Chapter 2 The Clearings and The Woods: The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Landscape Gendered and Balanced

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1 Chapter 2 The Clearings and The Woods: The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Landscape Gendered and Balanced Robert W. Venables You who are wise must know, that different Nations have different Conceptions. Canasatego A Haudenosaunee Spokesman addressing English Colonial Officials in 1744 Recorded by Benjamin Franklin 1 The way a society divides up the land says a great deal about the way the society divides up itself. Lois Levitan, Center for the Environment, Cornell University, 1998 Introduction: The Haudenosaunee and Their Landscape The core homeland of the Haudenosaunee, also known as the Iroquois, stretches east to west across what is now upstate New York State (Fig. 2.1). Haudenosaunee ( Ho-deh-no-show -knee ) means People of the Longhouse (Powless 2000:14). Iroquois was originally a pejorative used by Algonquian Indian enemies of the Haudenosaunee meaning real adders that is, really nasty killers (Hewitt 1969a:I, 617). 2 During the colonial period, however, the word Iroquois was used by the allies of the Haudenosaunee, the English, and even by the Haudenosaunee themselves, so that today the Haudenosaunee often refer to themselves as Iroquois. The R.W. Venables (B) Retired, Department of Landscape Architecture, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA rwv3@cornell.edu 1 Benjamin Franklin, Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America [1783], (1987: 970). 2 The idea that the word Iroquois has its origin in the language of Basque fishermen off Canada is put forward by P. Bakker, A Basque Etymology for the Word Iroquois in Man in the Northeast Volume 40 (1990), This author is not convinced. S. Baugher, S.M. Spencer-Wood (eds.), Archaeology and Preservation of Gendered Landscapes, DOI / _2, C Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

2 22 R.W. Venables Fig. 2.1 Within this core homeland of the Haudenosaunee, the Confederacy s five founding nations united as early as AD This original map by Fredricka René Davis includes her well-researched and carefully proportioned rendering of a typical longhouse, 20 feet wide and 200 feet long

3 2 The Clearings and The Woods 23 Haudenosaunee confederacy was founded as early as AD 1142 by the interactions of all the Haudenosaunee people. They ended a horrific civil war by responding to the spiritually-inspired messages of Deganawidah, a young man who is also known as The Peacemaker ; Hayonhwatha (Hiawatha), an elderly man; Jigonhsasee, a powerful woman; and Tadadaho, a powerful but corrupt male leader whose mind was changed by the teachings of The Peacemaker (Wallace 1994). 3 The Haudenosaunee confederacy originally consisted of five nations: from east to west, the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Onondagas, the Cayugas, and the Senecas. Each of these people speaks a slightly different language within a language family now known as Iroquoian (Lounsbury 1978: ). (The degrees of differences are similar to those between French, Italian, and Spanish within the Romance language family.) To reinforce their population, the Haudenosaunee adopted individuals from other Indian nations and even adopted whole nations such as the Tuscaroras. Because the English colonists referred to the Tuscaroras as the sixth nation of the Confederacy, the Haudenosaunee were widely known as The Six Nations (Morgan 1995:23; Bond 1952:94 95; Garratt 1985:81 86). The Haudenosaunee People of the Longhouse originally lived in multifamily longhouses that varied in size. One of the longest longhouses was built by the Onondagas in one of their towns that archaeologists have named the Howlett Hill Site. This town was about six miles southwest of present-day Syracuse. This Onondaga longhouse measured 334 feet long and 23 feet wide and was occupied by the Onondagas between AD 1380 and (Tuck 1971:77 82; Nabokov and Eston 1989:78 79, 82). Typical longhouses sheltered dozens of people and were constructed of arched saplings, poles, and large bark sheets. In 1743, John Bartram visited the Onondagas and described the longhouse he stayed in: about 80 feet long, and 17 broad, the common [center] passage 6 feet wide; and the apartments on each side, 5 feet, raised a foot above the passage by a long sapling hewed square, and fitted with joints that go from it to the back of the house; on these joists they lay large pieces of bark, and on extraordinary occasions spread matts made of rushes, this favour we had; on these [raised] floors they set or lye down every one as he will (Bartram 1966:40 41). Since the Haudenosaunee are a centuries-old confederacy of different Indian nations, the multifamily longhouse is a fitting symbol. Haudenosaunee is a reference both to the physical longhouse and to the geopolitical symbol used by the Haudenosaunee to define their original territory. The Mohawks live along the Mohawk River Valley and are known as the Keepers of the Eastern Door. To the west of the Mohawks are the Oneidas. In the center, the Onondagas preside over the confederacy capital where the Grand Council, representing all the nations of the confederacy, meets. The Cayugas reside west of the Onondagas. Finally, the Senecas are the Keepers of the Western Door (Morgan 1995). 3 The white roots refer to the teachings that reach out in all four directions from the Tree of Peace, planted by the Peacemaker as a symbol of the Confederacy.

