Gantowisas: democracy and eternal feminine beyond the legends – a way to rethink world order
More than a dissertation, by this short essay I’d like to bring to the limelight the myth of the eternal feminine in a quirky Iroquois adaptation, a long-lasting reality resisting the harshness and consumption of the elapsing of time. This myth, completely embodied in the story of the Gantowisas, that has contextualized it and made it a tangible and concrete reality, other than being an outstanding example upon which was based the USA Constitution, not only in its internal structure founded on the principle of popular sovereignty (“we the people”) and in the recognized fundamental freedoms (i.e., first amendment), but also for the way they manage their international relations and diplomatic affairs, has left its sign over the time in the matriarchal society which represents a triumphal model of democracy strongly acclaimed by feminists movements and the utmost bulwark of the belief that a true open equalitarian society can just come from women and the values inherent to them. In this piece, I’d like outlining how, being life-giver the traditional core essence of the woman from which is originated creation, men are just unessential appendages and accessories that contribute to the perpetuation of the species but evidently on a secondary level, confirming, by this assumption, the efficacy of this societal pattern, that have demonstrated women are be able to better take on the same roles usually conferred to men, enhancing business productivity, ameliorating equality in justice and getting proved innate skills of cherishing people and undertaking social responsibilities, enough endowed with the characteristics of self-management and adaptability throughout the revolving doors of diplomacy, all venusian qualities imprinting harmony and resilience in the highs and lows of the international relations, in the fight against the defuse of martial unbalances produced by a chauvinistic male dominance. The eternal feminine has been a running thread in human culture for thousands of years, but each generation has to reinterpret it, and embedded in the secular society, keeping in mind that everyone in everyday life should cultivate certain arrays of values such as: motherliness, inner beauty, devotion; nurturing, loving kindness, inspiration and creativity.
The matter is just not all about an enchanted, ethereal, angelic figure
that has no weight in this world or the last word in debates, it’s not just
something inspiring and mildening the asperities of life but it’s a concrete
and determinant element in improving real democracy, guaranteeing fundamental
freedoms for all and driving radical changes. Peace and dialogue against wars.
Life, creativity and innovation against the stalemate and the power of death.
Love, grace and equilibrium against brutalities, conflicts and injustices.
Welcoming against invasions. Wisdom against instinctive hazard. Diplomatic
qualities, in facts, are inherent to the nature of woman, having especially a
flair and propensity to smooth away the social and interpersonal acrimonies, to
make up for shortcomings and to appease the dissension, being endowed with
those indispensable resilience and creative attitudes that lead to devise
proper original solutions to resolve conflicts.
By the myth of the eternal feminine and the practical scalding example of
the matriarchal societies centred on the pivotal role of the Gantowisas, we
have learned as in these secluded microcosms, still accused to be primitive and
out-of-date, have been developed and deployed the highest democratic and
egalitarian freedoms and rights in a perspective of openness to the surrounding
realities, to the dialogue and confrontation, to the tolerance, under banner of
non violence and diplomatic liberality.
This myth
could give an illustration of an alternative societal model. In this research,
I have tried to convey deep insights aiming at spreading out the knowledge of
Iroquoian culture and its political structure in every aspects of life, just departing
from it[1].
Citing Goethe in the Faust, "The
Eternal feminine attracts us to the higher"[2],
statement by which the author reduced this myth to a meaning of gateway of
salvation and of spiritual redemption from suffering and evil.
Lately, we
can’t forget Pope John Paul II words, commenting the Apostolic Letter Mulieris dignitatem[3],
echoing John Paul I, “the smiling pope” that several times
pronounced himself on gender issues and birth control, that affirmed, “God is
Father, and even more, is Mother”, born from Holy Mary, celebrated beyond the
dogmas or legends about her Virginity and Immaculate Conception, “the
Quintessential Woman”, “the mystic rose”, revealing the maternal face of the
god of boundless love, to testify the modern openness of the Holy See to this
topic and to emphasize the inescapable primary role of women in society,
blending spirituality with a compelling sense of poetry, enchantment,
transfiguration and mystery. Complementing my ideological mantra lying in the
immanence of the perfection in nature and the sublime fascination of the beauty
and the art, which are strictly feminine[4],
can be evidenced how Oppel analysis of the Nietzschean thought[5]
revised the traditional role of women, even if still strictly connected to the
role of the superman and his proclaimed anti-misogynistic perspective.
Going straight
to the point in the study of Iroquois culture[6]
can be found that these Indigenous tribes are all about celebration of life and
thanksgiving to the natural bless and the spiritual brotherhood with all human
beings and flora and fauna species, whose mimic and recalling is interpreted
with a sense of fusion and belonging to the land. By this way, considering all
creatures as relatives, American Indians conceive all people as being the same
children of a unique Mother, and they feel to be parts of an ordered balanced
life, in a continuous search for the completeness of the being. Perceiving
reality in a different way than that commonly intended by nowadays societies
and conceiving time as a transcendental subsequence of Epochs, departing from
the fall of Sky Woman on the Earth, differing from Roman Catholics, they
believe in something cyclical, rejecting linearity and, in force of that, starting
from this circular, dynamic concept of universe in which all things are related
and belongs to only one family, they feel, as celebrated in each song and
ceremony, that any creature is part of a somehow greater whole and that all
these parts are intertwined one another by virtue of their integral and
effective participation and the principle of reciprocity. The healing chants
and rituals[7]
are intense invocations of the restoration of the natural order and a continuous
search for harmony. “Beauty is wholeness. Health is wholeness. Goodness is
wholeness. And they are symbolized in the sacred hoop”[8],
which is a female element. The role of the woman is associated with the
springtime of the community. Their awareness derives first and foremost from
the relationship and dialogue with the Spirit, that joins the discrepancies,
mends the scratches and puts in harmony the bodies with the souls, not only
healing but unleashing a sense of lightness and freedom and instilling that
impalpable sense of joy letting them ride the wave of original and creative
thinking and rhythmical dances and composition of sounds that float them on the
magical enchantment of pleasure, caressing the fluidity of the fusion. All that
can be called as spirits or gods or metaphysical, occult forces inform in these
little corners of the world, often forgotten, every aspects of the
institutional frameworks and structures, and social habits, nowadays as in the
past, since the mists of times.
