DEKANAWIDA MYTH

Dekanawida Myth and the Achievement of Iroquois Unity



Dekanawida Myth and the Achievement of Iroquois Unity

Author's Purpose

Author`s discusses about non-implemented constitutions which was practiced in history. In article Dekanawidah, the prophet whose vision of peace led to the establishment of the Iroquois Confederacy and the ending of centuries of strife between the Mohawk, Onondaga, Seneca, Oneida, and Cayuga Nations, was born at an unknown date, most likely between 1400 and 1600 C.E., among the Huron people.

According to the article that oral tradition from which knowledge of him derives, his mother became pregnant though still a virgin. His grandmother had a vision that he would augment up and reside amidst foreigners and lift a large tree of Peace. He would furthermore obscurely be the origin of the demise of the Huron people. To avert the last mentioned from happening, the two women tried to murder him, but he would not die.

According to the article author explains that at about the age of 18, Deganwidah left home and made the first convert to the vision of peace that he claimed he had been sent by the Master of Life to deliver. The convert was a juvenile Mohawk entitled Hiawatha, an eloquent speaker who would become the public voice of his teacher. Under Dekanawidah's counsel, Hiawatha altered from a man topped up with despise (due to the massacre of his family) to a man of peace.

Author's Thesis

Author focuses that the message called people to three principles: health of body and mind, righteous in conduct and equality and justice among people, and the maintenance of authority. He furthermore composed a recital of calm that he and Hiawatha educated to the people among who they moved. When they approached the Mohawks, Dekanawidah suggested a check of his message. He climbed to the peak of a big tree that dangled over the Mohawk River. He then had the Mohawks cut the tree out from under him. He plunged into the swift river. All thought him dead. However, they discovered him the next morning preparing food breakfast. He clarified that the expert of Life had given him power over his own death.

It took him five years to convey the Mohawks, Oneida, Seneca, and Cayuga into the original confederacy founded on the three principles. He and Hiawatha then moved to Onondaga land, the land ruled by the man who had slain Hiawatha's wife. Here he presented a miracle of healing on the chief, who was brain ill. Dekanawidah is said to have combed the serpents (evil and insane thoughts) from his head. The head became an immediate convert. At the ceremony creating the association of Five countries, he directed in the cultivating of a Tree of Peace, and uprooting another tree, the peoples' weapons were symbolically tossed into the hole.

Dekanawidah was only about 23 years vintage when he completed the task of joining the people. According to the tradition, he then got in a canoe and ...