Description of above painting

​The main figures in this painting are Atotarho (splayed over the rock), Deganawidah (hand on Atotarho's chest), and Hiawatha (combing the snakes from Atotarho's hair).  The painting is an allegory of the climax of the Iroquois epic of the Great Law of Peace. 

In this climactic scene, Deganawidah and Hiawatha convert the evil Atotarho to accept the Great Law of Peace.  Deganawidah laid his hands on Atotarho’s body and straightened the seven crooked places as Hiawatha combed the snakes from the once wicked chief’s hair.

The seven crooks include Atotarho’s menacing hair, the unjust deeds done by his hands, the crooked paths traveled by his feet, the dark visions beheld by his eyes, the unkind words uttered through his throat, the twisted interpretations of his hearing, the unclean urges of his sexuality, and the wicked thoughts of his mind. The golden spiral is once again employed in this composition. 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 unconquerable warrior. Hiawatha wears a wampum belt draped from his shoulder across his torso. The Hiawatha belt, as it has since become known, symbolizes the Five Nations. 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. There are five onlookers, 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.  For a a more complete account of this history, please click here.