It could be illuminating to
argue about how the myth of the eternal feminine has survived throughout the
centuries, and how it’s more and more, even nowadays, an inspirational muse and
a critical spectrum for political debates about new institutional democratic models[9].
Harking back to the Iroquois traditions, the real core of modern North American
democracies, we can highlight how this myth is exalted by the leading role of
the Gantowisas, the essential depositaries of the gifts allowed by our Universal
Spiritual Mother, their necessary endorsement of responsibilities, their
intrinsic mission to feed, to spawn and to develop human gender and species.
Following this pathway, I’d
like to turn my interpretation of Iroquois culture, mixing spirituality,
legends, what can be described as historical examples of possessed people,
explaining what can be meant as possess, with Gantowisas, that, even descending
their sacred powers from Sky Woman, are perfectly rooted on the planet
Earth. What’s real and what’s transcendence, imaginary in their powerful
healings and mystic realms? It’s evident how the power of mind and suggestions
between thaumaturge and patient, or on their own, have a regenerating energy,
and how it can be amped up in collective rites and ceremonies, between the
shamanism and the religiosity, in addition to the undeniable efficacy of
natural remedies in comparison with ordinary drugs. Solutions that have far
distanced the progress of modern traditional science and that have attracted
proselytes and caused many pilgrimages from all over the world. The Sacred
Hoop, or Medicine wheel, is, as said, a female element, according which
“life is a cycle and everything has its place in it”, based on four basic directions, each one offering its own
lesson, color and animal spirit guide[10].
The Sacred hoop and its
circular perspective goes beyond any Manichean partition considering what’s
coming from a God as good and from a Devil as evil, rejecting concepts as
original sin, redemption, faith, heaven and hell. The hoop is a field
containing energy, in order to make it won’t be dispersed, and that could
gather in an indissoluble uniqueness the whole world, including physical and
spiritual creatures. In Native Amerindian culture there’s a keen sense of
respect towards all forms of flora and fauna, not only as the main mean of
subsistence, but also in order to preserve the longevity of the planet. The
hoop is sacred because it opens up the way of awareness. The shamans heal sick
people by the use of what are considered by European people just simply magic
gifts, not special medicines, through wizard powers in which are intrinsic a
sort of “mystic potence”. The nature of Native minds is global-holistic for its
ability to identify themselves with all the complexities and to maintain these
structures in a dynamic equilibrium. By the use of the sacred hoop,
they demonstrate how the Cosmogony works, how the laws of nature and the cosmos
rule all human beings, the mysteries of life and death, the mind and the
individuality of the Self[11].
My personal perspective
dares to be quite transcendental, compelling myself to use a
cross-cutting lens to substantially focus the attention on the importance of the
rights of women, often victims of abuses, tortures and suffering sterility,
metaphorically including by this term all kinds of unproductiveness and
unfruitfulness. These, in facts, although currently protected and proclaimed by
the international community standards by resonant slogans, are still hardly
implemented in many contexts, with no mention of the rights of Indigenous
people that fortunately in Canada have had a better treatment than in the USA
or other parts of the planet[12].
My utmost desire is here to shed light on what represents the inner essence of
life, the straight sensitivity residing in every human being, made of a right
balance game between its male and female components, and to remark what “Mother
Nature” in the Iroquois culture have to teach to all of us in relation to the
mentality of dialogue, comparison and inclusiveness.
Gantowisas represent the
earthly emblem of the myth and the propelling power that makes everything in
society work well, in harmony and in peace, from economic circuits, essentially
trade and agriculture, to politics, justice administration and legal system,
other than above all in the smallest but closest societal nucleus, represented
by families, that they run with an enlarged vision, encircling in their own
hands the full management of their communities and their international
relations in a one world society, smoking together the pipe of amity and peace[13].
They are active agents, not
passive victims; the kinship is traced through the female line; children are
raised up and adopted by women; they own the lands, the crops and the
longhouses, enjoy more privileges and greater freedom if compared not only with
other American Indian women[14],
but also with the so-called civilized nations.
In the words of a Cheyenne
saying “A nation is not conquered until the hearts of its women are on the
ground”[15]
and, although the European conquest of Native America, Native women’s hearts are still beating.
The purpose of “The Great
Law of Peace”, the oral Haudenausonee Constitution, written on wampum
belts, is to help remembering the natural laws of creation fundamentally
derived from Sky Woman, the spirit that informs equality and order other than
beauty, health and goodness. In it is recalled the Tree of Peace, under
which the Council of Fire of the Confederacy
sit to discuss their affairs. The Tree has four Great White Roots in
four main directions, symbolizing peace and strength. A certain numbers of
wampum strings are given to each of the female families that in the USA represent
the completeness of the union and certify the pledge of the nations (Mowaks,
Oneida, Tuscarora, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca) that all formed, in a unique
body, the Union of the Great Law.
