Evening star., 1927-05-04
LEAGUE OF |ROQUO|S.
STUDY NEARING END
Hewitt to Reveal Story of An
cient Indian Body to
Keep Peace.

The League of the Iroquois, aston
fishing organization of a primitive peo-
pie to put an end for all time to the
shedding of human blood, forms the
subject of a lifetime research by
Smithsonian ethnologist, who leaves
Washington tomorrow for a final sum
mcr of field work preparatory to issu-
ing his results. J. n. r. Hewitt of the
Bureau of American Ethnology, under
the Smithsonian. began gathering
texts on the league among the lro-
uuois of New York State and Canada
in 1898 In the intervening. years his
authority on the subject has become
such that recently three chiefs of the
Onondaga came to ask Mr.. Hewitt
about the principles of the league.
The Federation Of the Five Ma
tions was consummated about 1870
between the Mohawk. the On0ndaga,
the Oneida, the Cayuga and the SEN
eca. 1t was the conception of DeSan-
awida. law giver, statesman and
prophet Appalled, by the relentless
feuds which turned the 1roquoian
country into a highway of blood,
he sought for a means of lnSuring
peace between all known tribes of
men. The solution he found was a
constitutional form of government
based on three sets of double" prin-
ClDitiso--Htdllii anu titutes ti5iibCpdc-
ness and justice, authority and har-
moay between man and man and man
and nature. The founder and his as
soc sates meant this plan to apply not
ONLY 10 the lroquois peoples, but to
ser&e as a model for all men. The hui
ma nifty and craftsmanship of this con-
cepFion would do honor to cOtem
poAry nation. The Iroquois Indians
we.e in the stone age when Degan
awlda conceived it.
Task Seemed Hopeless.
70 give body to the plan must have
seCaned at the beginning a hopeless
ta.zl It means not only a new spirit |
ua. conception, but an entire revolu-
tic 4 in the methods. scope and forms
Of Government eXtant among the Iro-
qukis. Deganawida succeeded by a
loE period of prosecuting among the
tr{es. His chief aids were, first, |
d iSensasen, a chieftainess of the
N AItral Nation Tor tribel, then very
pcEerful, warlike, though neutral in
II wars between the Hurons and the |
IrIquois, and Hiawatha. This Hia |
w ha was not the hero of Longfel- |
le Us poem, but a tribal chief and a
pr &cticing cannibal, whom Degana- |
W Pa won to his side.
Typical of the practical steps by |
" Hch the league achieved its purpose |
o;speace was the setting Of n legal |
teEder price on human life so that |
ii A death of a man, whether by acci- |
d. t or design, would cease to bring in |
it \ train an endless series of revenge |
dIths. A male life was paid for by |
2 = stringe of wampum, a female by |
3sF and there the matter ended.
Chiefs i'm Control.
EThe government of the league was |
"a the hands of a council of chiefs |
representing the constituent clans of |
tTh tribes, each of whom was elected |
b the women, of his clan. As proof |
oehow literally the founder statesman |
c,mceived the purpose of government |
ts be the attainment of good, or peace, |
iaf is only necessary to state that the |
c3ief of the council could not go to
war while he held the chiefship.
iThe ordinances of the league consti- |
tAtion required that the number of |
taAe chiefs in the federal council should |
lA kept intact. Consequently the rit- |
lFals for the council of condoling and |
Installation of chief lay at the heart |
IL the integrity of the Iroquois Fed |
Grafton It Is on these rituals that |
7ar. Hewitt, under the direction of the |
afureau of American Ethnology, has |
tseVoted so many years, and which he |
row wishes to collate and verify for /
81 final translation
lit is scarcely to be wondered at that |
the man whose vision was so high |
;8bove the common level and to whom /
the Iroquois owed their form of gov
tsrnment, should become a legendary
tlnd divine character. In course of |
time a story of immaculate conception
fSprang up about Deganawida's birth |
which parallels curiously the story of
the birth of Jesus.