4 24 R.W. Venables The intention of this chapter is to present Haudenosaunee concepts of a gendered landscape that will enrich the professional work of archaeologists, landscape architects, and preservationists. However, it is important to stress that while some Haudenosaunee concepts may be similar to those held by other Indian nations, each First Nation in the Americas holds its own unique worldview. From Seascape to Landscape: The Haudenosaunee Gendered Origin Account of the World The entire Haudenosaunee landscape is gendered. This is because the whole Haudenosaunee worldview is gendered, beginning with the origin account (what the West would term Genesis). This origin account is too complex to describe in a chapter that focuses on the physical landscape. But briefly stated, the Haudenosaunee origin account begins in a Sky World above this earth. Spiritual beings, both female and male, live in this Sky World. A male known as Taronhiawakon ( Holder of the Heavens ) is married to Iotsitsisen ( Mature Flower ). Pregnant, she falls from the Sky World down toward a primal sea where there is no land. Canadian Geese break her fall, interlocking their wings to form a lattice of support. A great turtle agrees to allow Iotsitsisen to take refuge upon his back (Fig. 2.2). The turtle knew that muck lay at the sea bottom, and so Beaver, Otter, and Pickerel each try to reach the bottom to bring up some of the mud. Each of them dies. The little Muskrat then tries, and Fig. 2.2 Sky Woman Iotsitsisen (Mature Flower) atop the turtle s back. By John Kahionhes Fadden (Mohawk)

5 2 The Clearings and The Woods 25 although he also dies, he had managed to reach the sea bottom before drowning. When his tiny body floats to the surface, he has a bit of muck clutched in his paw. Other animals place the muck onto the turtle s back. Iotsitsisen, who is also known as Sky Woman, begins to sing and to dance. As she dances upon the turtle s back, both the muck and the turtle expand. The earth that Sky Woman magically creates becomes known as Mother Earth. And because Mother Earth is atop the great turtle, Sky Woman gives the new land the name Turtle Island. Sky Woman gives birth to a daughter, Tekawerahkwa ( Gusts of Wind ). The daughter is impregnated by the West Wind, and she gives birth to twin sons, Okwiraseh ( Sapling ) and Tawiskaron ( Flint ). In an extremely complex series of events, Sky Woman, her husband Taronhiawakon ( Holder of the Heavens ), her daughter, and the twins all contribute to the transformation of the world. Thus today s landscape, according to the Haudenosaunee, is not a creation from a void undertaken by a single spiritual force. Instead, it is the transformation of a preexisting seascape into a landscape. This transformation is accomplished by spiritual forces who cooperate with existing mortals such as the geese, fish, and turtles. And, as a part of this transformation of the world, Okwiraseh ( Sapling ), inspired by his grandfather Taronhiawakon ( Holder of the Heavens ), creates the human beings. 4 The Longhouse and the Gendered Landscape Since the Haudenosaunee are the People of the Longhouse, the longhouse is an appropriate place to begin a description of how the physical landscape of the Haudenosaunee is gendered. Each longhouse is a gendered landscape. Each longhouse belonged to the women of one of the many clans that defined, and still define, extended families. Descent among the Haudenosaunee was, and still is, matrilineal (Hewitt 1990:54). Within each longhouse, everyone was related either directly or by marriage to the eldest female resident. A longhouse was entered through doors at either end doors that were often sheltered by a smaller, roofed porch. A painted symbol of a clan was often above the door of each longhouse (van den Bogaert 1988:13; Morgan 1965:64 65). A new husband moved into the longhouse of his wife, mother-in-law, and grandmother-in-law (Tooker 1990: ; Shafer 1990:77 78). Let us assume the new husband is a member of the Bear Clan (his mother s clan). His new wife is a Wolf, and so every day he passes beneath the sign of the Wolf. Imagine now a small town in present-day America in which every mailbox along every street is emblazoned with the name of the wife, not the husband, who lives in and owns each home. Quite a contrast! Now imagine entering a tall apartment building in a big American city and, in the lobby, seeing a list of apartments and a list of mailboxes that announce the names of the wives, not 4 This account is a composite of what the author has learned over the years from elders and from sources such as Parker 1989: 59 73; Fenton 1998: 34 50; and Shenandoah and George 1998: 8 and 14.

6 26 R.W. Venables the husbands, who live here. Finally, imagine that all these homes and apartment buildings belong to women. There is no Donald Trump. Upon entering any Haudenosaunee longhouse, everything except the personal accessories and clothing of the men belongs to the women (Schoolcraft 1975:88 89; Morgan 1985:76; Brown 1990:190). If a Haudenosaunee woman wanted to divorce her husband, she put his belongings outside the door. 5 The husband had to retreat to the longhouse of his mother, where he had to explain to her exactly why another woman had thrown him out. Because the murder of a woman also eliminated future children, the crime of killing a woman by a man was regarded as twice as serious as a man killing another man. But if a woman killed a woman, the crime was regarded as even worse. Murders were usually compensated by gifts, including gifts of wampum tubular shell beads, which were regarded as having spiritual life. 6 Thus the compensation for a woman murdered by a man was twice that of a man murdered by another man, and even greater if the woman was killed by another woman. To spare a murderer of either sex, the aggrieved family received at least 10 strings of wampum. For a male murdered by another male, 10 strings of wampum; for a woman murdered by a man, 20 strings of wampum; and for a woman murdered by another woman, 30 strings of wampum (Hewitt 1990:63 64). All this may at first appear to be clear components of a matriarchy simply the gender opposite of the Western European and American system of patriarchy. However, Haudenosaunee society is not a matriarchy, nor is it a patriarchy. Haudenosaunee society is far more intricate, because the premise is balance. The Balance of All Life Balance is the key word in Haudenosaunee society, and in fact the whole Haudenosaunee worldview is based on balance not either/or. When things go wrong, as indeed they do in any and all human societies, the answers posed by the Haudenosaunee are based on the idea of finding ways to rebalance the situation. Progress the adaptation to new ideas was important, but not as important as balance. In turn, balance does not work without equality, and thus equality pervades the entire Haudenosaunee worldview. The Haudenosaunee believe that all life forms, including human beings, are equal and that all life forms have equal spiritual 5 Placing the hapless husband s belongings outside the door is an image based on personal conversations, usually spiked with humor, with Onondaga female elders, which began for this author in the spring of 1971 and continues till today. These oral traditions are supported by Morgan 1965: 66 and Brown 1990: Wampum is a colonial English word from the Algonquin word wam-pum-peh-ak meaning a white string of shell beads which are animate that is, shell beads that are alive and thus have a living, ongoing spiritual power. White beads were most often made from periwinkle shells. Wampum also includes purple shell beads, primarily made from quahog shells (Hewitt 1969b: II, ; and Beauchamp 1901: 327, 333, and 338).