Wampum belts are also used for
storytelling. In these black lands surrounded by rocks and cliffs,
among the hills of god and spirits, brightened up by the moon, they breath in
the nature each day greater and greater sensations, instilling in them an
unsoundable mystic sense that they can’t refrain to unavoidably transmit to the
world. The used symbols narrated a story in the oral
tradition or spoken words. Since there was no written language, wampum was a
very important mean of keeping records and passing down stories to the next
generation, and were created to keep trace of the treaties or historical
events. The greatest part of Indian tradition is oral, although the
European attempts to write it down, and, as such, is unclassifiable
and uncategorizable, becoming for its fluidity and hard reachability,
unlikely to be sifted through a partisan or homologating critic. They are the
outright free thinkers, unmindful even of the use of pen, they don’t need. Poetries
and songs, often onomatopoeic, move along the notes of nature and even prayers,
that they rattle off as a breath, are free. Thoughts that go beyond the walls.
They don’t know repetitive novenas lo learn by heart or to brainwash
themselves. The same sense of freedom invests their dances, and the so called
rituals, that are never identical one another but are expression of a pure
creative art form. They have given origin to the highest form of religious
apostasy: the denial of indoctrination.
The Gantowisas and the
Jigonsaseh are the main actresses of the political life of the nation and
formidable allies. The Gantowisas run local clan councils and held all the
lineage wampum, nomination belts and titles, they run the funerals and retain
exclusive rights over naming - i.e., the creation of new citizens and the
installation of public officials. They nominate all male sachems as well as all
Clan Mothers to office and have the power to impeach wrongdoer, they appoint
warriors, declare war, negotiate peace and mediate disputes.
The ferocious nexus of sexism, classism, and
machismo that also fatally warped western studies linger on in a rather blithe
acceptance of the white suprematist propaganda that harshly criticized
governmental women just because was deemed unconceivable. The Great Law
carefully delineates the political operation of the clans In western debates
although the work done by early feminists on corroborating the political
centrality of the Gantowisas, the official history seems determined to ignore
the full half of the Haudenausonee government and is not found a complete
discussion on the woman’s complementary political structure to the Men Councils
equally vital to the League, how their clan council are set up, how the
Jigonsaseh declares war or peace, how Clan Mothers are selected, how they wield
constitutional powers as judges or mediators, how speakers from the men Grand
Council functioned, how the Gantowisas appoint warriors, how they help up and
forward matters to the men Grand Council and how they decide issues of citizenship
and political office through adoption and naming. The Jesuit Relation reported
that the women had “beaucoup d’authorité”
among their people, the Clan Mothers were highly respected and held their own
councils and that the men’s councils concluded nothing without consulting the
Gantowisas[16]. Lafiteau
in 1724 declared that the Gantowisas were the real “souls of the councils” on
which resides all clear authority[17],
observing that their complete control over war parties was a “sign that they
have a prestige somewhat more important than the Council of the Old Men
itself”. In 1761, Pierre de Charlevoix documented
that “the women have the chief authority amongst all the nations of the Huron
language” adding that ”the chiefs are no more than their lieutenants”[18]
with peace-making functions. According to the western mysoginist literature, Iroquois
governmental models were considered as immoral, unnatural and reprehensible. Gantowisas
were even pointed out as travestites, arising doubts about their true
femininity.
In the excursus of
the juridical Iroquois panorama could be interesting to have an outlook on the
main treaties binding them, first as Aboriginal people, then as Indigenous
people, with Canada Federal Government and the International Treaties on this
topic other than exploring minorities and women rights[19].The
written version of the Great Law, published by Arthur Parker in 1916[20],
reported how it required Clan Mothers to hold councils and, instead of
asserting that women has the same rights as men, pointedly stated that men has
the same rights as women.
The best way to reconstruct
the political role of Iroquoian women resides in women traditions: while Sky
Woman and her Daughter of the First Epoch modeled considerable social power,
the most politically powerful woman depicted in all of tradition appeared in
the Second Epoch: the Jigonsaseh, “the great woman”, “the mother of nations”,
“the peace queen”. In Wyandot-Seneca tradition is recalled as the reincarnation
of the Lynx. Her words were laws and their sanctions were necessary in all
political measures of inter-tribal importance. She played the role of both the
Peace Woman and peacemaker’s mother and she took active part in the conferences
and in deliberations resulting in the establishment of the League. There have
been as many different women bearing the title Jigonsaseh as men bearing the
title of Adodaroh. The Jigonsaseh acted in the political capacity of Head Clan
Mother.
Among the symbolic practices adopted by the
Peacemaker according to the Great Law there was that to “eat together from one
bowl”, that meant that kinship subsisted between those who had shared food and,
since it was forbidden to make war on one’s own kin, by feeding both sides from
the same pot, Jigonsaseh effectively used this provision to make peace between
warring factions. Jigonsaseh house was also called “peace house”: by her direct
authority was negotiated peace and declared war. She used the power to stop
conflicts by stating simple sentences, being their declarations outright laws[21].
A primary strategy of the
League was peace through expansion. This was not a western-inspired view, but
one inherent in the Great Law. In giving the Great Law, the Peacemaker had
begun by planting the sacred council Tree of Peace and the Nations interested
in joining the League might follow one of its four Shining roots. In describing
the official symbols of the league, the peacemaker held up a bundle of five
arrows for all to see, noting that singly each arrow was easily broken, but,
tied together in a bundle, the arrows were very strong. Thus the League was
united for physical strength and self-protection and the bundled arrows became
a mechanism of havoc once the disruptive influence of European invasion began.
The sudden depopulation caused by epidemic diseases pressured survivors to
deliver pelts to European markets in order to acquire supplies that the
overburdened remnants of society could no longer produce by themselves. The
results was a series of “mourning wars”, condolence raids, whose primary
purpose was to gain adoptees to rebuild the population[22].
