuries of the beaver wars and the translation and transcription of the colonial wars that some Iroquois villages were Kaianere'kó:wa to a political-science preponderantly composed of formally adopted constitutional analysis. Depending on the war captives." (79) Adoption was as much a version of the Kaianere'kó:wa, an analyst might form of political unification of other come to the conclusions that Donald S. Lutz Iroquois-speaking peoples, who already has: that the Rotinonshón:ni was not a shared cultural traits, as it was cultural participatory democratic confederacy of equal assimilation. Autonomous villages were nations, but rather a hereditary oligarchy in

16 An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity which the Kanien'kehá:ka enjoyed a privileged legalist reading, among its principles is a position in making proposals to the council. (81) metaphor for amendment: "adding to the Lutz only consults the versions of the rafters" of the long house. This includes Kaianere'kó:wa published by Gawasco Waneh meetings among the traditional Rotinonshón:ni (Arthur Parker). In fact, his analysis focuses involving not only the roiá:ner but all the people, only on a single version written by Dayodekane as a check on their power. (85) (Seth Newhouse), and ignores a different version approved by the roiá:ner at The influence of Lewis Henry Morgan's study of the Rotinonshón:ni on Marx and Engels' concept of a stateless communist society is well known. In The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, Engels summarized Morgan's description of the Rotinonshón:ni society:

"No soldiers, no gendarmes or police, no nobles, kings, regents, prefects, or judges, no prisons, no lawsuits - and everything takes its orderly course. All quarrels and disputes are settled by the whole of the community affected, by the gens or the tribe,

Ohswé:ken, which was included in Gawasco or by the gentes among themselves; only as “ Waneh ’s volume. According to Snow, The an extreme and exceptional measure is Newhouse version tells us as much, if not more blood revenge threatened-and our capital about political conditions on the Grand River at punishment is nothing but blood revenge in the end of the nineteenth century than it does a civilized form, with all the advantages and about the origins of the League ” (82). The drawbacks of civilization. Although there Grand Council of the Haudenosaunee believe were many more matters to be settled in that no one version is preferred and that "many common than today - the household is traditional leaders feel that none of the written maintained by a number of families in versions have all of the known oral history common, and is communistic, the land included." (83) belongs to the tribe, only the small gardens are allotted provisionally to the households - Atsenhaienton (Kenneth Deer) objects to the yet there is no need for even a trace of our Kaianere'kó:wa even being called "the Great complicated administrative apparatus with all Law" and those that would treat it as such: "it's its ramifications. The decisions are taken by not a law: it's guidelines to help people get to those concerned, and in most cases harmony and coexistence... They look at the everything has been already settled by the Great Law and interpret it the way a custom of centuries. There cannot be any constitutional lawyer would. That's not the way it poor or needy - the communal household was intended to be treated." (84) Even if the and the gens know their responsibilities Kaianere'kó:wa should not be given a strict towards the old, the sick, and those disabled

17 An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity in war. All are equal and free - the women rewards and certainly granted the holder no included. There is no place yet for slaves, coercive power." (88) nor, as a rule, for the subjugation of other tribes." (86) While it is often argued that the roiá:ner were traditionally selected from certain matrilineal While Engels is right to commend the lines, and that not all kahwá:tsire were able to communal economy, sexual equality, and select candidates, this varied over time and horizontal political structure of the location. Teiowí:sonte describes modern Rotinonshón:ni, he erred in claiming that there debates around heredity: "To some, heredity is were no ranks of social prestige with political the very essence of Haudenosaunee

responsibilities. The anthropological definition governance and an integral factor in leadership ” of “egalitarian is narrow. There are selection... To others, this concept represents some "rank societies in which positions of the infiltration of European corruption into valued status are somehow limited so that not Haundenosaunee leadership selection and the all those of sufficient talent to occupy such fortification of a class system invading our statuses actually achieve them. Such a society traditional concept of democracy with notions of may or may not be stratified. That is, a society royalty. Likewise, advocates against the may sharply limit its positions of prestige without heredity concept believe it to be a affecting the access of its entire membership to non-traditional convention that is a fairly recent the basic resources upon which life depends" development resulting from colonization." (89) (87) While the numbers of roiá:ner and Snow claims that “Each nation devised its own iakoiá:ner were limited by the Kaianere'kó:wa internal mechanism for selecting and organizing to certain kahwá:tsire, positions of its League Chiefs ”(90); and that ohnkanetoten ohnkanetoten were open to all men on the were created to specifically deal with the issue basis of merit and selection by the roiá:ner of empowering men who did not come from the council. As has already been explained, distinct matrilineal lines eligible for becoming Rotinonshón:ni society had a communal work roiá:ner. (91) He argues further that at times, and consumption ethic (the communal economy the ranks may have represented a political of the "one bowl"), so although ranks of class distinct from the common Rotinonshón:ni, prestige did exist, they did not serve in a and a class of slaves made up of captives who position of accumulating or redistributing wealth. had not been adopted (92)--a situation which would have been most pronounced during the Graeber, who as an anarchist is quite Beaver Wars. suspicious of all hierarchy, says of the traditional Rotinonshón:ni, "for all the complex Graeber notes this as well. "It was around this federative structure, society was in most period one reads accounts of a society respects highly egalitarian. Office-holders, effectively divided into classes, with adopted male and female, were elected from among a prisoners doing the bulk of the menial labor and pool of possible heirs; the offices themselves, with members of their adopted families having at least the male political ones, were the right to kill them for the slightest infranctions considered as much a responsibility as a or impertinence... [T]his exceptionally brutal reward as they involved no real material period did not last long: the children of these