7 2 The Clearings and The Woods 27 consciousness souls. Oren Lyons, an Onondaga Haudenosaunee leader and a spokesman for the Haudenosaunee, noted in 1979: In our perception all life is equal, and that includes the birds, the animals, the things that grow, things that swim. All life is equal in our perception (Lyons 1980:173). All these life forms have different functions. Female and male are only categories within the wider range of differences. Because all life forms are equal, all life forms must be equally respected, and thus the world functions through reciprocity. All beings in the world are therefore interdependent. Because differences among all beings contribute to an interdependent whole, the differences among beings are not separate functions. While all life forms are equal, all beings maintain different spheres of responsibility, different functions. Thus the roles of men and women were and are different and equal, not separate but equal. The nineteenth century-ethnologist Horatio Hale analyzed this complex interdependence of women and men, and he concluded that the complete equality of the sexes in social estimation and influence is apparent in all the narratives of early missionaries (Hale 1963:65). The Haudenosaunee worldview begins with the idea that each human being and every other being are exactly who the Creator intended. Every being has an equal soul; every being is equal; and every being has a divinely mandated, different function. Thus the Haudenosaunee worldview applies to all life, not just human life. Hunters thanked the spirits of the animals they hunted before they began the hunt, and they thanked the spirits of those animals after they had completed a hunt, on the premise that the animals and the humans knew that all life was dependent upon the other (Engelbrecht 2003:4 5). 7 In contrast to this Haudenosaunee view of interdependent life, note that in prayers given at American Thanksgiving dinners, families give thanks to the Judaic-Christian God for the turkey but they customarily do not directly thank the turkey. The Haudenosaunee concept of interdependent life in turn depended upon the idea that prayers and ceremonies could rebalance the value of a material life with intangible, spiritual actions. This even applied to enemies, as the Haudenosaunee ended wars in condolence ceremonies during which they accepted responsibility for the pain and death they had caused the other side, and asked the other side to do the same, as both sides were being watched by the Creator (Vimont , XXVII, ; Jennings et al. 1985: ). Because the Haudenosaunee worldview is incorporative and seeks to balance what is perceived to be a world inhabited by spiritually equal beings, the Haudenosaunee worldview is still evident today in their spiritual perception of the non-indians who now occupy so much of their homelands. This view was articulated in 1979 by the late Leon Shenandoah, an Onondaga, while he was serving as the Tadadaho of the Haudenosaunee. The Tadadaho s obligations include guiding the confederacy s council of chiefs in their deliberations. Chief Shenandoah, referring to all the non-indian human inhabitants throughout the Americas, remarked: 7 In 1743, John Bartram observed a hunter thanking the spirit of a bear he had killed (Bartram 1966: 25).

8 28 R.W. Venables For some reason, the Creator has allowed you to stay. I don t know why. And I don t think you know why. But I do know that we will have to work it out together (personal communication, Geneva, New York, April 1979). This is not to say, either in history or today, that the Haudenosaunee never made mistakes, for indeed they have and indeed they still do. But when they make mistakes, they ask different questions and pose different solutions based on their worldview a worldview, it must be stressed, that is what the Creator intended them to follow, and not simply a human invention. This worldview is today not necessarily held by all Haudenosaunee, because many have become Christians. Especially in the nineteenth century, those who followed the traditional teachings of their ancestors were called pagans by most non-indians (New York State 1889:410). The Haudenosaunee who follow the old ways, including the teachings of Handsome Lake, refer to themselves as Longhouse. The Balance of The Clearings and The Woods Balance is found throughout the Haudenosaunee landscape. Haudenosaunee women were responsible for the longhouses, the towns of longhouses, and the communal agricultural fields. These areas were collectively known as The Clearings. Arthur C. Parker, a Seneca who was also one of the important archaeologists of the early twentieth century, described how the land was cleared of trees: Land for cornfields was cleared by girdling the trees in the spring, and allowing them to die. The next spring the underbrush was burned off. By burning off tracts in the forest large clearings were made suitable for fields and towns (Parker 1968a:21). A similar method was recorded in 1760 by Warren Johnson, the brother of Indian Superintendent Sir William Johnson. Warren Johnson also noted that the cleared land was never more than what the Haudenosaunee needed: When clearing Land, the[y] Set fire to the Timber, & burn it to ashes, which they Scatter about on the ground; they make Charcoal of Wood; they never clear more Land than Serves for their Own Use (Johnson :XIII, 195). In 1634, a Dutch colonist, Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert, visited several Mohawk towns. Some of the towns were stockaded (Fig. 2.3), while others were not. Although hilltop towns provided superior defenses when compared to towns in valleys or flatlands, the presence or absence of stockades was not related to their location. Thus stockaded towns could be found in lowlands as well as on hilltops, and towns without stockades could be found both on high and low ground (van den Bogaert 1988:3 5). Van den Bogaert and other Dutch colonists referred to large towns as casteels castles evidently because of their striking appearance on the landscape, whether on hilltops or in lowlands. But the casteels he described were not all stockaded (van den Bogaert 1988:5, 7, 27 at fn. 17). People from towns without palisades probably took refuge in nearby fortified towns (van den Bogaert 1988:5, 7, 27 at fn. 17). Smallpox, which Van den Bogaert