These European promoted wars
pitted the Wyandot from above the St Lawrence against the Haudenosaunee below
the St Lawrence. These peoples had not been traditional enemies but long
acknowledged relatives, being instead traditional enemies England and France.
Between them, these interlopers infused a high level of negative tension and
snarling rivalry into the once peaceful relations between the French “Wyandots”
and the British “Haudenosaunee”, ranging them against each other as suppliers
of raw materials (skins and furs). Thus the Wyandots- Haudenosaunee war was an
affair initiated by the French and the British in pursuit of colonial empire.
In a series of concerted
actions beginning in 1633, the Gantowisas called for the Wyandot nations to be invaded
one by one, and they succumbed to League pressure. Following the first assault,
many of them sued immediately for peace. Although negotiations for entering the
League, peace talks fell apart in 1635 as it became clear that some of the more
proselytized Wyandots were reluctant to boot out their French missionaries, a
requirement for entering the League. In response, the Seneca and Onondaga
Gantowisas pushed to continue the war against the French, taking Wyandot
converts captive, sending young men to plant a League Tree of Peace. From
Haudenosaunee perspective, this action was not really equivalent to disrupting
peace talks, but their logical extension. Just the Wyandots, not the French had
been invited. Ultimately, the fight escalated, culminating in what is still
mistakenly call “the fall of Huronia” by historians. It’s important highlighting
that the Haudenosaunee were not attacking the Wyandots per se but just Christian converts, with a particular eye to
dislodging the French, so that many Wyandots were allied with the League
against the French.
It was a women affairs appointing
League warriors. Seneca - Wyandot
Gantowisas also took on role as warriors, standing armed beside the men. The
Jigonsaseh of 1687 temporarily assumed military power, fulfilling civilian and
military leader roles. As a result of his war on the Senecas, Denonville was
recalled to France in disgrace in 1689, soundly trounced by a woman, the
Jigonsaseh of 1687-1690. She’s remembered by the Haudenosaunee as a great
heroine of the League history as she defeated “the largest European force ever
assembled in North America” up to that time. There is no reason to suppose that
the position of Jigonsaseh was not continuously filled between 1650 and 1848
when the USA government presumed to
dissolve the League and forced a “civilized” form of government on the
Haudenosaunee of New York with the main purpose to deprive Clan Mothers of
their traditional powers. At first, Women Keepership of the land and tokens of
their involvement in the political process, including suffrage, were
begrudgingly recognized. All real power was concentrated in the hands of the
men’s Grand Council. Although that, continued to be recognized the women’s
ownership of land and the original clan base of the Great Law was shunted
aside, along with the Gantowisas’s remaining political powers. As a result,
Haudenosaunee women were massively disempowered, with Seneca women not
regaining voting rights until 1964. The office of Jigonsaseh seemed to be
officially reinstated in 1853 with Gahahno. Those interested in maintaining a
truly traditional government should look up her lineage and her heirs,
reinstating her position and her powers, along with the Clan Mothers’ Councils.
The Haudenosaunee began to feel the full weight of the western conqueror
bearing down on them as soon as the Revolutionary War ended. With the forced
assimilation, the “forgotten removals”,[23]
the nations fell like pushed dominoes into the grip of settlers mitts that
throttled Haudenosaunee culture. The engine of forced assimilations in New York
involved the Quakers primary cultural adjustment to reduce the Gantowisas to a
proper state of female subjection to male “protection”. Under the Quakers plan
of civilization Iroquois women were to be reformed into pliant women bruised
under the heavy thumb of their autocratic male relatives, according to the
Christian- European model: the Gantowisas were to become submissive to their husbands, absent from public
assemblies, quiet in places of worship, hopeless at finances and concerned only
with the domestic sphere, confined to household chores and baby-making. They
had to give up farming, men’s work in the European view. Was also under the
Quakers influence that Gahahno was inaccurately described as a Virgin but virginity
was a European, not a Iroquoian credential.
Concerning
their International Relations, it must be recalled that the Grand Council of
the Iroquois Confederacy declared war on Germany in 1917 during WWI and again in 1942 in WWII. Passports have been issued since
1997 for international travel, but after Sept 11 attacks was no more recognized
legal value to the document. In 2010, the Iroquois Nationals lacrosse team was allowed by
the U.S. to travel on their own passports to the World Lacrosse Championship[24] in England only after the
personal intervention of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton but the British government refused to recognize Iroquois passports
and denied the team members entry in UK.
The Onondaga Nation spent $1.5 million on a
subsequent upgrade to the passports designed to meet 21st-century international
security requirements[25].
Jigonsaseh’s story is vital to
understand the powers and duties of the Gantowisas. Her negotiations with the
Peacemaker and her personal centrality in ending the Second Epochal war
resulted in the women sections of the Iroquois Constitution. The wampum belts
of the Great Law “Clans and Consanguinity” and “Laws of Adoptions” are
Jigonsaseh’s sections. The Roster of the Gran Mothers[26]
named the Clan Mothers of the Canadian League. The organizing principle beyond
the local-federal mechanism was Twinship in the form of gendered balance: the
Clan Mothers’ Council mirrored the Men’s Grand Council and vice versa. It was the reciprocal interaction of these two bodies
that ordered the functioning of the League. Everyone had both a Clan (mother)
and a national citizenship (father). By women power to block decisions, it was
no accident that Sganyadai:yoh’s
woman-crushing Gaiwi:ho (Code of
Handsome Lake) took over fifty years to be codified and recognized[27].