18 An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity captives were considered full members of their open to all who had reached the age of maturity. adoptive clans." (93) As we have seen from the (101) life of Thaientané:ken, the descendents of adoptees had the same political rights of Those familiar with the institution of common Rotinonshón:ni and could be selected consensus-based spokecouncils, used recently as ohnkanetoten. It is seemingly without in the protests against corporate neoliberalism contradiction that Snow also describes how ("anti-globalization"), will notice many little authority came with rank: "Although men similarities with Kahentinetha Horn's description appointed by each ohwachira probably met as of consensual decision-making among the a village council, they had little authority beyond Kanien'kehá:ka: the force of their personalities. This in turn meant that face-to-face persuasion was the "[N]o one can impose their will nor make rule. ” (94) Kanatiiosh emphasizes that "being a decisions for another, all must understand chief or a clan mother is just as important as the viewpoint and agree of their own free being a person without a title, for all people are will. The goal is not total agreement, but held responsible for preserving and protecting total understanding. If there is no agreement, the Great Law of Peace." (95) then the consensus is to retain the status Bonaparte, who himself served as a former quo. If there is understanding by all then they elected chief of the Mohawk Council of go ahead with the decision... In entering the Akwesasne,(97) does not even think that consensual decision-making process, roiá:ner should be called "chiefs": “a lot of our whatever ideas are put into the process, the people don't like using the term "chief" instead needs and attitudes of each is considered of "royaner," because chief is such a generic and complements the decision. Also, the term. You've got fire chiefs, police chiefs, chief individual has a duty to be directly involved, of staff, etc. Those are positions where the and to bring their ideas into the discussion people who have them are empowered to within their clan. The final decision will be make decisions for a group, whereas fully satisfactory to some, satisfactory to our "royaners" are facilitators for having the others and relatively satisfactory to the group itself come to the decision, and who then remainder, and will reflect elements from act upon that decision. ” (98) Indeed, the focus every group. This is a slow careful process on decision-making among the Rotinonshón:ni requiring the reaching of a full understanding was always to reach consensus. Snow has by each individual and not a decision made argued that the Rotinonshón:ni "emphasized by a 'leader.' The person who explains the consensus rather than executive authority, decision is a spokesman." (102) unanimity rather than majority rule, and equality rather than hierarchy" (99) Taiaiake goes so far The Kaianere'kó:wa lacks the monopoly of as to write that “holding non-consensual power force and the authority of coercive control that over others is contrary to tradition. Whatever define statist polities. It is a mutual agreement the purpose behind the use of arbitrary of non-aggression among its participants, authority, the power relationship is wrong ”. aimed primarily on maintaining peaceful (100) Richter describes a state of universal relations among them, rather than a guiding suffrage, claiming that voting in the council was document for the rule of elites over the rest of

19 An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity society. Richter has stated that "the coercive supported by a sense of duty, a fear of gossip, exercise of authority was virtually unknown" and a dread of retaliatory witchcraft. Theft, among the Rotinonshón:ni,(103) and that vandalism, armed robbery, were almost their "political values were essentially unknown. Public opinion, gently exercised, was noncompetitive." (104) Graeber believes sufficient to deter most persons from property that “the entire political apparatus was seen by crimes, for public opinion went straight to the its creators primarily as a way of resolving heart of the matter: the weakness of the murderous disputes. The League was less a criminal. ” (107) And Kanatiiosh argues that government, or even alliance, than a series of European settler "hierarchy breeds treaties establishing amity and providing the competition, and competition breeds anger, institutional means for preventing feuds and resentment, hatred, and can lead to revenge, maintaining harmony among the five nations which only continues the vicious cycle of that made it up. For all their reputation as violence. Western society is dependent on predatory warriors, the Iroquois themselves imprisonment, fines and other punishments, saw the essence of political action to lie in which are supposed to keep social order." She making peace. ” (105) contrasts that system of coercive punishment with the legal principles of the Kaianere'kó:wa, Justice among the traditional Rotinonshón:ni which created a "shared community where was the responsibility of everyone, particularly people have mutual respect for the entire group one's matrilineal kin. The focus was on rather then interested only in one's self. condoling kahwá:tsire for their loss and on Perhaps a little spirituality, shame, guilt, and regulating social behavior through popular respect of self and community would be the opinion, rather than through justice administered best elements to include in a recipe for a true by a specialized class. While some see the system of justice." (108) offering of wampum to the family of a murder victim to as a reparational payment, Richter repeatedly describes the traditional comparable to the Northern European polity of the Rotinonshón:ni as a "nonstate weregild, Morgan claimed that "the present of society" (109) and "a system dependent upon white wampum was not in the nature of a voluntary compliance". (110) His insistence on compensation of the life of the deceased, but of the difference between the Rotinonshón:ni and a regretful confession of the crime, with a the colonial states it was contemporary with is petition for forgiveness. It was a worth emphasizing: peace-offering, the acceptance of which was pressed by mutual friends, and under such "Making and preserving peace, then was influences that the reconciliation was usually the purpose of the League, and accordingly effect, except, perhaps, in aggravated cases of the Grand Council apparently did not premeditated murder." (106) undertake the kinds of political functions of decision making and diplomacy characteristic