9 2 The Clearings and The Woods 29 Fig. 2.3 Typical longhouses within a palisade. Note two clan symbols Turtle and Wolf at the entrances of two of the longhouses. A raised corn storage house (silo) is on the left. By John Kahionhes Fadden (Mohawk) described as already devastating the Mohawk people, was another factor shaping the Haudenosaunee landscape. A dispersal of people lessened the quick spread of that disease and may explain the existence of Mohawk towns without stockades (Engelbrecht 2003:102). By the late 1600s, all the Haudenosaunee were dispersing into small satellite communities that would lessen the impact of European diseases. As matrilineages were decimated by disease, longhouses were giving way to smaller bark home called a Ganosote. By the beginning of the American Revolution in 1775, log cabins and even cabins of hewn plank (Hubley 1887:160) were common (Jenkins 1887: ). Van den Bogaert described Onekahoncka, a Mohawk town on the south bank of the Mohawk River near what is now Fultonville. Onekahoncka stood on a high hill. There were only 36 houses, row on row in the manner of streets, so that we easily could pass through. These houses are constructed and covered with the bark of trees.... Some are 100, 90, or 80 steps long; 22 or 23 feet high. There were also some interior doors made of split planks furnished with iron hinges. In some houses we also saw ironwork: iron chains, bolts, harrow teeth, iron hoops [and] spikes (van den Bogaert 1988:3 4 and 29 at fn. 18). Because the Mohawks, along with the other Haudenosaunee, are a communal people, one can only wonder how the division of the longhouse interiors by doors with iron hinges might have altered the matrilineal dynamics of the longhouse and the town. To the west of Onekahoncka, Van den Bogaert described another town, also on the south bank of the Mohawk River, the

10 30 R.W. Venables castle called TENOTOGE. It had 55 houses, some 100 steps and others more or less as large.... The castle was [in the past] surrounded with three rows of palisades. However, now there were only 6 or 7 [posts] left (van den Bogaert 1988:9). It is possible that the remaining stockade logs standing as silent sentinels around this Mohawk town had not been removed because smallpox had reduced the available labor. The post molds of logs such as these may have a different consistency when compared to the post molds of the other logs in a palisade, and archaeologists might consider the difference in post molds as a possible indication of labor exhaustion brought on by smallpox, rather than the equally compelling possibility that these logs were newer replacements in an existing stockade. However one might interpret other sites, it is probably too late to interpret the Mohawk town of Tenotoge because archaeologists believe that this once formidable town now lies under the traffic speeding east and west along the New York State Thruway (van den Bogaert 1988:38 at fn. 62). In 1677, Wentworth Greenhalgh, an English trader, visited Onondaga and described how The Clearings the main Onondaga town and corn fields were very large; consisting of about 140 houses, nott fenced [no defensive stockade]; is situate[d] upon a hill thatt is very large, the banke on each side extending itself att least two miles, all cleared land, whereon the corne is planted (Greenhalgh :I, 15). The archaeologist James A. Tuck (1971:20 [map], ) concluded that this town is the archaeological site known as Indian Hill, about 8 miles southeast of the present city of Syracuse, New York, and 8 miles east of today s Onondaga reservation. The women s fields at Onondaga and other Haudenosaunee towns were concentrated in what scientists now know as the most fertile soil in upstate New York, located in a band stretching from the Mohawk Valley through the northern sections of the Finger Lakes. This fertile band also constitutes the core areas of the confederacy s five founding nations (Engelbrecht:2 [Map 1] and 91 [Map 3]). The women were especially focused on the cultivation of corn, beans, and squash. These three crops are regarded by the Haudenosaunee as female and are known as The Three Sisters. In Haudenosaunee religion, these three crops sprang from the buried body of the daughter of Sky Woman (Parker 1968:5 119; Lewandowski 1989:41 45). The corn grew upward from her breasts. Recalling this source, the women planted the corn in mounds of earth shaped like breasts, a practice which simultaneously meant that the women were practicing nonintrusive agriculture (Fig. 2.4). In balance, the men were responsible for The Woods all the lands, lakes, rivers, and streams beyond The Clearings. 8 The extensive systems linking the rivers and lakes of The Woods were the main routes the men used to hunt, travel, and trade. There were also extensive trails crisscrossing the landscape, many of which 8 I would like to thank Chief Irving Powless, Jr. (Onondaga), and Oren Lyons (Onondaga) for their insights into the complex nature of the Clearings and the Woods and for all the other insights they have generously shared with me since I am also grateful to Rick Hill (Tuscarora) for his insights regarding the Clearings and the Woods that he shared with me in 1998 and 1999.

11 2 The Clearings and The Woods 31 Fig. 2.4 Corn Woman, one of the Three Sisters, behind a mound planted with corn, beans, and squash. The Tree of Peace, planted by the Peacemaker as a symbol of the Confederacy, can be seen in the background on the right. The artist, John Kahionhes Fadden (Mohawk), notes that the dead branches at the mound s base are a symbol of how much of life grows from the bodies of other life were transformed into the highways of today. Two examples are Routes 5 and 20 that run east west across upstate New York. 9 Trade was conducted from Clearing to Clearing within the Confederacy; with other Indian nations; and, eventually, with the Europeans (Engelbrecht 2003: ; Endreny 2005:1664 and ). Although The Woods were the primary responsibility of the men, women and men both engaged in trade. The Woods also included the sites of abandoned towns and abandoned fields. Some abandoned fields had been vacant for decades and even centuries, while the more recently abandoned fields were being encouraged to rejuvenate their strengths by lying fallow (Engelbrecht 2003:99 101; Fenton 1978: ; Dennis 9 Major Haudenosaunee trails, which can then be compared to a contemporary highway map, are defined in Morgan 1995 and Engelbrecht 2003: 175.