The men could not deliberate upon an issue that had not been sent forward by
the Gantowisas. Within the Councils decisions were taken by consensus,
according to the principle of popular sovereignty, the will of people, Ne’ Găshasde’sä, inspiring modern
democracies, from which they highly differ because they don’t even need,
because of the values and principles they rely upon, a Montesquieu system of
checks and balances[28]
distributed in distinct centers of power. Although sometimes depreciatorily labeled
as “petticoat governments”, their legal principles are echoed in the Preamble
to the U.S. Constitution.
The Gendering rule resulted in
mirror-image councils of Clan Mothers balancing councils of men sachems.
According to the protocol, men didn’t speak in women’s councils and vice versa. Ayonwantha was the
Peacemaker’s Speaker to the men, as the Jigonsaseh was Speaker to the women.
The Peacemaker needed two speakers, and, under this system of gendering, women
sent male speakers to men’s councils, while men sent female speakers to women’s
councils. Speakership was a conventional office accomplished by individuals
sent forth to present the chiefs’, or Clan Mothers’, consensus message to the
official opposite. Speakership operated on the principle of One-Mindedness, or
functional consensus. All Spirits – from those of Mother Earth, the waters, the
plants, the animals, GranMother Moon, Milky Way, etc. – were called together
with the goal of achieving a perfect consensus of all sentient minds in a cosmic
Ne’ Găshasde’sä. Speakers were
selected for their good memories, clear oratory and faithfulness to the will of
their constituent body. They operated independently of Clan Motherhood or
sachemship: a speaker might or might not simultaneously be a chief or a Clan
Mother.
The practice of naming and its
gendering into a female power is quite ancient. Its genesis may be found in
stories of the First Mother and Daughter: in the First Epoch of Time, when Lynx
grew up, her mother sent her walking through the back of the Turtle every day,
to see what existed on the great island and at her return Sky Woman advanced
the challenge of naming creatures, proposing to be inspired by their movements.
Accordingly the power over
names and titles passed to Gantowisas, the daughter of her first daughter. It
was the clan mother who knew the rightful possessors of their names and titles
of the League encoded into lineage wampum, often called “Chief belts”.
As a part of naming functions,
the Clan Mothers held the lineage wampum of the Great Law. All white wampum is
women’s wampum, whereas black (actually purple) belongs to the men. White
wampum signifies peace and justice, the women’s gender purview, purple (“black”)
wampum signified warfare and danger, the men gendered one. Gantowisas have also
full power of naming wampum of adoption, that was not only an act of nuclear
families taking in an orphaned or abandoned child, but that also consisted in
granting full citizenship to someone from outside of the League, or the clan. Normally
during inter-clan adoptions, the respective Clan Mothers agreed at the time of
adoptions to return any lineage title that might later come the child’s way, so
that, upon his death, the original lineage and clan might retain its rights to
the title.
Gantowisas has the power to
impeach civic wrongdoers: any sachem or Clan Mother found guilty of crimes in office, dereliction of
duty or incompetence could be removed. Gantowisas were not empowered to impeach
anyone until they had given the offender three warnings to amend his behaviour.
If the final warning was ignored, the women may act.
Forms of denaming came with
death. In the instant of death, Gantowisas after running funerals, also directed
the following feasts and festivals..
The final cluster of political
powers reserved to Gantowisas concerned warfare. Before they could empower the
men to use their black wampum, authorizing specific military actions,
Gantowisas were required, by law, to hold three successive peace councils. The
“mourning wars” initiated just after these three persuasive efforts failed.. If
the Indians go to war without the consent of the great women, the great spirit
will not prosper them in war, but will cause disgrace[29].
As it concerns Women’s control
of economy, the fact that the woodland business was not capitalized in the
western sense didn’t mean that they were not production and above all
agricultural economies. The primary asset was Mother Earth. Gantowisas
controlled the Iroquoian economy, and not just through their ultimate legal
ownership of the means of all production but through their sole rights to keep
and distribute her bounty. Men acted as the Keepers of the Forests and women as
the Keepers of the fields.
In the 18th century,
in Notes on the State of Virginia,
1782, Jefferson reinforced the image of “unjust drudgery” supposedly imposed
upon Native Women denouncing that women are formed by nature for attentions,
not for hard labor. In the 19th century, during the period of their control on
the New York reservations, the Quakers tried to save women from the fields but
with shaky results. Iroquois women displayed a complete lack of interest in
home arts as spinning, knitting and soap-making – except as entrepreneurial
ventures. They remained interested in these activities as long as the Quakers
supplied raw materials free of charge. They didn’t want the product for home
use but were promptly selling their wares to the settlers, and at a tidy
profit, since they had no expenses for their equipment. The campaign aiming at
getting out of the fields Iroquois women was not unique to the Quakers but also
a federal policy, also pursued by government boarding schools. On the contrary,
Champlain found that the women enjoyed plenty of free time in which occasion
they amuse themselves by gambling, going to dances, and feasts, chatting and
killing time, doing what they like the most for their leisure. The Iroquois
woman was not the overworked drudge she’s usually represented to have been.
Iroquoian woman invented a
form of communal economics of agriculture and horticulture that guaranteed
social security and preservation. What essentially distinguishes Iroquois
economic system from the Western ones is their premise of natural plenty
available to all, as opposed to the European presupposition of scarcity and the
spiritual source of its management, being
sharing and cooperation their paramount social values. The point of
Iroquoian economics was not to exploit Mother Earth but to reciprocate her
gifts of life with human gifts of Keeping. Under such a system, the traits of
competition and individualism leading to accumulation of wealth – central in
capitalism- were seen as expressions of insanity, conveying instead a mentality
of generosity and inclusion. Iroquoian cooperation ruled out competition as a
cultural value. Both men and women worked cooperatively in collective units
focused on community-centred tasks, not ego-driven goals. The women’s farming
society is based on the Gai’ wiu
O’’dănnide ‘ osha principle, meaning “Good Rule, They Assist One Another”.