Wallace's interpretation echoes Engel's of state-organized governments. In the early “ analysis of Rotinonshón:ni justice: Behavior seventeenth century, the League possessed was governed not by published laws enforced few state like characteristics: the Five by police, courts, and jails, but by oral tradition nations had little in the way of common

supported by a sense of duty, a fear of gossip, 20 An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity foreign policy, no effective means of command". (113) Member nations "never gave devising unified strategies, and no central up their power of individual decision. Often they government in the sense that term is usually struggled for dominance within the league, and understood by Americans. Indeed, on various sometimes (though rarely) they came to blows issues the ten or so autonomous towns of with each other. These phenomena were also Iroquoia were often at odds with one another to be observed among colonial towns and as they were in consensus. The League was villages, but whereas the Iroquois tribes not designed to remedy the deficit--nor, maintained local independence throughout their apparently, did the Iroquois people even existence, the colonies gradually came under perceive that there was any kind of deficit..." more and more effective central controls." (114) Daniel Richter, Ordeal of the Longhouse All Rotinonshón:ni nations are equal, regardless (111) of their number of clans, size of territory or numbers of population. (115) Bookchin, who so While the exact definition of a "state" is elusive, often suggested New England town-meeting none can deny that states wield a legal democracy as a basic building block of monopoly of violence, and that the state libertarian municipalist confederation, would therefore takes a coercive role in regards to its have done well to have taken the advice of citizens. In respect to the degree of a given Mitchel Cohen, and examine the Rotinonshón:ni polity's coercive control over its constituent polity as an example of the very sort of ideal of members, we can imagine a spectrum with the that he was advocating: totalitarian state on one end and a stateless society, an anarchy, on the other. Societies that "Town meetings, according to Bookchin, are are more ranked and stratified are more statist. the American equivalent of the Greek polis - Along this spectrum, the Rotinonshón:ni polity and why does he not seek to emulate the falls toward the pole of statelessness, having Iroquois tribal council instead or any of a extremely limited ranking, and lacking in both hundred non-European forms? Linked coercive authority and economic stratification. together, local communities form the potential, according to Bookchin, for The anarchist historian George Woodcock a "federated municipalism." All other forms, believed that the Rotinonshón:ni's polity particularly those created by native peoples, amounted to a stateless confederation: "a are seen as inferior. American Indian common council of sachems, in whose communities are diminished, in Bookchin's selection the women, whose influence derived framework, because of their lack of rational from their control of agriculture, played a great municipal debate. The framework of the role; but this council did not interfere in the colonizer informs Bookchin's ideas despite internal affairs of the tribes, so that it remained himself, disempowering radical ecology the coordinating body of a true confederation movements and undermining their rather than the government of the state." (112) potential."(116) Colonial historian Francis Jennings recognizes that it was "a league of friendship and mutual assistance, but ... a league of consultation and 0.0.3. Anarcho-Indigenism contract rather than a government of legislative

While Bookchin might have not recognized 21 An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity While Bookchin might have not recognized between indigenous and some strains of similarities between his own anti-authoritarian anarchist thought on the spirit of freedom politics and the traditional Rotinonshón:ni polity, and the ideals of a good society. Parallel some Rotinonshón:ni have also brushed off critical ideas and visions of post-imperial such comparisons. In an essay attempting to futures have been noted by a few thinkers, dissuade Rotinonshón:ni from participating as but something that may be called allies in the protests against the Free Trade anarcho-indigenism has yet to develop into a Area of Americas (FTAA) meetings held in April coherent philosophy. There are also 2001 in Québec City, Teiowí:sonte argued that important strategic commonalities between the "platform and aspirations among some of indigenous and anarchist ways of seeing and these groups, particularly the Anarchists, are to being in the world... a rejection of alliances eliminate any structured authority. Anarchism is with legalized systems of oppression, a Greek word meaning without government. non-participation in the institutions that Their beliefs are contradictory to that of the structure the colonial relationship, and a Kaianere'kó:wa and actually threaten the belief in bringing about change through existence of Haudenosaunee governments if direct action, physical resistance, and these groups ever attain their ultimate goal." confrontations with state power. It is on this (117) last point that connections have already been made between Onkwehonwe groups At least one of Teiowí:sonte's comrades in the and non-indigenous activist groups in the Wasáse Movement, Taiaiake, might disagree anti-globalization movement." (121) with Teiowí:sonte's interpretation of anarchism. Others, like Ward Churchill, have seen In defining universal indigenous principles, commonalities between Indigenism and Taiaiake's position is not only anti-statist but Anarchism. (118) Taiaiake, coming from a also explicitly anti-hierarchical: "Traditional traditionalist Kanien'kehá:ka perspective but indigenous nationhood stands in sharp contrast also an academic career in political science, to the dominant understanding of 'the state': history and indigenous governance, argues there is no absolute authority, no coercive explicitly for an "anarcho-indigenism."(119) Far enforcement of decisions, no hierarchy, and no from seeing anarchism as a hindrance to the separate ruling entity." (122) He goes so far as reestablishment of the Kaianere'kó:wa as the to call continued cooperation with the state polity of modern Rotinonshón:ni, Taiaiake sees as "morally unacceptable." (123) anarchism as the kind of political philosophy, "fundamentally anti-institutional, Perhaps anarchism and the struggle of other radically democratic, and committed to taking social movements have had effects upon action for change,"(120) that is needed to indigenism as well. While Taiaiake is a combine with the indigenous vision of a good passionate proponent of a return to traditional society. Not only do the commonalities exist in polity, he acknowledges that "it's not going to terms of philosophy, but they are increasingly look the same as before. Our ideas about being seen on the levels of strategy and praxis: injustice might even possess and lead us to fight our own people and the injustice they are "There are philosophical connections bringing on through the instrument of their form

