A constitutional league of peace in the stone age of America : the League of the Iroquois and its constitution / by J.N.B. Hewitt.

  • John Napoleon Brinton Hewitt
Date:
1920
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A constitutional league of peace in the stone age of America : the League of the Iroquois and its constitution / by J.N.B. Hewitt. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    19/32 page 537
    lying south of the great lake. He left them in a “ white canoe,” which perhaps was a canoe of white birch, which later tradition has carelessly confounded with the ice canoe (=ice block) in which the Iroquoian myth of the Beginnings says the Winter God goes from place to place and which by further corruption of the misconception in modern literature has become a “ flint ” or “ stone ” canoe. Tradition ranks Deganawida with the demigods, because of the masterful orenda or magic power with which, it was alleged, he tirelessly overcame the obstacles and difficulties of his great task; because of the astuteness and the statesmanship he displayed in nego¬ tiation ; and lastly, because of the courage and wisdom he showed in patiently directing the work of framing the laws and elucidating the fundamental principles on which they and the entire structure of the Iroquois league or confederation must rest, if these were to endure to secure the future welfare of their posterity. He was a prophet and statesman and lawmaker of the Stone Age of North America. Tradi¬ tion ascribes his lineage to no tribe, lest his personality be limited thereby. The traditions concerning the person who has become known as Hiawatha on close examination are found to describe two very dif¬ ferent personages. In one tradition Hiawatha when first seen by Deganawida was a cannibal and was actually engaged in bringing the carcass of a human being into his lodge, which he quickly proceeded to quarter and cook in a pot of water. He had been out hunting for human beings, and meeting this one had killed him for his larder. Deganawida had previously heard of his cannibalistic habits from Djigonsasen, the chieftainess of the Neutral nation (or tribe), who was the first person to understand and to accept the radical pro¬ gram of Deganawida for stopping the shedding of human blood by violence and for the establishment of peace and equity and righteous¬ ness and power. Unseen by Hiawatha, Deganawida, the tradition says, mounting to the top of the lodge watched Hiawatha at work; peering through the smoke hole from a point just over him, Deganawida saw what was being done by Hiawatha and, tradition says, caused him by mental suggestion to realize the horrible enormity of what he was then doing; so he mistook the face of Deganawida, reflected in the pot, for his own, and being struck with the great beauty of that face he con¬ trasted it with the character of the work in which he was then engaged and exclaimed, tradition says: “ That face and this kind of business do not agree ”; and he then and there resolved to give up cannibalism for all time. He quickly arose and carried the pot out of the lodge and cast its contents away at some distance from the lodge.
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