Conservation techniques of
Native farmers, such as the protection of the ground moisture and village
rotation, must be seen through the lens of their ecological sensitivity and
limited social definition of “need”. They adopted agricultural techniques such
as planning, timing and goal-oriented management. In an anti-marxist
perspective, if materialism underpins capitalism, spirituality is the core of
Iroquoian communalism. Mother Earth was a living entity. Her Spirit was the
Spirit of the Lynx, her breast were the hills and the mountains, her sweat ran
into rivulets of her streams, her waters were the lakes, the creases in her
body were the valleys, the grasses were her hair and the trees were her lungs.
Setting food on her skin of dirt was a sacred act. The Gantowisas were One with Mother Earth.
The Haudenosaunee
constitution, for the economic rules of the League were written into the Great
Law: “Women shall be considered the progenitors of the Nation”, “They shall own
the land and the soil”. However, private property rights are not implied. What
they hold is a sacred trust that have legal precedent in the Creation Story.
The fertility of Mother Earth
was especially invoked on nights of full moon. There were certain rules as to
how the Gantowisas made the distributions of the fields, depending on the need,
the ability to produce, fairness and equality. In addition to clan plots, every
town maintained common fields, reserved for use in communal feasts, councils
and ceremonies. It was possible in post-contact days for individuals to manage
“private” plots, after their consent. The
redistribution of land was an ordinary affair as well as the management of
allotted land. The Gantowisas elected Clan Mothers of the field annually. The
Iroquois had a unique form of crop rotation: they moved themselves, not the
fields, from place to place along a regular circuit every fifteen or twenty
years. This allowed the fields and the forests of the latest site to lie fallow
until the town folks returned to it, some four or five rotations later.
Planting was typically
undertaken by the midnight light of the fat face of Granmother the Moon, by the
use of fish and broken shells as fertilizer, a practice Native women taught to the
English. Remaining in
this field of expertise and going beyond, we can highlight the importance of
the moon, associated with the female element and often with the world of
dreams, oneirism, unconsciousness and occultism and how they can affect the
psyche and determine the destiny of humanity [30].
The Gantowisas of present-day
Canada supplied 65% of the people’s food, against the 35% supplied by men’s
hunting and fishing. Iroquois economic profits are up to now boosted by ecoturism,
casino and gambling. Women hold the taxes and the public treasure and Lafiteau
westernized the matter turning the Gantowisas into the Exchequer of the League.
The logic of Keeping was not materialistic but spiritual and let the Gantowisas
have full rights over all products. After four hundred years of colonization by
Dutch, British and French, Quakers and finally the Dawes Act, the spiritual
economics of communal sharing once managed by Gantowisas has now crumbles into
the dust of history.
About
diplomacy it must be said that treating with guests was an ancient Gantowisas
duty. On international scale, it was the duty of the Jigonsaseh; on the local
level, responsibility of the Clan Mother of the longhouse. Hospitality was
really part of the overall economic system: it consisted in an active
redistribution of wealth, based on the principle that Mother Earth’s bounty
belonged equally to all creatures. On the micro-level open-handed festivals
cemented goodwill among all clans and nations; internationally, it strengthened
alliances. Delâge termed this economic regulatory system “the rule of the gift”[31].
Gifting operated on the reciprocating principle of Twinship. The Twins must
remain in balance: what comes from one must go to the other and back again.
Hospitality was private generosity reflecting a comfortable personal surplus
and gifting was the personal benevolence of wealthy towards the poor. Both were
acts of individual conscience, undertaken at private discretion, and testify
the good predisposition towards recipients. This act was frowned up by the
Quakers as a sort of extortion and manipulation but it was not bribery but the
enlargement of a social fabric to include new possibilities of alliances for
peace, under which an increasing number of people might join together to share
Mother Earth’s prosperity. Soon European diplomats begrudgingly acceded to the rules
of Gifting, that was an expected part of treaty councils: both France and
Britain bowed to the custom and reverted to it whenever it suited their
purposes.
Iroquoian culture esteemed
elder women as sowers of wisdom and givers of life, the guardians of next
generation. This female focus led to social practices outrageous to Christian
patriarchy: inheritance through the female line, female-headed households, pre
and extramarital sexual relations for women, female control of fertility,
permissive child rearing, trial marriages, mother-dictated marriages, divorce
on demand, maternal custody of the children in case of divorce, polyandry and
female appointed hunting wives were considered scandalous customs by the
Europeans, especially their sexual mores. Gantowisas inspired the 19th
century American feminists, providing their free model of womanhood. In the colonial
era, women were anything but the social ornaments that the 18th century
British etiquette insisted they must be. As Namias showed in White Captives (1993), the bold and
adventurous “American Amazon” was no less than the female ideal, from the late
colonial era until the Revolutionary and Federal periods[32].
Her athletic Amazon retraced the Iroquoian style of womanhood: active,
resourceful, self-directed, rational, politically and socially powerful and
completely responsible for the civic lessons of her children. Kerber examined
women of the Revolutionary era and tried to fit the Amazonian attributes into
the ideal of “Republican Mother”[33].
The prototype of republican education was Iroquoian. There was a reason that
the first emblem of the USA was an Iroquois woman (Columbia, symbolizing
strength) although their Constitution failed at first to include rights of
personal conscience and individual liberty, later recognized in the Bill of
Rights. These rights are the cornerstones of Iroquois society but were foreign to
European cultures, attributing their proclamation to the arise of individualism
following the Protestant revolution. Warren[34]
argued that although many European
scholars tried to recast the matrilinear focus into patriarchal terms, Mother
and Daughter are still the key of the Iroquois understanding.
The place where women sat in honour
was the longhouse, long, rib-and-rafter framed buildings covered with elm bark,
looking something like an upside-down ”U” or the Greek letter “Ω”. These roomy buildings
were also called Clan Houses, for each accomodated all members of its matrilineage.
Linguistically, Haudenosaunee means “the completed longhouse”. Each clan house
was presided over by its Clan Mother, that was not necessarily the oldest woman
but the most impartial and politically sly of the elder women of that lineage.
Iroquois women commonly
practised abortion and birth control techniques, if necessary, as Thomas
Jefferson testified by the use of some vegetable, into the 20th century as in the 18th century.
The French officer Lahontan and the Seneca scholar Arthur Parker reported that they
drank the “Juice of certain roots” to prevent conceptions and to abort
pregnancies without destroying the “generative organs”, merely preventing
conception or ending pregnancies on a one-time basis. Although accused by the
Longhouse Religion of “witchcraft, murder, and infanticide”, they absolutely knew the distinction between
abortion and infanticide. The free use of abortion in fact was allowed to
minimize the sufferings of mothers, according to the tradition of Creation in
its concern for the lives and suffering of women. Annemarie Shimony was told
that boiled sassafras shoots induced abortion[35]
and in addition to that Iroquois women used the bark of Fagus grandifolia, of Zanthoxylum
americanum or the boiled root of Ceanothus
americanus. After westernization, the legalization of abortion and the
spread of contraceptive pills, many modern Iroquoian women now opt for these
newer antifertility methods. As important as preventing an unwanted conception
was planning for one when a pregnancy was desired. Prospective mothers observed
the phases of Granmother Moon, knowing that full moonlight was the time for
conceiving children, to determine when they are ovulating. One of the side
effects of controlled fertility was that every child was wanted and well looked
after. Usually families have no more than three or four children, and not that
many, if they cannot support them comfortably. The age of basic self-sufficiency
for children was fixed at about five. An Iroquoian mother simply didn’t give birth to another child
during the formative years of a child already in existence.
Once children were born, women
held the exclusive right of naming them. Personal names served the purpose of
attaching individuals to their communities. The names were usually given a year
after birth since traditionally naming ceremonies didn’t take place until Green
Corn time (late August through October) or the Midwinter Ceremony (January),
when all the new children of a community were formally introduced to everyone
attending the festivities. One of the rules of naming is that no one may be
given a name currently in use.
Gantowisas had undisputed
control over it in Iroquoia children rearing. Children belonged only to the
mother, and acknowledged no authority but hers. Even one hundred-twenty years
of missionizing didn’t alter the practice. The fondness of Iroquoian adults for
children is legendary. Charlevoix reported that “the care which the mothers
take of their children while they are still in the cradle is beyond all
expression. They never leave them, they carry them everywhere about with them”..
Because of their gentleness, corporal punishment was unthinkable to them. Using
“no whips, no punishments, no threats” such as Europeans habitually plied
against their own children, the Iroquois permissiveness reflected their
philosophy that children learned only from experience. They preferred verbal
prompts and community pressure on them, publicly praising desirable behaviours
and, conversely, publicly condemning undesirable ones. Heckewelder underlined
that, unlike the alienating system of Europe, which only trained people to
respond to punishment, the Iroquoian system turned out talented, responsible,
civic-minded citizens capable of living in democracy, “in peace and harmony,
and in the exercise of moral virtues”.
Civic duty was not the only
lesson reserved for puberty. Sex was high on the list, as well. For them, sex
and marriage were not necessarily connected, while controlled paternity was a
nonsense idea. Sex was freewheeling and male jealousy was beneath contempt.
Seneca women practiced polyandry. Divorce was frequent, free and easy. Sex
began at puberty, at the behest of the girls. Boys might signal interest with
their eyes or small presents but it was up to the girls to initiate the
liaisons. Lahontan reported the reversal of sex role customs: “the men are as
cold and indifferent as the girls are passionate and warm”. Premarital sex was
considered normal and was considered a very important part of every young
person development. No one, male or female, was pushed to marriage without
having any idea of what she or he was getting into. Furthermore, love-making
was held to strengthen both the female and male body, explaining its liberal
use in the andacouandet healing
ceremony, in which the healthy made love to the sick. Le Jeune recorded that
sex played a part in an eight-to-ten shamanic spiritual ceremony[36].
Free love started generally at
twelve; multiple marriages, lesbian unions, also interfamiliar ones, are
admitted. There’s a tough understanding of homosexuality, leaving us imagine
how distant this so-called “uncivilized barbarians” are from western countries,
showing off a broader sense of tolerance and respect towards diversity and
demonstrating to have a wider vision on how and about can work the dynamics of
the interpersonal relations and the tantalizing fascination that the same sex
could exercise on ourselves, in which we see reflected as in a mirror,
inevitably boosting personality and self-esteem.
An accepted proposal did not
seal a marriage contract. Instead, a trial marriage ensued, during which the
girl was called asqua, meaning “maybe
married”. After sampling time had passed, the mother, after consulting the
girl, decided whether the couple matches well. If it was not the case, the girl
returned the presents and called the marriage off. Champlain claimed that some
women had been married between twelve and fifteen times. Once a full marriage
was deemed suitable to proceed, the bride was now called aténonha, or “really married”. The young couple lived in the
bride’s matrilineal longhouse and the mother of the girl, whose authority was
complete, was responsible for the
married life of her children.