22 An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity of government." (124)

The similarities between anarchism and indigenism are being increasingly noticed, as anarchists find themselves in solidarity with indigenous struggles from Oaxaca to Ohswé:ken. Some have gone so far as to argue that indigenism is the ancestor of anarchism(126)--a claim that seems all that more plausible when anarchists study the traditional polity of the Rotinonshón:ni. Teiowí:sonte has called the traditional polity of the Rotinonshón:ni the "original socialist paradise," partly because of its influence on Marx's socialism.(127) Feminists in the U.S. have acknowledged the influence of Rotinonshón:ni on their vision of equality. The traditional polity of the Rotinonshón:ni has demonstrated that cultural evolution is not unilinear. There is an alterative to a stratified, hierarchical, patriarchical society and an exploitive economy--but we must build it now, and not wait idly for some far-off future when material culture has completed its development. There is an alternative to kleptocracy. It is possible today!

Bibliography 23 An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity Bibliography # Teiowí:sonte Thomas Deer, "Barred from the 'socialist' paradise" (New Socialist, #58, # Akwesasne Notes, "Basic Call to September/October 2006) Consciousness: The Haudenosaunee Address # Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel to the Western World" Geneva, Autumn 1977 (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., # Taiaiake Gerald Alfred, Peace, Power, 1999) Righteousness: An Indigenous Manifesto (Don # Frederick Engels, Origins of the Family: The Mills: Oxford University Press, 1999) Iroquois Gens, Marx/Engels Selected Works, # Taiaiake Gerald Alfred, Wasáse: Indigenous Volume Three (1884) Pathways of Action and Freedom # David Graeber, Towards an Anthropological (Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 2005) Theory of Value: False Coin of Our Own # Harold Barclay, People Without Government: Dreams (New York, NY: PALGRAVE, 2001) An Anthropology of Anarchy (London: Kahn & # Kanatiiosh Barbara Gray, "The Importance of Averill, 1990) Narratives in Understanding: The Passions & # Daniel P. Barr, Unconquered: The Iroquois Law" League at War in Colonial America (Westport, # Hunter Gray, "Strawberries, the Iroquois, and CT: Praeger Publishers, 2006) My Strawberry Socialism" # Murray Bookchin, The Ecology of Freedom # Donald A. Grinde, Jr and Bruce E. Johansen, (London: AK Press, 1982) Exemplar of Liberty: Native America and the # Murray Bookchin, Social Anarchism or Evolution of Democracy (1990) Lifestyle Anarchism (London: AK Press, 1997) # Kahentinetha Horn, "Traditional Culture and # Murray Bookchin, Nationalism and Community Competition: an Analysis of the the "National Question" (Democracy and On-Going Struggle between the Great Law and Nature: Vol. 2, No. 2, Issue 5, 1994) the Code of Handsome Lake in Kahnawake" # Darren Bonaparte, Creation and (Mohawk Nation News) Confederation: The Living History of the # Francis Jennings, The Ambiguous Iroquois Iroquois (Ahkwesáhsne: The Wampum Empire: The Covenant Chain Confederation of Chronicles, 2006) Indian Tribes With English Colonies (New York: # Darren Bonaparte, "Kaniatarowanenneh: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1984) River of the Iroquois" (Wampum Chronicles) # Donald S. Lutz, "The Iroquois Confederation # Mitchel Cohen, "Listen, Bookchin!" (A Red Constitution: an analysis." (Publius Volume: 28 Ballon Collective Pamphlet, 1999) Issue: 2, 1998) # Ward Churchill, "Indigenism, Anarchism, and # Barbara A. Mann, "The Lynx in Time: the State: An Interview with Ward Churchill" Haudenosaunee Women's Traditions and ("Uping the Anti", #1) History" (American Indian Quarterly, Summer # Teiowí:sonte Thomas Deer, "The Hereditary 98, Vol. 21 Issue 3) Question" (Revolutionary Creations) # Lewis Henry Morgan, The League of the # Teiowí:sonte Thomas Deer, "The new Ho-de'-no-sau-nee, or Iroquois, 1850 Revolutionary War" (Revolutionary Creations) # Arthur C. Parker, The Constitution of the Five # Teiowí:sonte Thomas Deer, "The Nations or the Iroquois Book of the Great Law, Traditionalist Doctrine" (Revolutionary (Albany: University of the State of New York, Creations) 1916)