12 32 R.W. Venables 1993: ; Tooker 1984: ). 10 Any abandoned towns and fields that were encountered while traveling through The Woods were, as a matter of custom and religion, respectfully remembered as the residences of ancestors (Gibson 1992: ). The density of many parts of The Woods was described in 1743 by John Bartram: We observed the tops of the trees to be so close to one another for many miles together, that there is no seeing which way the clouds drive, nor which way the wind sets: and it seems almost as if the sun had never shone on the ground, since the creation (Bartram 1966:37). Because Haudenosaunee agricultural fields were the responsibility of women (Brown 1990: ), the locations of the fields and the towns reflected the choices of women. While men would have had an input regarding a town s defensive location, even the best-defended town would fail if it was not located near fertile fields. When the women realized that their fields were becoming less fertile, they would know it was time to move to a town something that occurred every Fig. 2.5 A woman pounding corn, with braided ears of corn hanging in the background. The decorated castellated collar (rim) of the pot over the fire demonstrates a balance of aesthetics and practicality, as the collar supports a cord so that the pot can be suspended over the cooking fire. By John Kahionhes Fadden (Mohawk) 10 Although written for high school students, an excellent summary of the balance between the Clearings and the Woods is related by Hazel W. Hertzberg, in a chapter she entitles Patterns of Space: Forest and Clearing in her The Great Tree and the Longhouse: The Culture of the Iroquois (1966: 23 34).

13 2 The Clearings and The Woods or 20 years (Engelbrecht 2003:101). Since the town s longhouses were under the direction of matrilineal clans, the layout of a town landscape and the interior use of the longhouses also reflected the directions of the women. This gendered landscape carried over into daily life. Thus when a husband killed a deer and brought the deer from The Woods into The Clearings, the deer became the responsibility of his wife and her clan. The women cooked the deer as well as other foods from The Woods such as fish and geese. The women also cooked the crops they raised (Fig. 2.5), using beautifully crafted clay pots they made (Engelbrecht 2003:82 83). Thus the decorated pots and potsherds found at Haudenosaunee archaeological sites and seen in museums are women s art (Fig. 2.6). Moreover, the women created their pottery from another female: Mother Earth (Engelbrecht 2003:87). In fact, the women s responsibilities centered around a female cycle. Mother Earth had been created by the spiritual power of Sky Woman. Mother Earth provided The Three Sisters (corn, beans, and squash), which had grown from the body of Sky Woman s daughter, and these Three Sisters were grown by the women in their fields in their towns that lay in their Clearings. Even more profoundly, as the women and the men worked at their tasks, they believed and still believe that their future children are just beneath the surface of Mother Earth, looking up at the current generation. When a Haudenosaunee man acquired trade goods acquired from other Indian nations or from the Europeans, those goods became the responsibility of the women as soon as those goods entered The Clearings. But the basic divisions between women and men of The Clearings and The Woods were practical and flexible. Thus in The Clearings, the men were the primary builders of the longhouses and of the stockades. The men helped clear the fields of trees by girdling, felling, and burning the trees. Although women usually harvested the crops, if the harvest had to be brought in quickly, the men assisted the women. Thus Timothy Pickering, President George Washington s ambassador to the Haudenosaunee, noted in a letter of October 8, 1794, how the Haudenosaunee worked with uncommon zeal to get in their harvest of corn, the men & boys (which is not usual) assisting the women and girls, that it might be accomplished (Pickering 1794:Reel 60, frame 203A). The flexibility of Haudenosaunee society was also seen when women, and children, helped the men fish in The Woods, where seasonal camps were set up on the banks of rivers and lakes. Both men and women traveled through The Woods on trails or on waterways to trade with other Haudenosaunee communities and with neighboring nations. Women, protected by the laws and customs of the Confederacy, could travel across The Woods without warrior escort, as noted in December 1634 when the Dutch colonist, Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert, encountered several women staying alone in a cabin. This was evidently one of the cabins the Haudenosaunee established throughout The Woods for the use of travelers (van den Bogaert 1988:3 4). That same month, while van den Bogaert was in a Mohawk village in the Mohawk Valley, he noted the arrival of three women. They were Oneidas from the area of Oneida Lake to the west of the Mohawk towns. These three women had carried dried salmon at least 100 miles, salmon which they then sold in at least two Mohawk villages:

