This is from the the Peacemaker founding the League. It was written down by the Seneca ethnologist, Arthur C. Parker, a grand-nephew of Lewis Henry Morgan's collaborator Ely S. Parker, know by the native name of Hasanoanda.
"I am Dekanawidah (the Peacemaker) and with the Five Nations' Confederate Lords I plant the Tree of the Great Peace. I plant it in your territory, Tadodaho, and the Onondaga Nation, in the territory of you who are Firekeepers....
"Roots have spread out from the Tree....one to the north, one to the east, one to the south and one to the west. The name of these roots is the Great White Roots and their nature is Peace and Strength.
"If any man or any nation outside the Five Nations shall obey the laws of the Great Peace ... they may trace the Roots to the Tree and ... they shall be welcomed....
"We place at the top of the Tree ... an Eagle who is able to see afar. If he sees in the distance any evil approaching or any danger threatening he will at once warn the people of the Confederacy....
"The Smoke of the Confederate Council Fire shall ever ascend and pierce the sky so that other nations who may be allies may see....
"Whevever the Confederate Lords shall assemble for the purpose of holding a council, the Onondaga Lords shall open it by expressing gratitude to their cousin Lords ... and they shall made an address and offer thanks to the earth ... to the streams of water, the pools, the springs and the lakes, to the maize (corn) and the fruits, to the medicinal herbs and trees, to the forest trees for their usefulness, to the animals that serve as food and give their pelts for clothing, to the great winds and the lesser winds, to the Thunderers, to the Sun, the mighty warrior, to the moon, to the messengers of the Creator who reveal his wishes and to the Great Creator... ruler of health and life....
"Five arrows shall be bound together very strongly and ... this shall symbolize the union of the nations."
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Besides its political content, the Great Law reflects the profound gratitude that Iroquois, like all Amerindians, felt for the gift of life.
The Iroquois ritual year was a round of grateful celebration. In springfamilies gathered at their sugar groves for the Thanks-to-the-Maple feast.
In May or June came the Corn Planting,
Followed by the Strawberry Festival when the first wild fruit was tasted.
The greatest occasion was the Green Corn Dance, when the first maize hadripened. That was the gathering that Ben and I and our children attended.
Finally, in October, when the crops were harvested and stored, the Iroquois honoured the Creator with Thanksgiving, yet another custom that the newAmericans borrowed from the old ones.
At Thanksgiving dinner today, in most of America, the diners sit down to give thanks to God and to eat turkey, pumpkin, maize, beans and potatoes, none of which were known to Europe before Columbus came to the Americas in 1492.
If you visit Iroquoia today you find that a different historical landscape has been laid down. Iroquois places have been renamed Syracuse, Rome, Ithaca, Homer, Ovid, as if a past could be transferred by using the names of places and poets of ancient Greece and Rome, from one world to another.
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