# Teiowí:sonte Thomas Deer, "Barred from # Natoway Brian Rice, "The Great Epic" 24 An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity # Natoway Brian Rice, "The Great Epic" Glossary ("Wampum Chronicles") # Daniel K. Richter, The Ordeal of the Terms are mostly in standard Kanien'kehá:ka Longhouse: The Peoples of the Iroquois League in the Era of European Colonization * Erielhonan / Rhiierrhonon (Erie) : (University of North Carolina Press, 1992) Iroquois-speaking nation, People of the Long # Dean R. Snow, The Iroquois, (Malden, MA: Tail, People of the Cat, south of Lake Erie Blackwell Publishing, 1994) * Iakoiá:ner / Oianer / Oyaner / Oyander / # John Steckley, "Wendat Dialects and the Yakoyaner : Clan Mothers, Title Holder, "they Development of the Huron Alliance" (Humber know the path", "good path College) maker", "good", "noble" Iotiiá:ner / Otiyaner is # Reuben Gold Thwaites (ed.), The Jesuit the plural form. Relations and Allied Documents: Travels and * Kahwá:tsire / Ohwachira : Matrilineal Clan Explorations of the Jesuit Missionaries in New * Kaianere'kó:wa / Gayanashagowa / Gai France 1610-1791 Eneshah Go' Nah : "The Great Good # Anthony F.C. Wallace, The Death and Way", "The Great Law", "The Great Law of Rebirth of the Seneca (New York: Vintage Peace", "The Good Tidings of Peace and Books, 1972) Power (and Righteousness)", "The Great # Sally Roesch Wagner, Sisters in Spirit: Binding Law", "The Constitution of the Five (Six) Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Influence on Early Nations" American Feminists (Summertown, TN: Native * Kaion'kehá:ka / Kaiokwenhá:ka` / Voices, 2001) Kaionkwe'haka / Kaokwa haka / # George Woodcock, "Anarchy, Freedom, Kayonkwe'haka (Cayuga) : "People of the Native People & The Environment" (Aurora great swamp". Iroquois-speaking nation, the Online) third nation to join the Rotinonshón:ni. West of the Ononta'kehá:ka nation, and east of the Shotinontowane'á:ka nation. A younger brother nation. * Kanien'kehá:ka / Kenienke haka / Kanyen'kehaka (Mohawk) : "People of the flint". Iroquois-speaking nation, first nation to join the Rotinonshón:ni. The keepers of the Eastern Door. An older brother nation. * Kakwa:ko (Neutral) : Iroquois-speaking nation near the Niagara * Karihwí:io / Gaiwiio : "the good message", The Code of Handsome Lake * Ohnkanetoten / Ehkanehdodeh / Enkanedoden : "Pine Tree" chief/sachem, selected by council of roiá:ner, serve for life, have voice but not vote in council of roiá:ner consensus decision-making, may be stripped

Glossary of their title by council of roiá:ner (the council will 25 An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity of their title by council of roiá:ner (the council will * Shotinontowane'á:ka / no longer hear them). Shotinontowane'haka / Sonontowa haka * Oneniote'á:ka / Onenyote'haka (Oneida, (Seneca) : "People of the great mountain". Onneiouts) : "People of the standing stone". Iroquois-speaking nation. Fourth nation to join Iroquois-speaking nation, second nation to join the Rotinonshón:ni. The door keepers, the the Rotinonshón:ni. West of Kanien'kehá:ka western most nation of the Rotinonshón:ni. An nation, east of Ononta'kehá:ka nation. Allied to older brother nation. the United States during the U.S. Revolutionary * Susquehannock / Conestoga : War. A younger brother nation. Iroquois-speaking nation, south of the * Onkwehón:we / Onkwehonwe : the original Rotinonshón:ni people, indigenous * Taskaroraha:ka / Taskarorahaka * Ononta'kehá:ka / Oneota (Tuscarora) : "People of the shirt". haka(Onondaga): "People of the hills". Iroquois-speaking nation who migrated north Iroquois-speaking nation, the fifth nation to join after pressure from North Carlonia settlers. The the Rotinonshón:ni. Keepers of the central sixth nation to join the Rotinonshón:ni as a council fire. West of the Oneniote'á:ka nation, distinct, autonomous nation--but did not have east of the Kaion'kehá:ka nation. An older roiá:ner in Rotinonshón:ni council. brother nation. Oneniote'á:ka roiá:ner would speak for them in * Roiá:ner / Royaner / Roianer / council, and Taskarorahaka were regarded as Hoyane : "He makes a good path for people to the younger brothers to the Oneniote'á:ka. follow", "good", "noble", clan chiefs/sachem, * Tionontati (Petun) : Iroquois-speaking selected by the iakoiá:ner, usually from men nation, "Tobacco", Khionontateronon, within the kahwá:tsire, subject to removal from Conkhandeerrhonon, Quieunontati

office by decision of iakoiá:ner. Rotiiá:ner / * Wendat / Wyndat / Wyandot / Wyandatt “ Rotiyaner / Rotiianer is the plural form. Their (Huron) : Iroquois-speaking nation “Huron

badge of office is a deer antler headress, was the French name for the Wendat because “

symbolizing that they will only eat the flesh of of their farming. Literally, “Huron “ deer and make war no more. To participate in means “peasant ; Guyandot, Guyandotte, warfare, a roiá:ner would have to give up their Ouendat, and Wyandotte. Included : position as roiá:ner. Arendahronon (rock people); Attignawantan * Ratihnhohanónhnha / Roninhohhot : the (Attignaouentan, Attignousntan) (bear people); door keepers, the Shotinotowane'haka Attigneenongnahac (Attiguenongha) (cord charged with guarding the western door of the people); and Tahontaenrat (Scanonaerat, Rotinonshón:ni longhouse. Scahentoarrhonon) (deer * Rotinonshón:ni / Rotinoshoni / people).Wenrohronon / Ahouenrochrhonon Rotinonsonni / Rotinonsionni / (Wenro): Iroquois-speaking nation, "the people Haudenosaunee / Hotinnochiendi / Ganonsyoni of the place of floating scum", (Iroquois) : "People of the long house", "the Ahouenrochrhonon and Ouenrionon. people of the completed longhouse", "the lodge extended lengthwise", the Five / Six Nations of the Iroquois, the league of the Iroquois, the Iroquois confederacy.