14 34 R.W. Venables Fig. 2.6 A woman creating a clay pot, by John Kahionhes Fadden (Mohawk). Before the pots were fired, they were formed without the use of a wheel, making their balance and structure all the more remarkable. Castellated collars (rims) often included sacred effigies or small faces (maskettes), represented here by a small circle above the collar of the middle pot Three women came here...with some dried and fresh salmon... They also brought much green tobacco to sell, and had been six days underway. They could not sell all their salmon here, but went with it to the first castle [that is, a Mohawk village further east] (van den Bogaert 1988:6). The Haudenosaunee system was/is not rigid because it is based on maintaining balance in the real world, not a world based on abstract principles. A balanced reality calls for pragmatic solutions. The principle of balance carried over into Haudenosaunee politics. All the chiefs in The Clearings are men, thus balancing the matrilineal nature of The Clearings. However, the responsibility of appointing male chiefs rests with the clan mothers after they have consulted with the women of their clan. A chief serves for life unless a clan mother, on the advice of the other women in her clan, deposes him. Such a removal must then be sanctioned by the male chiefs of the entire Confederacy s Grand Council, and if approved, the chiefs of the Onondaga nation have the responsibility of finalizing the end of the deposed chief s tenure (Fenton 1978: , , ). The symbol of leadership worn by Haudenosaunee chiefs is deer horns, and dehorning occurs when a

15 2 The Clearings and The Woods 35 chief is removed by a clan mother from his office (Tooker 1978:426, ). 11 There were also male leaders called Pine Tree Chiefs who held this temporary office for a specific purpose or emergency (Gibson 1992:465, ; Fenton 1978:314). Religious ceremonies and government councils were communal, with shared responsibilities reflecting the Haudenosaunee concept of maintaining balance. For example, Benjamin Franklin described the balance of a council meeting: The old Men sit in the foremost Ranks, the Warriors in the next, and the Women and Children in the hindmost. The Business of the Women is to take exact notice of what passes, imprint it on their Memories, for they have no Writing, and communicate it to their Children. They are the Records of the Council, and they preserve Tradition of the Stipulations in Treaties a hundred Years back, which when we compare with our Writings we always find exact (Franklin 1987:970). In preparation for the men s roles as hunters and warriors, the men played the game of lacrosse. These lacrosse games were usually played in The Clearings, but occasionally lacrosse could also be played in The Woods, as noted by the French officer Louis Antoine de Bougainville in 1758 (de Bougainville 1964:249). 12 Today, lacrosse is still an integral part of Haudenosaunee life. The origin of lacrosse was spiritual. Historically, women placed the bets on the outcome of the lacrosse games played by men because the women possessed most of the goods that were either created in or brought into The Clearings. Lacrosse is more than a game because it involves sacred and religious components that are not a part of the sport played by non-indians. A game can be played, for example, to help heal a sick woman, man, or child (Mitchell et al. 1978:8; and Vennum 1994: ). The Interdependent Landscapes of Confederacy, Nation, and Clan Haudenosaunee women and men did not (and do not) define themselves as only members of the Confederacy. Each person was and is a member of the Confederacy as a whole; a member of one of the confederacy s nations; and a member of a specific clan. Matrilineal clans were the glue that tied people to the whole confederacy because unlike the individual nations that made up the Confederacy, the clans stretched across national boundaries to include the entire Confederacy. Through their clans, people from one nation literally had relatives in one or more other nations across the Confederacy. When visiting another town or village, women and men could stay within the longhouses of their respective clans. Visitors to towns 11 Each Haudenosaunee nation in the Confederacy has a different language, and so the English word chief serves as a convenient term. In Mohawk, for example, the word for chief is royaner and in Seneca hotiyanesho (Fenton 1978: 314). 12 During the French and Indian War, during which this game was played, Mohawk Haudenosaunee who had been converted to Catholicism in the 1600s had moved back to the St. Lawrence Valley and fought on the side of the French, while their Mohawk brethren in the Mohawk Valley some of whom were Protestants, while most were traditional fought on the side of the British.

16 36 R.W. Venables where they did not have a clan affiliation, or visitors who were not Haudenosaunee (such as Europeans), were provided with special housing. The people in the towns and nations were also divided in half (each half is called a moiety by anthropologists). This added still another dimension to a complex personal identity (Fenton 1978: ). The number of clans was severely reduced by an epidemic disease accidentally introduced by the Europeans, and it is therefore unknown if each clan once existed in every one of the nations within the confederacy. The names of these clans were Turtle, Snapping Turtle, Tortoise, Wolf, Snipe, Beaver, Ball, Hawk, Deer, Eel, Eagle, Pigeon Hawk, Plover, Killdeer, Heron, Big Bear, Younger Bear, and Suckling Bear. There may have been others (Speck 1955:29). Despite the European epidemics, the Turtle (Fig. 2.7), Bear, and Wolf clans survived in all six nations of the Confederacy (Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora) (Snow 1994:55; Fenton 1978:313). Other clans survived, such as the Deer and Eel, but not in all of the nations. Clans not only served to bind the Confederacy s population, they sorted out who could marry whom a clan member could not marry a member of the same clan (Speck 1955:29). The Dual Identity of The Woods and Spheres of Responsibility While The Clearings were and are in the national lands of only one nation (such as the Onondaga Nation),The Woods have a dual identity. The Woods are Confederacy lands, which means The Woods are the responsibility of all the five founding nations of the Confederacy (Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Tuscaroras). But The Woods are simultaneously recognized as being divided into the borders of those five founding Confederacy nations (Gibson 1992: ). The boundaries of these five nations are more accurately described as national spheres of responsibility and influence. In this context, The Woods are the equal responsibility of the Confederacy as a whole and, in their different locales, the responsibility of one of the five founding nations. Because there is no ultimate sovereign power, these simultaneous and equal responsibilities have no real parallel in Western law, including Western property law. These simultaneous and equal responsibilities are also what make the Confederacy a unique and delicate balance of equal responsibilities among its confederate parts. The concept of The Woods exemplifies a broader fact with regard to Haudenosaunee politics: the Confederacy is not centralized, and has no centralized supreme power with subordinate political entities such as the federal-state structure of the United States. The separation of territories into The Clearings and The Woods evidently existed in some form prior to the founding of the Confederacy. The specific details of the concepts could have been different for example, before the Confederacy was founded, it is not known whether the women or the men controlled The Clearings. However, even before the founding of the Confederacy (Parker 1916:22), there was an established ritual expected whenever people wished to emerge from The Woods

