Deganawidah
Deganawidah, Hiawatha, and the League of Five Nations
30 x 24 inches • oil on wood panel • artist Steve Simon
Biography
About the Painting
Selected Quote
Overview
Known to the Iroquois simply as “The Great Peacemaker,” Deganawidah had a powerful influence on the world. His vision for the Great Law of Peace and League of Five Nations established the first democratic confederation with a constitution.Interaction with the Iroquois by our Founding Fathers would have a deeply consequential impact on our own confederation of states and our own constitution.
The Iroquois, who are a matrilineal nation, also interacted with many of the early suffragists. In the Iroquois women, suffragists found a real-life, motivational example of empowered, enfranchised women.
Deganawidah and the Great Law of Peace
Deganawidah Biography
Our journey along the “arc” begins on the north shore of Lake Ontario. Sometime in the mid-fifteenth century, a boy was born into the Huron Nation. He was given the name Deganawidah, but he would eventually become known simply as the Great Peacemaker. One day, the boy received a vision for a pathway to broadly shared peace. Deganawidah explained his ideas to his native people, but they were unmoved. He, thus, chose to leave his family and the Huron people to pursue his vision elsewhere.
He headed east toward modern-day New York State where he found the strife-ridden territories of the Iroquois, which included the nations of the Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, and Seneca. Venturing through the woodlands, Deganawidah met a deeply depressed, wandering Onondaga man whose family had been wiped out at the hands of Atotarho, their nation’s own chief. Despite the vengeful rage in the wanderer’s heart, Deganawidah convinced the wanderer to choose forgiveness and accept the vision for peace.
Together the duo managed to convince all of the Iroquois nations except the powerful Onondaga to accept the vision. Their wicked chief Atotarho, whose hair was said to crawl with snakes, rebuked any plans for peace. Deganawidah convinced the wanderer that he would be the one to “comb the snakes” from Atotarho’s hair. In so doing the wanderer would earn the name Hiawatha, or “He Who Combs.”
Hiawatha by Augustus Saint-Gaudens Metropolitan Museum of Art
With brilliant stagecraft, diplomacy, song, and oratory, Deganawidah and Hiawatha converted Atotarho and the Great Law of Peace was struck. Thus, these Iroquois nations formed the League of Five Nations—the first democratic confederation in history.
Some three centuries after the confederacy was established, Europeans began making regular contact with the Iroquois Nations in North America. Early colonists expected these “savage” societies to be uncivilized and lawless. What they found instead were well-organized, lawful communities with impressive gender balance, no slavery, no prisons, and above all, a passion for personal freedoms.
Many colonists were strongly influenced by the Iroquois, notably Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson. These Founding Fathers would play significant roles in declaring independence, uniting the colonies into a confederation, and writing the Constitution.
Many colonists were strongly influenced by the Iroquois, notably Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson.
In 1988 the U.S. Congress formally recognized the contributions of the Iroquois Confederacy. House Concurrent Resolution 331 acknowledged the profound Iroquois influence:
Whereas the confederation of the original Thirteen Colonies into one republic was influenced by the political system developed by the Iroquois Confederacy as were many of the democratic principles which were incorporated into the Constitution itself.
Interestingly, Iroquois society is matrilineal and matrifocal. As we shall see later, this would also play a decidedly influential role in bending another important segment of our arc.
For a more in-depth presentation of this history, please click here.
About the Painting
The painting depicts the climactic scene of The Iroquois Great Law of Peace. The Great Peacemaker, Deganawidah, lays his hands on Atotarho and straightens the seven crooked places of the wicked chief’s body. The Great Peacemaker sings as he gazes upward. For, as he taught, we do our best thinking of peace when we gaze upon the sky.
Meanwhile, Hiawatha combs the snakes from Atotarho’s hair. Hiawatha wears a wampum belt draped from his shoulder across his torso. The Hiawatha belt, as it has since become known, symbolizes the League of Five Nations.
The five onlookers are likewise symbolic of the Five Nations. They lean and sit on a fallen tree, representing the toppling of the old war-faring paradigm and the venture into the new peace-seeking league.
The compositional tool of the golden spiral is employed in this painting. Its eye is in the center of the snake tattoo on Atotarho’s arm. It follows the curve of the rock upon which he lays and is then picked up by his arching back. The spiral points to the Achilles heel of Atotarho, suggesting the vulnerable point for defeating the mighty warrior and, by extension, the triumph of peace over war.
Selected Deganawidah Quote
“I, Dekanawida (or Deganawidah), and the Union Lords, now uproot the tallest pine tree and into the cavity thereby made we cast all weapons of war. Into the depths of the earth, down into the deep underearth currents of water flowing to unknown regions we cast all the weapons of strife. We bury them from sight and we plant again the tree. Thus shall the Great Peace be established and hostilities shall no longer be known between the Five Nations but peace to the United People.”