* Shotinontowane'á:ka / 26 An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity of Correspondence for Democracy and People Socialism and the United Auto Workers Local 1981 (National Writers Union). * Aiewáhtha / Ayenwatha / Ayonwentah / * Kahentinetha Horn : Kanien'kehá:ka Ayawatha / Ayonwatha / Hiawatha / journalist and activist from Kahnawà:ke, editor Hayanwatah : Kanien'kehá:ka roiá:ner, of Mohawk Nation News (MNN). She is also a possibly Ononta'kehá:ka adopted as professor of Indigenous Women's History at Kanien'kehá:ka. Title is requickened. Concordia University. * Atsenhaienton Kenneth Deer : "The fire still * Kanatiiosh Barbara Gray, JD: burns". Kanien'kehá:ka of the Bear kahwá:tsire, Kanien'kehá:ka/Ononta'kehá:ka and Deer residing in Kahnawà:ke, publisher and editor kahwá:tsire from Ahkwesáhsne, author and of "The Eastern Door", Chairman/Rapporteur of Ph.D. candidate for Native American Justice the UN Workshop on Indigenous Media in New Studies, Arizona State University Law School, York in December of 2000, member of the Editor of the Haudenosaunee Environmental Board of Directors for the Quebec Community Task Force (HETF) Newsletter Newspapers Association from 1999-2001, and * Karonhienhá:wi / Karonienhawi / Matilda co-chairman of the National Indian Education Joslyn Gage : "Sky Carrier", a suffragist of Council in Canada. European ancestery adopted into the Wolf * Barbara Alice Mann, Ph.D : kahwá:tsire of the Kanien'kehá:ka. Shotinontowane'á:ka author, professor of * Natoway Brian Rice, Ph.D : Native American Studies at the University of Kanien'kehá:ka author, assistant professor of Toledo aboriginal Education at the University of * Dayodekane / Seth Newhouse : Winnipeg Kanien'kehá:ka and Ononta'kehá:ka author of * Ranatakárias / Ranatakiias / Hanadagywu / Ohswé:ken. He transcribed the Kaianere'kó:wa Caunotaucarius /Conotocarious / in 1885, but was not credited when Gawasco Hanadahguyus : "Town Destroyer", title given Waneh published it. to George Washington when President of the * Ganioda'yo / Ganeodiyo / United States because of his ordering the Gunyundiyo : "Handsome Lake", Sullivan-Clark military expedition against the Shotinontowane'á:ka roiá:ner who brought the Rotinonshón:ni. The title has been passed on to Karihwí:io. Title is requickened. subsquent U.S. presidents since. * Gawasco Waneh / Gawaso Wanneh / * Sakoiatentha Darren Bonaparte : Arthur Caswell Parker : "Talking Leaves", Kanien'kehá:ka author from Ahkwesáhsne, Shotinontowane'á:ka archeologist, historian, wampumchronicles.com, member of Wasáse published Kaianere'kó:wa in English. Movement * Hunter Gray (Hunterbear) John R Salter, * Segoyewatha / Sagoyawatha : Jr. : Ahkwesáhsne Kanien'kehá:ka, Mi'kmaq, Shotinontowane'á:ka and ohnkanetoten, St. Francis Abenaki, labor organizer and civil famous orator, "He Keeps Them rights activist, former departmental chair of Awake", "Red Jacket", Otetiani, "always Indian Studies at University of North Dakota, ready" member of Solidarity, Socialist Party USA, * Taiaiake Gerald Alfred, Ph.D : Democratic Socialists of America, Committees Kanien'kehá:ka author from Kahnawà:ke,

of Correspondence for Democracy and 27 An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity adjunct professor of Political Science, Director 0.0.4. Places of Indigenous Governance Programs and the Indigenous Peoples Research Chair at the * Ahkwesáhsne : "Where the partridge University of Victoria, member of Wasáse drums", St. Regis Movement * Hochelaga (Montreal): also called * Teiowí:sonte Thomas Deer : Tiohtiá:ke / Tsotiahke in Kanien'kehá:ka "where Kanien'kehá:ka journalist and illustrator from the people split apart." Kahnawà:ke, member of Wasáse Movement * Kahnawà:ke / Kahnawake / * Tekanawí:ta / Dekanahwideh / Caughnawaga : "On the rapids", a Deginawada / Deganawida : "Two Currents Kanien'kehá:ka community near Montreal. Coming Down", possibly Kanien'kehá:ka, * Kanehsatà:ke : "On the crusty sands", a possibly Wendat adopted by Kanien'kehá:ka. Kanienkeha community near Oka and The title is not requickened. "The Peacemaker" Montreal. is an English sobriquet. * Kaniatarí:io : "Beautiful lake", Lake Ontario * Thaientané:ken / Tyientané:ken / * Kaniatarowanénhne / Thayendanegea / Tyendinaga / Joseph Brant : Kaniatarowanenneh : "Big waterway" in Kanien'kehá:ka and ohnkanetoten, lead many Kanien'kehá:ka. Also called the St. Lawrence Rotinonshón:ni against the United States. His River. efforts would help establish the community at * Kenhtè:ke (Tyendinaga) : "Place of the Ohswé:ken, the Six Nation's reserve along the bay", a Kanien'kehá:ka Community at the Bay Grand River, and the town of Brantford is of Quinte, birthplace of Tekanawí:ta. named for him, as is the Tyendinaga Mohawk * Ohswé:ken / Ohsweken : the Six Nations Community at the Bay of Quinte. reserve along the Grand River, the Haldimand * Thatotáhrho / Tatotaho / Atotárho / Tract Atotarho / Tododaho / Tadadaho / Adodarho / * Onnontaé / Ononta:ke (Onondaga) : "On Adoda:r'ho : Ononta'kehá:ka roiá:ner, keeper the Hill", Ononta'kehá:ka town, near Syracuse, of the council fire. Title is requickened. The where the central council fire of the current Thatotáhrho is Sid Hill. Rotinonshón:ni is kept.