17 2 The Clearings and The Woods 37 Fig. 2.7 The Turtle Clan, by John Kahionhes Fadden (Mohawk). The Haudenosaunee worldview of balance of genders, ages, and all human characteristics mean that all are equal but different, including differences in personalities and abilities and enter any of The Clearings. Approaching humans fell into two categories: those who came in peace and those who were enemies. Of course it was unlikely that enemies would announce themselves, but an announcement of peaceful intentions was ritualized. If one or more of those within an approaching party was Haudenosaunee or already respected by them, that person might go ahead and alert a town that visitors were close by (Bartram 1966:40). But if that was not possible, a person intent on conveying friendly intentions stopped at The Edge of The Woods, 13 which of course was also the edge of The Clearings. At The Edge of the Woods, a person was expected to light a fire or to shout loudly. Whether the people in The Clearings were alerted by a messenger, by smoke, or by shouts, a male or female messenger, or even a group of women and men, customarily went out to ascertain the identity of 13 Eight examples of the Edge of the Woods protocol from 1535 to 1794 are in William Beauchamp, Civil, Religious and Mourning Councils and Ceremonies of Adoption of the New York Indians (1907: ). The Edge of the Woods also translates in English as the Edge of the Forest (Woodbury 2003: 432 and 128).

18 38 R.W. Venables the visitor and to escort the visitor or visitors into The Clearings and into the town. 14 This concept was based on what the founder of the Confederacy, the Peacemaker, had done to announce his presence outside a town (Wallace 1994:54 55). Tradition records that leaders such as Hayonhwatha (Hiawatha), the Onondaga who assisted The Peacemaker, carried out this ceremony during the long process that led to the founding of the Confederacy. For example, when Hayonhwatha and some warriors approached a Mohawk town, he stopped before emerging from The Edge of the The Woods. As described by the Seneca archaeologist Arthur C. Parker: This was the custom, to make a smoke so that the town might know that visitors were approaching and send word that they might enter without danger to their lives. The Mohawks knew the meaning of the signal so they sent messengers and invited the party into the village (Parker 1916:22). When trade began with the musket-bearing Europeans, musket shots fired into the air became a new way to signal one s emergence from The Woods into The Clearing. For example, in 1634, a group of Mohawks were escorting three Dutch traders westward, out of Mohawk lands and into the lands of the Oneidas. The Mohawk escorts stopped just a short distance from the first Oneida town the first Oneida Clearing. One of the Dutchmen, Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert, wrote: The Indians asked us to shoot. We fired our weapons, which we reloaded, and then we went to the castle town surrounded by a wooden palisade (van den Bogaert 1988:12). In 1709, Abraham Schuyler and five other colonial New York emissaries accompanied Mohawks, Oneidas, and Cayugas to a council at the capital of the Confederacy, Onondaga. Following Haudenosaunee protocol, they intentionally stopped near Onondaga and waited for an escort into the town: 4 June [1709] early in the Morning being near to Onondaga we sent Wm Printop the Smith [a respected blacksmith] before us to Accquaint the Sachems that we, the Mohawks, Cayugas & Oneidas were coming to their Castle, upon w ch Message they came out to meet us & made us Welcome (Wraxall 1968:70). In addition, The Edge of Woods was and today remains a central, symbolic ceremony during the installation of a new chief (Gibson 1992:542). And words of greeting at a large gathering were, and are still today, known as The Edge of the Woods (Swamp 2000:13 14; Bartram 1966:58). The Edge of the Woods greeting, however, is given only after the words that come before all else The Thanksgiving Address. 14 A lone female messenger, carrying food, was sent out from an Oneida town when Mohawks brought Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert to them in 1634 (van den Bogaert 1988: 12). A group came out from Onondaga to meet Abraham Schuyler and five other white emissaries in 1709 (Wraxall 1968: 70).

19 2 The Clearings and The Woods 39 The Thanksgiving Address: A Summary of the Haudenosaunee Worldview At public gatherings today, as in the past, someone gives The Thanksgiving Address. The content of The Thanksgiving Address follows a sequence of ideas, but the actual words vary with the speaker. The address can also be lengthy, or it can be brief. The purpose of the Thanksgiving Address is to remind all who are present that all life is interrelated and interdependent. A translation of a Mohawk version of the first point in the Thanksgiving Address, the greetings to the people, begins with these words: Today we have gathered and we see that the cycles of life continue. We have been given the duty to live in balance and harmony with each other and all living things (Swamp et al. 1993:1). After this greeting, thanks are extended to Mother Earth; the Waters; the Fish; the Plants; Food Plants; Medicine Herbs; the Animals; the Trees; the Birds; the Four Winds; the Thunders who bring rain; the Sun; Grandmother Moon; the Stars; to all Spiritual Messengers; and to the Creator. The Thanksgiving Address is completed with the Closing Words. 15 The Thanksgiving Address acknowledges that other mortal beings consciously and willingly give their lives so that the humans can survive. The reciprocity offered by the humans is respect, ceremonies, and prayers, all of which are believed to be a spiritual benefit equal to the tangible sacrifice of other beings. The context of all this interdependence is defined as each being following the instructions of the Creator. Thus the medicine herbs are thanked, along with the women and men who know how to use the herbs: Now we turn to all the Medicine Herbs of the world. From the beginning, they were instructed to take away sickness. They are always waiting and ready to heal us. We are happy there are still among us those special few who remember how to use these plants for healing. With one mind, we send greetings and thanks to the Medicines and to the keepers of the Medicines (Swamp et al. 1993:13). A part of the gift that other mortal beings bring to humans is that these beings teach the humans significant lessons. Thus the deer and other animals are thanked: We gather our minds together to send greetings and thanks to all the Animal life in the world. They have many things to teach us as people. We see them near our homes and in the deep forests. We are glad they are still here and we hope that it will always be so (Swamp et al. 1993:135). Thanksgiving was not confined to public occasions. Every morning and every evening, the clan mothers in all of The Clearings gave thanks on behalf of all the people in their towns (Fenton 1998:47). In The Woods, the hunters gave thanks before and after the hunt, with thanks specifically addressing those particular animals who gave their lives that day (Engelbrecht 2003:4 5; Bartram 1966:25). And 15 A Seneca version of the Thanksgiving Address is Clayton Logan (2000: 7 11).

20 40 R.W. Venables each Haudenosaunee individual could give thanks whenever so moved. Another method of communicating with the spiritual world was the use of tobacco, either dropped by an individual into a fire or smoked in a pipe, with the rising smoke bringing thanks up to the spiritual world (Engelbrecht 2003:54 60,47 59). The Woods: One Bowl The Haudenosaunee were grateful to the animals and other mortal beings for the food and other benefits that they provided. However, when the Peacemaker founded the Confederacy, the Creator had instructed him that competition among the nations of the Confederacy for the benefits offered by the other mortal beings would cause dissension and weaken the Confederacy s unity. Such dissension would also distract people from recognizing their spiritual obligations to be grateful to these beings. Thus the Peacemaker made the Confederacy responsible for all of The Woods, defining the right of all Haudenosaunee to hunt anywhere within The Woods. Deganawidah symbolized this by calling The Woods one bowl (also translated as one dish ) (Gibson 1992: ). The chiefs affirmed this: We shall only have one dish (or bowl) in which will be placed one beaver tail and we shall all have coequal right to it, and there shall be no knife in it, for if there be a knife in it, there would be danger that it might cut some one and blood would thereby be shed (Parker 1916:103). According to the Seneca archaeologist Arthur C. Parker, one bowl signifies that they will make their hunting grounds one common trace and all have a coequal right to hunt within it. The knife being prohibited from being placed into the dish or bowl signifies that all danger would be removed from shedding blood by the people of these different nations of the confederacy caused by differences of the right of the hunting grounds (Parker 1916:103). 16 Different Trees in a Different Forest: The Clearings and the Woods Physical space is just one dimension of the Haudenosaunee environment. Because the philosophical premises of the Haudenosaunee are very different from Western beliefs, the Haudenosaunee pose different questions and different solutions. These are more than just choices of different paths through the same forest, because the Haudenosaunee believe the trees and all the beings within the forest have spiritual components that are equal to human spiritual identities ( souls ). Thus the entire reality for traditional Haudenosaunee is different. When compared to the 16 The Mohawk leader Joseph Brant described the Woods in 1789, noting that Our Ancestors made no Distinction in a Nation [did not define boundaries of lands according to one of the Confederacy s individual nations]; they held their Lands in common (Brant 1861: 340).

21 2 The Clearings and The Woods 41 Western beliefs brought by white settlers and the ever-active missionaries, the Haudenosaunee perceived, and still perceive, different trees in a different forest. The Haudenosaunee view of the landscape has always been based on the premise that both humans and non-humans are consciously interactive. The environment is interdependent spiritually as well as biologically. From this strong sense of interdependence comes a stress on communal ethics. The entire world is alive with the spiritual energies of all these beings deer, eagles, trout, and all others. Each species has its own function, assigned by the Creator, and each species has a sense of its own community. Each species has religious instructions that have been provided by the Creator and which each species is obliged to carry out. All beings are equally conscious of the other beings. There are no unconscious objects, no inferior beings. There are simply beings with different functions. In this sense, all beings, with their equal souls, are our relations, our relatives. Communal human ethics are thus a logical extension of how the Haudenosaunee perceive a communal, interdependent world. Since the Creator filled the world with symbiotic, equal souls who nevertheless carry out specific functions, the most logical premise upon which to base an organized human community was also communal. The Seventh Generation The seventh generation is a key to Haudenosaunee environmental ethics. The Haudenosaunee believe that individual humans and human communities must be responsible for taking actions that positively affect seven generations hence. Thus they must also avoid actions that might negatively affect the future generations, as far ahead as the seventh generation. The Haudenosaunee are constantly reminded that they should always think about the seventh generation because they believe that the next generation waiting to be born their children and the children of all beings is just beneath the surface of the ground looking up at the current generation. 17 This imagery is consistent with the Haudenosaunee concept of Mother Earth, the womb of magical earth that has rested on the back of the great turtle since the transformations begun by Sky Woman. Transformations in The Clearings and The Woods The spiritual/ethical foundations of the Haudenosaunee, and consequently their landscape, were severely challenged and almost destroyed by their experiences with the invading Europeans. Three major factors especially corrupted their cultural values: epidemic diseases, the beaver trade, and the American Revolution. 17 This common image used by the Haudenosaunee is expressed in a variety of ways; for example, as those yet unborn, whose faces are coming from beneath the ground (Wallace 1994: 89; Gibson 1992: 699; and Shenandoah 2000: 213).