The Great Law of Peace — Gayanashagowa
The Haudenosaunee Confederacy's Great Law of Peace, encoded in wampum belts and oral tradition, established one of history's most sophisticated systems of democratic governance founded on spiritual principle.
The Great Law of Peace was delivered by the Peacemaker (Deganawida) and his spokesperson Hiawatha to five warring nations — Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca — approximately between 1450 and 1600 CE. The Great Law established a federal confederacy with sophisticated checks and balances, clan mothers holding power to choose and remove male leaders, unanimous consensus required for war, and rights of women, children, and future generations encoded into governance. Many historians argue that the Founding Fathers of the United States drew on this model when drafting the Constitution. The Great Law is grounded in the spiritual conviction that peace is the natural condition of human existence — it is war and injustice that require explanation.
We are looking ahead, as is one of the first mandates given to us as chiefs, to make sure every decision we make relates to the welfare and wellbeing of the seventh generation to come.
Political theorist Bruce Johansen documents extensive evidence that Madison, Franklin, and Jefferson consulted the Haudenosaunee Confederacy model when designing American democratic institutions.
Gayanashagowa — The Great Law of Peace
Written about in
- What Native American traditions say about what to say and what to leave unsaid
The Great Law required unanimous consensus before war and gave clan mothers power to choose and remove the male chiefs. Deliberation is slow on purpose, because a decision reached by talking over people does not bind them. Peace is taken as the natural condition — it is war and injustice that have to be explained.