* Tsikónhsase / Tsokansase / Jigonsaseh / * Stadacona : also called Tetiatenontarì:kon ’ Jikohnsaseh / Djikonsa se : "the mother of in Kanien'kehá:ka, near Quebec City nations", "the peace queen", "round face" * Tonawanda : West of Alabama, New York possibly of the Kakwa:ko on east side of the * Tuscorara : Near Niagara Falls Niagara, provisioned warriors and also administered disputes. Title is requickened. Niá:wen : Thanks. Niá:wen to Kaiò for helping with this glossary.

0.0.4. Places Endnotes 28 An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity Endnotes Tekanawí:ta. The version mentioned here is the Ohswé:ken Rotiiá:ner version. Bonaparte, 1. Thwaites, The Jesuit Relations and Allied Creation and Confederation, 81 Documents: Travels and Explorations of the 13. Barbara Mann, "The Lynx in Time: Jesuit Missionaries in New France 1610-1791, Haudenosaunee Women's Traditions and

Vol. 51 History" ’ 2. Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel, 268-269 14. Parker lists her as Djikonsa se, "the mother 3. For this article, "Iroquois" will be used to of nations", refer to those who speak a northern Iroquois "the peace queen" and states that she was of language, while "Rotinonshón:ni" the Kakwa:ko (Neutral) nation on the east side (Haudenosaunee) will be used for the specific of the Niagara. Parker, The Constitution of the polity, also known as the People of the Five Nations or the Iroquois Book of the Great Longhouse and the League (Confederacy) of Law, 71 Five (Six) Nations. Terms used throughout the 15. Also transliterated as Tsokansase, article are mostly in standard Kanien'kehá:ka Natoway Brian Rice, "The Great Epic: The 4. Bonaparte, Creation and Confederation, 47 Peacemaker Brings the Message of Peace to 5. Also referred to as Gayanashagowa, "The the Kenienke haka" Great Law," "The Great Law of Peace", "The 16. Mann Good Tidings of Peace and Power (and 17. This version is from Thaientané:ken Righteousness)," "The Great Binding (Joseph Brant). Bonaparte, Creation and Law," "The Constitution of the Five (Six) Confederation, 54-55. Nations" 18. This has been related in the oral tradition as 6. Diamond, 286-287 recited by Jake Thomas and referenced by 7. Ibid, 276 Kanatiiosh Barbara Gray, "The Importance of 8. Bookchin, Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Narratives in Understanding: The Passions & Anarchism Law" 9. Symbolizes the confederation of the 19. Kahentinetha Horn, "Traditional Culture and Rotinonshón:ni. Each square is a seperate Community Competition"

nation, with the white pine in the center 20. Newhouse and Ohswé:ken rotiiá:ner ’ representing Ononta'kehá:ka as the central fire versions, Parker; as well as Rice s version. keepers. 21. Lewis Henry Morgan, The League of the 10. Bonaparte, Creation and Confederation, 7 Ho-de'-no-sau-nee, or Iroquois, 308 11. Ohswé:ken is also known as the Six 22. Jesuit Relations, Vol. 43 Nations Reserve at Grand River, the 23. Richter, 17 Haldimand Tract. The version mentioned here 24. Wallace, The Death and Rebirth of the is Seth Newhouse ’s. Bonaparte, Creation and Seneca,143 Confederation, 85 25. Ibid., 194 12. Bay of Quinte is also home of the 26. Teiowí:sonte Thomas Deer, "The Tyendinaga (a reference to Thayendanega) Traditionalist Doctrine" Kanien'kehá:ka community established in 1784. 27. Hunter Gray, "Strawberries, the Iroquois, There is a memorial at the Community Centre and My Strawberry Socialism" to "The Peacemaker"--an English sobriquet of 28. Richter, Ordeal of the Longhouse, 25

Tekanawí:ta. The version mentioned here is the 29. Ibid., 23 29 An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity 29. Ibid., 23 Ours is the right to representation in all councils; 30. Bookchin, The Ecology of Freedom, 50 Ours is the right to make and abrogate treaties; 31. Graeber, Towards an Anthropological Ours is the supervision over domestic and