Finally, what can be deduced from
this overview about Gantowisas women and Iroquois culture and political,
economical and social customs, is undoubtedly that can’t be eluded and passed
beyond their strong bond with the lands, with Mother Earth, they even resemble
into the colour of their skins and with which they feel to be as one, from
which they stretch out, to which they take on luxuriance and even dirtiness,
adaptability and steadiness and in which they are firmly rooted. Remarkable in
their life is the voice of natural elements they are able to be tuned in, with
which they continuously talk in infinite returning, circular dialogues
that disclose the mysteries of the awareness, from which they keep on learning
erudite lessons, always different and new, whose they can read out the signs
and secret messages guiding their deeds and addressing their thoughts,
reshuffling their wittiness and intuitivity, with the slightness of the wind
and the acumen of the eagle. Whispers of nature echoing sentiments of universal
god’s love they try to translate in forms of beauty and art and put into
practice giving a precise imprinting to the institutional and structural model
of their communities on the base of this rudimental but essential pattern, in a
synodal democratic itinere, from the
greek “syn-hodos”, that’s “walking together”, transpiring a deep sense of brotherhood,
in a missionary spirit of communion and participation, in a no one left behind
society in which are all equal and have the same dignity.
[1] Canale P, Eternal feminine: an inspirational source of
democracy – an insight on Iroquois culture in USA and Canada, Barnes and
Noble, 2021
[2] Goethe, Faust,
Oscar Mondadori, 2016 (fist publication in 1832) “Everything that can be perceived/is only a
symbol;/the imperfect, which cannot be realized,/here makes itself
reality;/that which cannot be described,/here finally completes itself./It is
the eternal feminine,/always attracting us to the higher.”,
[4] Canale P., “Life’s blooms. Illustrations in poetry…the
silent side of beauty”, Barnes and Noble, 2021, Introduction
[6] Bruce E. Johansen
– Barbara A. Mann, Encyclopedia of the Haudenosaunee, Greenwood, 2000
[8] Barbara A. Mann, Iroquoian Women – The Gantowisas, Peter Lang, 2011
[9] Johansen B., E., Debating Democracy: Native American legacy
of freedom, Clear Light Pub, 1997
[11] F. Minnella, “Il sogno,
il rito, l’estasi. Le vie del peyote degli Indiani d’America”, Massari
Editore, 1998
[12] F. Minnella, L’America
non esiste…io ci sono stato, Gruppo Editoriale L’Espresso, 2012
[13] Heckewelder, History, Manners and Customs of the Indian
Nations, Philadelfia- Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1881
[15] Allen, Paula Gunn, The sacred hoop: recovering the
feminine in American Indian traditions, Boston, Beacon Press, 1986;
Jaimes, Marie Annette. “Towards a new image of American Indian women” , Journal of American Indian Education [online]
Oct 1982.
[16] Reuben Gold
Thwaites, ed. And trans., Les relations
des Jésuits, or The Jesuit Relations: Travels and Explorations of the Jesuit
Missionary in New France, 1610-1791, New York, Pageant Book Company, 1959
[17] Father Joseph
Francois Lafiteau, Customs of the
American Indians compared with the customs of the primitive times, Toronto,
The Champlain Society, 1974
[18] Pierrede
Charlevoix , Journal of a Voyage to North
America, 1761; Ann Arbor MI: University Microfils, Inc, 1966
[19] Canale P., Eternal feminine, Ibid., chapter. 2
[20] Arthur C. Parker, An analytical history of the Seneca Indians,
Researchers and Transactions of the New York State Archeological Association
(1926, Kraus reprint co.1970)
[21] Benjamin Franklin
“Remarks concerning the Savages of North
America”, Benjamin Frankling Writing, 1783 (New York, the Library of
America, 1987)
[23] James P. Ronda, “Forgotten Removals: the life and the times
of Hendrick Aupaumut” Minnestrista Council for Great Lakes Native American
Studies, 1991-1992 Proceedings of the Woodland National Conference (Muncie:
Minnestrista Cultural Center and Ball State University, 1993)
[24] Nicole Terese
Capton Marques, Divided We Stand: The
Haudenosaunee, Their Passport and Legal Implications of Their Recognition in
Canada and the United States, S. Diego International Law Journal, 2011
[25] Benny, Michael, "Iroquois spend $1.5 million to upgrade
passports". CNYCentral.com. Barrington
Broadcasting Group, LLC, 2011
[26] Barbara A. Mann, Ibid., p. 156-160
[27] Arthur C. Parker, The Code of Handsome Lake, the Seneca
Prophet, New York State Museum Bulletin, University of State of New York,
1913
[28] Charles de
Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, The
spirit of laws, Bell, 1914
[29] Rotemberg D., The Mothers of the nation, Ta’ wil
books, 1992
[30] Canale P., Oneiric
dimension- the dreams: a place where to find the spirit, 2021, http://sparklingmoonshine.blogspot.com
[31] Delâge, D. Le Pays Renversé; Amérindien ei Européens en
Amerique du Nord-est,1600-1644, Montréal, Boréal Express, 1985
[32] June Namias, White Captives: Gender and Ethnicity on the
American Frontier, Chapel Hill, NC: Unicersity of North Carolina Press,
1993
[33] Linda K. Kerber, Women of the Republic Intellect and Ideology
in Revolutionary America, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
1980
[34] Elaine Crovitz and
Elizabeth Buford, “Mercy Otis Warren”, Courage
knows no sex, North Quincy,The Christopher Publishing House, 1978
[35] Shimony A., Ibid, Conservatism among the Iroquois
[36] Twaites Reuben
Gold, The Jesuit relations: travels and
explorations of the Jesuit missionaries in New France, 1610-1791, New York,
Pegeant Book Company, 1959
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