Theory of Value foreign policies; “

32. Akwesasne Notes, Basic Call to Ours is the trusteeship of tribal property; ” Consciousness Our lives are valued again as high as man's. " 33. Kahwá:tsire / Ohwachira means matrilineal Donald A. Grinde, Jr and Bruce E. Johansen, clan. Snow, The Iroquois, 69 Exemplar of Liberty: Native America and the 34. Sally Roesch Wagner, Sisters in Spirit: Evolution of Democracy Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Influence on Early 53. Wagner, 28 American Feminists, 91-92 54. Ibid, 32 35. Barclay, People Without a Government, 55. Ibid, 93 121 56. Taiaiake, Wasáse: Indigenous Pathways of 36. Snow, 65 Action and Freedom, 84 37. Graeber, 122 57. Jesuit Relations: 42:253 38. Wagner, 68 58. Bookchin, Nationalism and the "National 39. Ibid, 66 Question" 40. Ibid, 47 59. Snow, 67 41. Jesuit Relations, Vol LI, CXXII 60. Ibid, 87 42. Wagner, 73 61. Bonaparte, "Kaniatarowanenneh: River of 43. Ibid., 69 the Iroquois" 44. Kanatiiosh 62. Snow, 88 45. Snow, 71-72 63. Bonaparte, "Kaniatarowanenneh: River of 46. Wallace, 283-28 the Iroquois" 47. Ibid, 28 64. Natoway Brian Rice, "The Great Epic, 48. Kahentinetha Coming of the Light Skinned Beings." 49. Morgan, 331 65. Natoway, "The Great Epic, Coming of the 50. Snow, 217 Light Skinned Beings." 51. Ibid, 198 66. Snow, 79-80 52. "On May 16, 1914, only six years before 67. Ibid, 100 the first national election in which women had 68. Natoway, "The Great Epic, The Revival of the vote, Puck printed a line drawing of a group the War Chiefs" of Indian women observing Susan B. Anthony, 69. Graeber, 146 Anne Howard Shaw and Elizabeth Cady 70. Snow, 115 Stanton leading a parade of women. A verse 71.Ibid, 117 under the print read: 72. Ibid, 118 73. John Steckley, "Wendat Dialects and the "Savagery to Civilization" Development of the Huron Alliance," Humber "We, the women of the Iroquois College Own the Land, the Lodge, the Children 74. Daniel P. Barr, Unconquered: The Iroquois Ours is the right to adoption, life or death; League at War in Colonial America, 47, 40-41 Ours is the right to raise up and depose chiefs; 75. Bonaparte, Creation and Confederation, 96

Ours is the right to representation in all councils; 76. Richter, 119-120 30 An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity 76. Richter, 119-120 101. Richter, 43 77. This wampum belt was given to the 102. Kahentinetha Kanien'kehá:ka of Kahnawà:ke by the Wendat 103. Richter, 45 of Lorette (Wendake), circa 1677. 104. Ibid, 45 78. Kahentinetha 105. Graeber, 125 79. Wallace, 29 106. Morgan, 333 80. Natoway, "The Great Epic: Sawiskera 107. Wallace, 25 Gains Control" 108. Kanatiiosh 81. Donald S. Lutz, "The Iroquois 109. Richter, 44 Confederation Constitution: an analysis." 110. Ibid, 46 82. Snow, 183 111. Ibid, 40 83. Haudenosaunee: Great Law of Peace 112. George Woodcock, "Anarchy, Freedom, 84. Taiaiake, Peace, Power and Native People & The Environment" Righteousness, 102 113. Jennings, The Ambiguous Iroquois 85. Ibid, Peace, Power and Righteousness, Empire , 7 103 114. Ibid. 86. Frederick Engels, Orgin of the Family, 115. Kahentinetha Private Property and the State 116. Mitchel Cohen, "Listen, Bookchin!" 87. Fried quoted by Barclay, 41. 117. Teiowí:sonte, "The new Revolutionary 88. Graeber, 122 War" 89. Teiowí:sonte "The Heredity Question" 118. Churchill, "Indigenism, Anarchism, and the 90. Snow, 62 State: An Interview with Ward Churchill", "Uping 91. Ibid, 65 the Anti", #1 92. Ibid, 130 119. Taiaiake, Wasáse: Indigenous Pathways 93. Graeber, 124 of Action and Freedom, 45 94. Snow, 89 120. Ibid. 95. Kanatiiosh 121. Ibid. 96. Symbolizes the unity and equality of the fifty 122. Taiaiake, Peace, Power and roiá:ner. The one longer strand represents the Righteousness, 56 people or keeper of all records of the league. 123. Taiaiake, Wasáse: Indigenous Pathways Image from Wampum Chronicles. of Action and Freedom, 36 link 124. Ibid, 92 link 125. This belt symbolizes adoption: any one or 97. The MCA is a band council, not an any nation outside of the Rotinonshón:ni wishes organization of the traditional polity of the to abide by the Kaianere'kó:wa may follow one Rotinonshón:ni; thus it has chiefs not roiá:ner. of the great roots to the tree. If their minds are 98. Bonaparte, personal correspondence; a clean and they promise to obey the wishes of sentiment also confirmed by Kahentinetha Horn the roiá:ner council, they are welcome to take in her interview with Kakwirakeron. shelter beneath the tree of peace. link 99. Snow, 142 126. Churchill 100. Taiaiake, Peace, Power an 127. Teiowí:sonte, "Barred from the 'socialist' Righteousness, 28 paradise"

101. Richter, 43 31 An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity "You say that you are our Father and I am your son. We say, We will not be like Father and Son, but like Brothers. This wampum belt confirms our words. These two rows will symbolize two paths or two vessels, traveling down the same river together. One, a birch bark canoe, will be for the onkwehón:we, their laws, their customs and their ways. The other, a ship, will be for the white people and their laws, their customs and their ways. We shall each travel the river together, side by side, but in our boat. Neither of us will make compulsory laws or interfere in the internal affairs of the other. Neither of us will try to steer the other's vessel."

"As long as the Sun shines upon this Earth, that is how long OUR Agreement will stand; Second, as long as the Water still flows; and Third, as long as the Grass Grows Green at a certain time of the year. Now we have Symbolized this Agreement and it shall be binding forever as long as Mother Earth is still in motion."

Rotinonshón:ni-Dutch treaty, 1613

32 An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity