#title Where License Reigns With All Impunity
#subtitle An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity
#author Stephen Arthur
#LISTtitle Anarchist Study of the Iroquois
#SORTauthors Stephen Arthur
#SORTtopics indigenous anarchism, anthropology, history, Native Americans, indigenous, Iroquois, mohawk, Six Nations, Northeastern Anarchist
#date 2007
#source Retrieved on 2019-06-11 from [[https://www.anarkismo.net/article/4907][www.anarkismo.net]] , [[https://archive.li/01RJ7][archive.li]] , [[https://web.archive.org/web/20190316094454/nefac.net/anarchiststudyofiroquois][web.archive.org]]
#lang en
#notes Published in The Northeastern Anarchist Issue #12, Winter 2007. Also titled as ‘An Anarchist Study of the Iroquois’
The traditional society of the Rotinonshón:ni (Iroquois), “The People of the Longhouse,” was a densely settled, matrilineal, communal, and extensively horticultural society. The Rotinonshón:ni formed a confederacy of five nations. Generations before historical contact with Europeans, these nations united through the Kaianere’kó:wa into the same polity and ended blood feuding without economic exploitation, stratification, or the formation of a centralized state.
“Their Policy in this is very wise, and has nothing Barbarous in it. For, since their preservation depends upon their union, and since it is hardly possible that among peoples where license reigns with all impunity — and, above all, among young people — there should not happen some event capable of causing a rupture, and disuniting their minds, — for these reasons, they hold every year a general assembly in Onnontaé. There all the Deputies from the different Nations are present, to make their complaints and receive the necessary satisfaction in mutual gifts, — by means of which they maintain a good understanding with one another.”
François le Mercier, 1668 [1]
Some historical materialists claim a densely settled, agricultural population will inevitably develop into a hierarchically stratified society, with a centralized state and an exploitative economic redistribution system, in order avoid warfare while resolving blood feuds among its members.[2] While this is a common occurence, it is not the only way these issues have been resolved. Located along the southern banks of Kaniatarí:io (Lake Ontario), the traditional society of the Rotinonshón:ni (Iroquois),[3] “The People of the Longhouse,” was a densely settled, matrilineal, communal, and extensively horticultural society. The Rotinonshón:ni formed a confederacy initially of five nations: Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk), Oneniote’á:ka (Onedia), Ononta’kehá:ka (Onondaga), Kaion’kehá:ka (Cayuga) and Shotinontowane’á:ka (Seneca). Generations before historical contact with Europeans,[4] these nations united through the Kaianere’kó:wa (“the Great Good Way”) into the same polity[5] and ended blood feuding without economic exploitation, stratification, or the formation of a centralized state.
Jared Diamond hypothesizes that when stateless egalitarian hunter-gather societies develop agriculture and experience population growth, blood feuds and new resource management problems challenge their ability to maintain horizontal political relationships and economic communalism. [6] According to Diamond, the material transition itself leads inevitably to the State, which he refers to as “the kleptocracy,” and the most the oppressed can hope for by revolting is for a change in the rate of exploitation and oppression by installing a new group of kleptocrats. In his view, “the kleptocracy” is ultimately a function of material culture.[7]
Some Marxists agree with Diamond’s perspective. They argue that in the transitions from hunter-gather communism to feudalism, and from there to capitalism, society develops the industrial production of the social wealth necessary for communism to become an option again. There is at least one strong counter example to this vulgar historical determinism and unilinear cultural evolution: the formation and continued survival of the Rotinonshón:ni in the northeast of North America.
While critical of Marxism, Murray Bookchin acknowledges the cooperative and peaceful internal nature of hunter-gather societies but also brings up the problems of external warfare.
“To members of their own bands, tribes, or clans, prehistoric and later foraging peoples were normally cooperative and peaceful; but toward members of other bands, tribes, or clans, they were often warlike, even sometimes genocidal in their efforts to dispossess them and appropriate their land.... As to modern foragers, the conflicts between Native American tribes are too numerous to cite at any great length... the tribes that were to finally make up the Iroquois Confederacy (the Confederacy itself was a matter of survival if they were not to all but exterminate one another), and the unrelenting conflict between Mohawks and Hurons, which led to the near extermination and flight of remnant Huron communities.” [8]
The conflicts Bookchin mentions occurred around Kaniatarí:io and Lake Erie in the 17th century and are often referred to as the “Beaver Wars,” due to the connection with the fur trade between indigenous and European people. Bookchin’s description the conflict of Kanien’kehá:ka and the Wendat (Huron) as “extermination” or “genocidal” is inaccurate. Rather than a matter of ethnic cleansing or economic competition, that conflict is better understood as a civil war of political unification among Iroquois speakers. It is ironic that in Bookchin’s tirade against modern anti-civilizationist mystification of the primitive, he acknowledges the formation as of Rotinonshón:ni polity that ended the warfare among the Five Nations, but fails to reflect upon this momentous accomplishment or see how much their achievement has parallels with his own political ideas.
** How Peace Came to the Rotinonshón:ni
[[s-a-stephen-arthur-where-license-reigns-with-all-i-1.png f]]
“They still possess virtues which might cause shame to most Christians. No hospitals are needed among them, because there are neither mendicants nor paupers as long as there are any rich people among them. Their kindness, humanity, and courtesy not only make them liberal with what they have, but cause them to possess hardly anything except in common. A whole village must be without corn before any individual can be obliged to endure privation. They divide the produce of their fisheries equally with all who come” Father Simon Le Moyne, 1657 [22]In the 17th century, the Rotinonshón:ni lived in settled towns of as many as two thousand people, surrounded by palisades. Population density averaged two hundred people per acre. These were the densest communities in the Northeast, including those of European settlers, until the 19th century. [23] The communal fields surrounding Rotinonshón:ni villages extended for up to six miles in radius. Even after the Rotinonshón:ni population had been greatly reduced by war and disease, they were still very productive farmers. One indicator of quantity of Rotinonshón:ni production is taken from a military campaign against them under the orders of U.S. President George Washington, who the Rotinonshón:ni have named Ranatakárias—“Town Destroyer”. [24] During the American Revolutionary War, in 1779 the Sullivan-Clark military expedition attacked the villages of all Rotinonshón:ni nations except the Oneniote’á:ka. The alliance of the Oneniote’á:ka with the United States against the rest of the Rotinonshón:ni broke the peace between the Rotinonshón:ni nations that had stretched back to Tekanawí:ta’s foundation, and resulted in profound consequences for all. According to Sullivan’s official report, the U.S. army burned forty towns and their surrounding fields, destroying 160,000 bushels of corn; Anthony F.C. Wallace estimated “500... dwellings in two dozen settlements... and nearly 1 million bushels of corn” were destroyed [25]; and Allan Eckert estimated at least fifty towns and nearly 1,200 houses were burned. The American Revolution was more an economic disaster for the Rotinonshón:ni than a military defeat. Teiowí:sonte Thomas Deer describes the economics of the traditional Rotinonshón:ni as synonymous with contemporary concepts of communalism or socialism: “an emphasis is placed upon the survival and welfare of the collective as opposed to the success and comfort of the individual. Such societies are composed of a group who voluntarily participate in a cooperative livelihood that shares the burden of labor and as well the fruit of such labor. This concept is reinforced by the Kaianere’kó:wa in its analogy of the bowl from which all Haudenosaunee would share from.” [26] Hunter Gray has referred to tribal communalism and the Rotinonshón:ni ethos of tribal (mutual) responsibility as “strawberry socialism.” [27] In 1977, when Rotinonshón:ni delegates addressed the United Nations with their economic ideas, they argued against permanent private property and excluding others from the means of production. They suggested that the concept of alienated property results in slavery. They stated that their rejection of a commodity economy, their rejection of conspicuous consumption, and their ideas of eminently fair distribution would result in all people sharing in material wealth. Their concepts of economy and labor would require an entire community of involvement, rather than isolated nuclear families. All people, they declared, have a right to food, clothing and shelter. No one should have a position of economic power over anyone else, and there should be no artificial scarcity created by property ownership.[28] Did the Rotinonshón:ni have private property historically? Historian Daniel Richter has argued that the Rotinonshón:ni economics only superficially resembled communalism. Property ownership, however, derived from need and use, while abandoned property was free for the use by anyone. Further, that in times of shortage, all was shared communally. [29] This is an example of a usufruct (use rights) system of ownership, which many anarchists would approve of, including Bookchin: “an individual appropriation of goods, a personal claim to tools, land, and other resources ... is fairly common in organic [i.e. aboriginal] societies... co-operative work and the sharing of resources on a scale that could be called communistic is also fairly common... But primary to both of these seemingly contrasting relationships is the practice of usufruct.” [30] It bears mentioning that wampum, beads made of shell and strung together, was used as currency among cash-poor European settlers in the Northeast. Wampum, in addition to European-manufactured goods, was exchanged for beaver pelts with the Rotinonshón:ni. Among the Rotinonshón:ni, however, it was not used as currency. A hallmark of their diplomacy and gift exchange, wampum functioned almost exclusively as a political and social aid, used in the condolence ceremonies, in the requickening of newly selected leaders, and as a mnemonic device for agreements and treaties. [31] While the Rotinonshón:ni mode of production was collective, it was divided by gender. Men engaged in clearing the forest, hunting, fishing, diplomacy, trade and warfare. Women focused on extensive horticulture, childcare and village life [32]. Collective effort and communal ownership of the land did not, however, preclude individuals from working separately. To this extent, the communism of the Rotinonshón:ni can be regarded as voluntary.
“Women worked in family unites in fields cleared by their clan brothers. So long as each did her share of the labor, she also shared in the communal harvest. Individual women might also keep private plots, but they shared in the communal harvest only if they also did their parts in the fields of the ohwachira. An ad hoc mutual aid society was sometimes formed by these women so that they could bring collective effort even to fields not supervised by clan matrons“[33]** “We are left to answer for our women”
“Hear and listen to what we, women, shall speak, as well as the Sachems; for we are the owners of this land, AND IT IS OURS! It is we that plant it for our and their use. Hear us, therefore, for we speak things that concern us and our children; and you must not think hard of us while our men shall say more to you, for we have told them” Seneca women “We are left to answer for our women, who are to conclude what ought to be done by both Sachems and warriors. So hear what is their conclusion. The business you come on is troublesome, and we have been a long time considering it; and now the elders of our women have said that our Sachems and warriors must help you, for the good of them, and their children” Sagoyawatha “Red Jacket”, 1791[34]Anarchist anthropologist Harold Barclay has pointed out that “Egalitarian does not… mean that there is any equality between sexes and between different age groups” and that “true sexual equality is a rarity.”[35] By contrast, the Rotinonshón:ni are often held up as an example of a matriarchy, though I disagree with the semantics of that term. While the Rotinonshón:ni are both matrilineal and matrilocal, and the women do have a role in consensual politics and in selecting and removing men from leadership positions; women do not wield power over men the way men wield power over women in a patriarchal society. Anthropological archaeologist Dean Snow, explains this very well: “Iroquois women were not matriarchs, or Amazons, or drudges. They were Iroquois women, who lived in a nonhierarchical society in which their role as food producers was properly appreciated and in which the elevation of some aspects of kinship to political significance gave them influence that they might not otherwise have had.” [36] Another anarchist anthropologist, David Graeber, described the overlapping councils by gender:
“Longhouses were governed by councils made up entirely of women, who, since they controlled its food supplies, could evict any in-married male at will. Villages were governed by both male and female councils. Councils on the national and league level were made up of both male and female office-holders. It’s true that the higher one went in the structure, the less relative importance the female councils had—on the longhouse level, there wasn’t any male organization at all, while on the league level, the female council merely had veto power over male decisions—but it’s also true that decisions on the lower level were of much more immediate relevance to daily life. In terms of everyday affairs, Iroquois society often seems to have been about as close as there is to a documented case of a matriarchy.” [37]Another indication of differences between the Rotinonshón:ni and European settler society comes from that same Sullivan expedition in 1779 that destroyed so many Rotinonshón:ni towns. While preparing to attack and destroy the towns, General James Clinton even remarked that the Rotinonshón:ni men never raped women, and that some measures needed to be taken to prevent American soldiers from raping. [38] Among the Rotinonshón:ni, violence against women, including spousal abuse, was harshly punished by a woman’s kin. [39] A man who abused a woman could not be selected as a roiá:ner. [40] Divorce was easy and common, so much so that Jesuit missionary Father Jacques Bruyas, while regarding divorce as the greatest sin among the Rotinonshón:ni, explained that “There is as great ease in breaking marriages as in making them — the husband leaving his wife, and the wife her husband, at pleasure.” [41] Since the husbands lived with their wives’ kahwá:tsire (matrilineal clan), in divorce former husbands had to leave the home. While the majority of the property as it was held in common through the matrilineal clan, personal possessions were always kept distinct between a husband and wife. [42] Children remained with the mother after divorce, [43] a contrast to the paternal ownership of children which was the standard in the continent’s European settler society until it was replaced by maternal preference in custody in the 1920s. Kanatiiosh (Barbara Gray) has argued that “western law emerges with a structure based on hierarchy, which I believe is attributed, to their treatment of women as secondary citizens. Whereas, Haudenosaunee law emerges with a democratic structure based on equality and goodwill for all.” [44] Family planning was essential to women, who had the responsibility for farming, and often chose to limit the number of children for whom they were responsible at any one time. There were many abortifacients and fertility medicines known to Rotinonshón:ni herbalists. [45] Christian missionaries, and later in the early 19th century the Shotinontowane’á:ka prophet Ganioda’yo, who codified Karihwí:io or Gaiwiio (“the good message”), preached against divorce and abortion, while emphasizing the relationship of husband and wife over that of mother and daughter. [46] Wallace, a psychological anthropologist and historian, regarded the reforms of the Karihwí:io as “the sentence of doom upon the traditional quasi-matriarchal system.” [47] Kahentinetha Horn, the editor of Mohawk Nation News, has asserted that the polity’s “structure has been modified to accommodate the Gai’wiio. For example, instead of the Clan Mothers appointing the Chiefs according to the Old Way, in the Gai’wiio the Chiefs select the Clan Mothers.” [48] Over time, individual households of nuclear families replaced the traditional longhouses as residences. The situation had so changed by 1850, when Lewis Henry Morgan published his classical ethnographical study The League of the Ho-de’-no-sau-nee, or Iroquois, he observed that women, and only women, were punished for adultery by public whipping. [49] In 1924, an elected band council, rather than the traditional polity, governed Ohswé:ken; women were initially deprived of suffrage. [50] At Onondaga, Tonawanda and Tuscarora, the iakoiá:ner never lost their rights to select roiá:ner. [51] [[s-a-stephen-arthur-where-license-reigns-with-all-i-3.png f]]
“We cannot hold on to a concept of the warrior that is gendered in the way it once was and that is located in an obsolete view of men’s and women’s roles. The battles we are fighting are no longer primarily physical; thus, any idea of the indigenous warrior framed solely in masculine terms is outdated and must be rethought and recast from the solely masculine view of the old traditional ways to a new concept of the warrior that is freed from colonial gender constructions and articulated instead with reference to what really counts in our struggles: the qualities and actions of a person, man or woman, in battle.” [56]** The Beaver Wars, which were Not Only about the Fur Trade
“I take thee by the arm to lead thee away. Thou knowest, thou huron, that formerly we comprised but one Cabin and one country. I know not by what accident we became separated. It is time to unite again. I have twice before come to seek thee,—Once at Montreal, speaking to the French In thy absence; the 2nd time, at Quebec. It is for the third time that I now come.” 1656 [57]Bookchin rarely examines the Rotinonshón:ni polity, and the few times he addresses it in print, he is dismissive. In the course of his dismissals he often repeats the common academic myth that the conflicts of the 17th century, misnamed “the Beaver Wars,” were fought over economic control of the fur trade. While it is true that the primary European interest in the conflict was to secure access to large quantities of low-cost beaver fur (in exchange for goods produced solely for indigenous consumption), there were other, potentially more important, reasons for the Rotinonshón:ni involvement in those conflicts.
“Warfare was endemic among our prehistoric ancestors and in later native communities, notwithstanding the high, almost cultic status enjoyed by ostensibly peaceful “ecological aborigines” among white middle-class Euro-Americans today. When foraging groups overhunted the game in their accustomed territory, as often happened, they were usually more than willing to invade the area of a neighboring group and claim its resources for their own. Commonly, after the rise of warrior sodalities, warfare acquired cultural as well as economic attributes, so victors no longer merely defeated their real or chosen “enemies” but virtually exterminated them, as witness the near-genocidal destruction of the Huron Indians by their linguistically and culturally related Iroquois cousins.” Bookchin [58]As pointed out earlier, the Rotinonshón:ni were not primarily a foraging society. The majority of their food came from horticulture, so they faced no need to relocate into territory held by others due to overhunting. In the early years of European colonization, disease greatly reduced indigenous populations before the settlers arrived in large numbers. During the Beaver Wars, there was actually much more available land per capita, due to this population reduction, than there had been before the arrival of the Europeans. While warfare did take on cultural and economic attributes, understanding the Beaver Wars only in terms of the fur trade and the role of warfare in culture is far too simplistic. Bookchin is right about the linguistic and cultural similarities between the Wendat and Rotinonshón:ni, and that itself is the key to understanding the determination with which the Rotinonshón:ni prosecuted their wars with the Wendat, Kakwa:ko, Erielhonan (Erie), Tionontati (Petun), Wenrohronon (Wenro), and Susquehannock nations. Bookchin mentions the rise of “cultural attributes” of warfare. One such attribute practiced by the northern Iroquois-speaking peoples, not only the Rotinonshón:ni, was the mourning war. When people died in the Iroquois communities, the grieving relatives expected the dead to be symbolically replaced as soon as possible. Quite unlike the European settlers’ notion total war, a mourning war was ultimately ritualistic, and was not aimed at the eradication of an enemy or seizure of their territory. Rather, the goal was to take captives, who would replace the dead. Losses among warriors involved in the mourning wars could also be called on to be replaced. Large-scale casualties were rare, and when they did occur, they were considered great tragedies. Since disease was regarded as a hostile attack by unknown agents, those who died from sickness had to be replaced by mourning war. This process of replacing the dead by assigning their names and responsibilities to others is referred to as requickening. Mourning war had at one time often involved cannibalism and torture, but these practices had completely died out of Rotinonshón:ni society by the 18th century. Central to the Rotinonshón:ni polity was the ceremony of condolence. Tekanawí:ta gave this ceremony to Aiewáhtha, to help with his grief so that peace would be possible between them and Thatotáhrho. Condolence would allow for blood feuds to end, and for people within a nation to be requickened, with the use of wampum, into new titles to replace the dead. Condolence has been seen as a replacement for the mourning wars. Some critics argue the Rotinonshón:ni polity simply caused the nations of the confederation to redirect their blood fueds outward. [[s-a-stephen-arthur-where-license-reigns-with-all-i-4.png f]]
“Between 1631–1663, the Iroquois attacked the Hurons at least 73 times. More than 500 Huron people are recorded as having been killed during these raids, with an astonishing 2,000—one-fifth of their post epidemic population—captured and deported to Iroquoia. These numbers are likely low-end estimates…. [T]he number of captives taken by the Iroquois during the Beaver Wars was on average two to three times greater than the number of enemies they killed. Both scenarios illustrate that the acquisition of enemy captives to replace Iroquois population losses was the primary factor in the Beaver Wars, which were not a series of conflicts designed to impose Iroquois control over the fur trade, but rather an Iroquois fight for survival, one vast, prolonged mourning war.” [74]The descendents of captured Wendat adoptees were fully integrated into Rotinonshón:ni society and treated as equals. One notable example is Joseph Brant, Thaientané:ken, who was descended from Wendat captives adopted by the Kanien’kehá:ka both on his father and mother’s side. [75] Thaientané:ken went on to become a Ohnkaneto:ten, and led war parties against the United States during the Revolutionary War. His efforts helped establish the community at Ohswé:ken, the Six Nations reserve along the Grand River. The town of Brantford is named for him, as is the Tyendinaga Mohawk Community at the Bay of Quinte. It should be noted again that various versions of the Kaianere’kó:wa hold that Tekanawí:ta originated from the Wendat nation, that the iakoiá:ner Tsikónhsase came from the Kakwa:ko nation, and even that Aiewáhtha was from the Ononta’kehaka nation, was adopted by the Kanien’kehá:ka, and became a roiá:ner there. From the perspective of many Iroquois speakers, they were the same people; membership among the warring nations could be quite fluid. Warfare with the Susquehannock continued. Over time, more of them were adopted into the Rotinonshón:ni, often into the Oneniote’á:ka nation. The last Susquehannocks were not adopted, but were massacred by English settlers from Maryland. “By spring of 1669, a permanent village of Indian Christians had grown up around Raffeix’s Saint Francois Xavier des Pres mission. The first settlers were a diverse group of ‘free Iroquois’ and Erie, Huron and Susquehannock adoptees of the Oneidas.” [76] They were later joined by many Kanien’kehá:ka, and eventually this community moved to Kahnawà:ke. [[s-a-stephen-arthur-where-license-reigns-with-all-i-5.jpg f]]
“No soldiers, no gendarmes or police, no nobles, kings, regents, prefects, or judges, no prisons, no lawsuits — and everything takes its orderly course. All quarrels and disputes are settled by the whole of the community affected, by the gens or the tribe, or by the gentes among themselves; only as an extreme and exceptional measure is blood revenge threatened-and our capital punishment is nothing but blood revenge in a civilized form, with all the advantages and drawbacks of civilization. Although there were many more matters to be settled in common than today — the household is maintained by a number of families in common, and is communistic, the land belongs to the tribe, only the small gardens are allotted provisionally to the households — yet there is no need for even a trace of our complicated administrative apparatus with all its ramifications. The decisions are taken by those concerned, and in most cases everything has been already settled by the custom of centuries. There cannot be any poor or needy — the communal household and the gens know their responsibilities towards the old, the sick, and those disabled in war. All are equal and free — the women included. There is no place yet for slaves, nor, as a rule, for the subjugation of other tribes.” [86]While Engels is right to commend the communal economy, sexual equality, and horizontal political structure of the Rotinonshón:ni, he erred in claiming that there were no ranks of social prestige with political responsibilities. The anthropological definition of “egalitarian” is narrow. There are some “rank societies in which positions of valued status are somehow limited so that not all those of sufficient talent to occupy such statuses actually achieve them. Such a society may or may not be stratified. That is, a society may sharply limit its positions of prestige without affecting the access of its entire membership to the basic resources upon which life depends” [87] While the numbers of roiá:ner and iakoiá:ner were limited by the Kaianere’kó:wa to certain kahwá:tsire, positions of ohnkanetoten were open to all men on the basis of merit and selection by the roiá:ner council. As has already been explained, Rotinonshón:ni society had a communal work and consumption ethic (the communal economy of the “one bowl”), so although ranks of prestige did exist, they did not serve in a position of accumulating or redistributing wealth. Graeber, who as an anarchist is quite suspicious of all hierarchy, says of the traditional Rotinonshón:ni, “for all the complex federative structure, society was in most respects highly egalitarian. Office-holders, male and female, were elected from among a pool of possible heirs; the offices themselves, at least the male political ones, were considered as much a responsibility as a reward as they involved no real material rewards and certainly granted the holder no coercive power.” [88] While it is often argued that the roiá:ner were traditionally selected from certain matrilineal lines, and that not all kahwá:tsire were able to select candidates, this varied over time and location. Teiowí:sonte describes modern debates around heredity: “To some, heredity is the very essence of Haudenosaunee governance and an integral factor in leadership selection... To others, this concept represents the infiltration of European corruption into Haundenosaunee leadership selection and the fortification of a class system invading our traditional concept of democracy with notions of royalty. Likewise, advocates against the heredity concept believe it to be a non-traditional convention that is a fairly recent development resulting from colonization.” [89] Snow claims that “Each nation devised its own internal mechanism for selecting and organizing its League Chiefs”[90]; and that ohnkanetoten were created to specifically deal with the issue of empowering men who did not come from the distinct matrilineal lines eligible for becoming roiá:ner. [91] He argues further that at times, the ranks may have represented a political class distinct from the common Rotinonshón:ni, and a class of slaves made up of captives who had not been adopted [92]—a situation which would have been most pronounced during the Beaver Wars. Graeber notes this as well. “It was around this period one reads accounts of a society effectively divided into classes, with adopted prisoners doing the bulk of the menial labor and with members of their adopted families having the right to kill them for the slightest infranctions or impertinence... [T]his exceptionally brutal period did not last long: the children of these captives were considered full members of their adoptive clans.” [93] As we have seen from the life of Thaientané:ken, the descendents of adoptees had the same political rights of common Rotinonshón:ni and could be selected as ohnkanetoten. It is seemingly without contradiction that Snow also describes how little authority came with rank: “Although men appointed by each ohwachira probably met as a village council, they had little authority beyond the force of their personalities. This in turn meant that face-to-face persuasion was the rule.” [94] Kanatiiosh emphasizes that “being a chief or a clan mother is just as important as being a person without a title, for all people are held responsible for preserving and protecting the Great Law of Peace.” [95] [[s-a-stephen-arthur-where-license-reigns-with-all-i-6.png f]]
“[N]o one can impose their will nor make decisions for another, all must understand the viewpoint and agree of their own free will. The goal is not total agreement, but total understanding. If there is no agreement, then the consensus is to retain the status quo. If there is understanding by all then they go ahead with the decision... In entering the consensual decision-making process, whatever ideas are put into the process, the needs and attitudes of each is considered and complements the decision. Also, the individual has a duty to be directly involved, and to bring their ideas into the discussion within their clan. The final decision will be fully satisfactory to some, satisfactory to others and relatively satisfactory to the remainder, and will reflect elements from every group. This is a slow careful process requiring the reaching of a full understanding by each individual and not a decision made by a ‘leader.’ The person who explains the decision is a spokesman.” [102]The Kaianere’kó:wa lacks the monopoly of force and the authority of coercive control that define statist polities. It is a mutual agreement of non-aggression among its participants, aimed primarily on maintaining peaceful relations among them, rather than a guiding document for the rule of elites over the rest of society. Richter has stated that “the coercive exercise of authority was virtually unknown” among the Rotinonshón:ni,[103] and that their “political values were essentially noncompetitive.” [104] Graeber believes that “the entire political apparatus was seen by its creators primarily as a way of resolving murderous disputes. The League was less a government, or even alliance, than a series of treaties establishing amity and providing the institutional means for preventing feuds and maintaining harmony among the five nations that made it up. For all their reputation as predatory warriors, the Iroquois themselves saw the essence of political action to lie in making peace.” [105] Justice among the traditional Rotinonshón:ni was the responsibility of everyone, particularly one’s matrilineal kin. The focus was on condoling kahwá:tsire for their loss and on regulating social behavior through popular opinion, rather than through justice administered by a specialized class. While some see the offering of wampum to the family of a murder victim to as a reparational payment, comparable to the Northern European weregild, Morgan claimed that “the present of white wampum was not in the nature of a compensation of the life of the deceased, but of a regretful confession of the crime, with a petition for forgiveness. It was a peace-offering, the acceptance of which was pressed by mutual friends, and under such influences that the reconciliation was usually effect, except, perhaps, in aggravated cases of premeditated murder.” [106] Wallace’s interpretation echoes Engel’s analysis of Rotinonshón:ni justice: “Behavior was governed not by published laws enforced by police, courts, and jails, but by oral tradition supported by a sense of duty, a fear of gossip, and a dread of retaliatory witchcraft. Theft, vandalism, armed robbery, were almost unknown. Public opinion, gently exercised, was sufficient to deter most persons from property crimes, for public opinion went straight to the heart of the matter: the weakness of the criminal.” [107] And Kanatiiosh argues that European settler “hierarchy breeds competition, and competition breeds anger, resentment, hatred, and can lead to revenge, which only continues the vicious cycle of violence. Western society is dependent on imprisonment, fines and other punishments, which are supposed to keep social order.” She contrasts that system of coercive punishment with the legal principles of the Kaianere’kó:wa, which created a “shared community where people have mutual respect for the entire group rather then interested only in one’s self. Perhaps a little spirituality, shame, guilt, and respect of self and community would be the best elements to include in a recipe for a true system of justice.” [108] Richter repeatedly describes the traditional polity of the Rotinonshón:ni as a “nonstate society” [109] and “a system dependent upon voluntary compliance”. [110] His insistence on the difference between the Rotinonshón:ni and the colonial states it was contemporary with is worth emphasizing:
“Making and preserving peace, then was the purpose of the League, and accordingly the Grand Council apparently did not undertake the kinds of political functions of decision making and diplomacy characteristic of state-organized governments. In the early seventeenth century, the League possessed few state like characteristics: the Five nations had little in the way of common foreign policy, no effective means of devising unified strategies, and no central government in the sense that term is usually understood by Americans. Indeed, on various issues the ten or so autonomous towns of Iroquoia were often at odds with one another as they were in consensus. The League was not designed to remedy the deficit—nor, apparently, did the Iroquois people even perceive that there was any kind of deficit...” Daniel Richter, Ordeal of the Longhouse [111]While the exact definition of a “state” is elusive, none can deny that states wield a legal monopoly of violence, and that the state therefore takes a coercive role in regards to its citizens. In respect to the degree of a given polity’s coercive control over its constituent members, we can imagine a spectrum with the totalitarian state on one end and a stateless society, an anarchy, on the other. Societies that are more ranked and stratified are more statist. Along this spectrum, the Rotinonshón:ni polity falls toward the pole of statelessness, having extremely limited ranking, and lacking in both coercive authority and economic stratification. The anarchist historian George Woodcock believed that the Rotinonshón:ni’s polity amounted to a stateless confederation: “a common council of sachems, in whose selection the women, whose influence derived from their control of agriculture, played a great role; but this council did not interfere in the internal affairs of the tribes, so that it remained the coordinating body of a true confederation rather than the government of the state.” [112] Colonial historian Francis Jennings recognizes that it was “a league of friendship and mutual assistance, but ... a league of consultation and contract rather than a government of legislative command”. [113] Member nations “never gave up their power of individual decision. Often they struggled for dominance within the league, and sometimes (though rarely) they came to blows with each other. These phenomena were also to be observed among colonial towns and villages, but whereas the Iroquois tribes maintained local independence throughout their existence, the colonies gradually came under more and more effective central controls.” [114] All Rotinonshón:ni nations are equal, regardless of their number of clans, size of territory or numbers of population. [115] Bookchin, who so often suggested New England town-meeting democracy as a basic building block of libertarian municipalist confederation, would have done well to have taken the advice of Mitchel Cohen, and examine the Rotinonshón:ni polity as an example of the very sort of ideal of that he was advocating:
“Town meetings, according to Bookchin, are the American equivalent of the Greek polis — and why does he not seek to emulate the Iroquois tribal council instead or any of a hundred non-European forms? Linked together, local communities form the potential, according to Bookchin, for a “federated municipalism.” All other forms, particularly those created by native peoples, are seen as inferior. American Indian communities are diminished, in Bookchin’s framework, because of their lack of rational municipal debate. The framework of the colonizer informs Bookchin’s ideas despite himself, disempowering radical ecology movements and undermining their potential.”[116]** Anarcho-Indigenism While Bookchin might have not recognized similarities between his own anti-authoritarian politics and the traditional Rotinonshón:ni polity, some Rotinonshón:ni have also brushed off such comparisons. In an essay attempting to dissuade Rotinonshón:ni from participating as allies in the protests against the Free Trade Area of Americas (FTAA) meetings held in April 2001 in Québec City, Teiowí:sonte argued that the “platform and aspirations among some of these groups, particularly the Anarchists, are to eliminate any structured authority. Anarchism is a Greek word meaning without government. Their beliefs are contradictory to that of the Kaianere’kó:wa and actually threaten the existence of Haudenosaunee governments if these groups ever attain their ultimate goal.” [117] At least one of Teiowí:sonte’s comrades in the Wasáse Movement, Taiaiake, might disagree with Teiowí:sonte’s interpretation of anarchism. Others, like Ward Churchill, have seen commonalities between Indigenism and Anarchism. [118] Taiaiake, coming from a traditionalist Kanien’kehá:ka perspective but also an academic career in political science, history and indigenous governance, argues explicitly for an “anarcho-indigenism.”[119] Far from seeing anarchism as a hindrance to the reestablishment of the Kaianere’kó:wa as the polity of modern Rotinonshón:ni, Taiaiake sees anarchism as the kind of political philosophy, “fundamentally anti-institutional, radically democratic, and committed to taking action for change,”[120] that is needed to combine with the indigenous vision of a good society. Not only do the commonalities exist in terms of philosophy, but they are increasingly being seen on the levels of strategy and praxis:
“There are philosophical connections between indigenous and some strains of anarchist thought on the spirit of freedom and the ideals of a good society. Parallel critical ideas and visions of post-imperial futures have been noted by a few thinkers, but something that may be called anarcho-indigenism has yet to develop into a coherent philosophy. There are also important strategic commonalities between indigenous and anarchist ways of seeing and being in the world... a rejection of alliances with legalized systems of oppression, non-participation in the institutions that structure the colonial relationship, and a belief in bringing about change through direct action, physical resistance, and confrontations with state power. It is on this last point that connections have already been made between Onkwehonwe groups and non-indigenous activist groups in the anti-globalization movement.” [121]In defining universal indigenous principles, Taiaiake’s position is not only anti-statist but also explicitly anti-hierarchical: “Traditional indigenous nationhood stands in sharp contrast to the dominant understanding of ‘the state’: there is no absolute authority, no coercive enforcement of decisions, no hierarchy, and no separate ruling entity.” [122] He goes so far as to call continued cooperation with the state as “morally unacceptable.” [123] Perhaps anarchism and the struggle of other social movements have had effects upon indigenism as well. While Taiaiake is a passionate proponent of a return to traditional polity, he acknowledges that “it’s not going to look the same as before. Our ideas about injustice might even possess and lead us to fight our own people and the injustice they are bringing on through the instrument of their form of government.” [124] The similarities between anarchism and indigenism are being increasingly noticed, as anarchists find themselves in solidarity with indigenous struggles from Oaxaca to Ohswé:ken. Some have gone so far as to argue that indigenism is the ancestor of anarchism[126]—a claim that seems all that more plausible when anarchists study the traditional polity of the Rotinonshón:ni. Teiowí:sonte has called the traditional polity of the Rotinonshón:ni the “original socialist paradise,” partly because of its influence on Marx’s socialism.[127] Feminists in the U.S. have acknowledged the influence of Rotinonshón:ni on their vision of equality. The traditional polity of the Rotinonshón:ni has demonstrated that cultural evolution is not unilinear. There is an alterative to a stratified, hierarchical, patriarchical society and an exploitive economy—but we must build it now, and not wait idly for some far-off future when material culture has completed its development. There is an alternative to kleptocracy. It is possible today! [[s-a-stephen-arthur-where-license-reigns-with-all-i-7.jpg f]]
“You say that you are our Father and I am your son. We say, We will not be like Father and Son, but like Brothers. This wampum belt confirms our words. These two rows will symbolize two paths or two vessels, traveling down the same river together. One, a birch bark canoe, will be for the onkwehón:we, their laws, their customs and their ways. The other, a ship, will be for the white people and their laws, their customs and their ways. We shall each travel the river together, side by side, but in our boat. Neither of us will make compulsory laws or interfere in the internal affairs of the other. Neither of us will try to steer the other’s vessel.” “As long as the Sun shines upon this Earth, that is how long OUR Agreement will stand; Second, as long as the Water still flows; and Third, as long as the Grass Grows Green at a certain time of the year. Now we have Symbolized this Agreement and it shall be binding forever as long as Mother Earth is still in motion.” Rotinonshón:ni-Dutch treaty, 1613---- ** Harold Barclay I am very pleased to have received some substantial comments from Harold Barclay: professor emeritus in anthropology at the University of Alberta and author of *The State*, *Buurri al Lamaab: A Suburban Village in the Sudan*, *Culture: The Human Way*, *The Role of the Horse in Man’s Culture*, *People without Government: An Anthropology of Anarchy*, *Culture and Anarchism,* and *Longing for Arcadia: Memoirs of an Anarcho-Cynicalist Anthropologist*.
Thanks for sending me your essay on the Iroquois, It appears to be a very good piece of research, although I am not an Iroquois specialist. I have the following comments: First, one has to be extremely careful in using myths and oral traditions as data. Too often they are polished up to fit a contemporary view of propriety or someones idea of correctness. Second, and more important I suspect that you have greatly overestimated the density of population. The density you report as 200 per acre refers only to the inhabitants of the towns and does not encompass the surrounding garden area or hunting grounds. Iroquois depended entirely on wild game for meat and this would require a large area around any town. for hunting (Hunter gatherers — non gardeners- usually require 5–10 square miles per person. It would be more dense for horticulturalists but not enormously more). Then if they had, as reported, a million bushels of corn in reserves this would require 5000 acres in addition to all the other corn grown as well as squash and beans. I suspect that this ultimately means clearly less than 50 per square mile- a figure which could still make Iroquois a more densely populated area than others although one should not forget fishing specialists such as the New England Coast or the West Coast of Canada and the Alaskan Panhandle, nor the horticultural and cattle herding stateless societies in Africa. Third, I have found little mention of the role of Mothers brother in the Iroquois literature. In Matrilineal societies with which I am most familiar the Mother’s Brother has a considerable amount of authority and.power. Indeed in several African Matrilineal (and avunculocal) societies he is the boss. Malinowski, of course, used the MB in matrilineal Trobriand society as an argument against Freud and his claims for an Oedipus Complex. Fourth, on Indians and anarchism: Clearly a sort of state structure with elected chiefs and councils has been imposed upon most Indian groups and they appear to now accept this as only proper. I suppose they may be embarrased if you point out that they once had an anarchistic arrangement. Dene of the Canadian NWT have as I understand it at least achieved in some ways a consensual arrangement in their political system. Fifth, Iroquois may be viewed as stateless by some and as a proto-state by others ( perhaps the latter are thinking in terms of unilineal evolution from savagery to state). In any case it is difficult to find a more densely populated(urbanized) group who are not state ridden. In my book, *The State*, I suggested that state development would be more unlikely in a complex society in which property, hierarchy, and an ideology supportive of these were not stressed.(p.92). A recent book, *Ancient Middle Niger: Urbanism and the Self-Organizing Landscape* by Roderick J. McIntosh, suggests statelessness in an urban setting. I however have found the book difficult to read.*** My response to Harold Barclay The oral traditions on the foundation of the league are inconsistent in a number of ways and vary from nation to nation, speaker to speaker—as might be expected. I think this is a point that Bonaparte makes very well with his “Living History”. Bonaparte even acknowledges that the study of Iroquois culture by anthropologists/ethnographers has likely had an effect on the oral tradition. He has a very funny quip about every modern traditionalist having a dog-eared copy of Arthur Parker’s work. To me, what was not so fascinating was not so much whether Tekanawí:ta was of a virgin birth, came across the lake on a stone canoe, or that he combed the serpents from the sorcerer Thatotáhrho’s hair. Rather it was the political metaphors that are shared across the confederation. This seems to be consistent and also corresponds with the historical record. While it would be nice to have several historical records about the formation of the Rotinonshón:ni, we can only go on oral tradition, historical transcription of earlier oral tradition, archeology and some linguistics to get an idea. Among the many controversies about the formation of the Rotinonshón:ni is when it happened. That’s a debate I didn’t address in my article, for this article it was more important that it did happen and before large degree (if any) of European contact. Also, I think it is also interesting in terms of the modern Rotinonshón:ni, to look at what narrative they use today, and what meaning that has; regardless of the actual events some 400–1000 years ago. I agree with your comments on population density. The population density estimate I used was Daniel Richter’s from *Ordeal of the Longhouse*. If I had space in the article, I would have liked to have liked to have gone into more detail about their economy, and how extensive their use of the land was. I would have preferred to have listed population estimates from pre-contact; but that is quite difficult do the their periodic village relocations, their reliance on wooden architecture, and that population estimates during the colonial period are based on the estimated number of warriors and that is after those communities were devastated by diseases of European orgin and warfare. There are high counters and low counters in terms of population. The number of people living in a particular Iroquois town, however, was a more solid estimate. I also would have preferred to have had estimates on the quantity of agricultural production before the small pox and the Beaver Wars, but I haven’t seen anything as solid as the historical estimates made during the Sullivan campaign almost two hundreds years after contact. You make an excellent point about mother’s brothers and something I would like to explore further. The roiá:ner (sachem) were selected by the iakoiá:ner (clan mothers) from their matrilineal line (their brothers, uncles and sons). The exact role of husbands seems very murky to me except that society was matrilocal. Among the other requirements for Roiá:ner was that they were to have been fathers. So how would this work? A wolf clan brother who would then marry into the bear clan, have children with his bear clan wife, but then could later be chosen as a wolf clan roiá:ner while still living in the bear clan long house? Given the different modes of food production and the segregation of duties by gender, it seems that men would often spend many months away from the towns in villages—engaged in fishing, hunting, trapping, trade, diplomacy and warfare. Among the customs of cohabitation were husbands and wives sleeping on opposite sides of the fire from each other, and sleeping feet to feet rather than side by side. If you are interested in some of the psychology around the Iroquois traditional culture... I found Anthony F.C. Wallace’s *The Death and Rebirth of the Seneca* to be very informative. The matrilocal residency was probably disrupted by disease, war and mass adoptions. With as many as 2/3rds of the community being adoptees in many cases. This would have been an aberration in the traditional culture. The european born diseases and changes in warfare would have been an unprecedented calamity to Iroquois society. I think it is very notable about how well that culture was able to survive with even a remnant of their traditional polity, to have blocked French expansion and held their own in the face of English colonization for so long. Also, the matrilocal situation was disrupted first by conversion to Christianity, and later Handsome Lake’s religious teachings that emphasized patrilocal living and the husband-wife bond over the matrilineal clan. There was also a change in living arrangements from the colonial period from long houses to single family cabins. On your point concerning anarchism and contemporary state structures of elected chiefs and councils among indigenous communities; I’m sure it might cause some embarrassment to some statists. While I cautiously avoided addressing the contemporary political situation among the Iroquois, this tension between statists and anti-statists (and positions in between) is very much part of the political discourse, though the terms they use are sometimes different. Something for them to figure out. As someone with anarchist (or at least libertarian socialist) sensibilities... I find the traditional polity of the Iroquois fascinating and... close enough—it’s as good an example of a way of living as any others that anarchists point to. Though one could argue that the break down in their consensual politics lead to a lack of unity and their division and fragmentation due to the U.S., British and Canadian governments. I was actually fairly careful in having contemporary Iroquois like Taiaiake Alfred make that connection between the traditional polity and anarchism; as well as having folks like Teiowí:sonte Thomas Deer explicitly reject it. However, I suspect that Teiowí:sonte is far more sympathetic to an anti-authoritarian socialism than that quotation reveals. I imagine someone like Ray Halbritter, the National Representative of the Onedia Nation and Chief Executive Officer of Oneida Nation Enterprises, will just flat out reject such an idea. If my article generates any discussion among Iroquois about such things, I’ll regard that as a welcome but unintended consequence. I saw my article as an anarchists examination of the traditional Iroquois polity, not a polemic for neo-traditionalist Iroquois to adopt anarchism as an ideology. I actually haven’t read your book *The State* yet. Only *People without Government* and *Culture and Anarchism*. I see it was just published in 2003, so that’s definitely going on my list. Right now, I’m wading through Pierre Clastres’ *Society Against the State*, but I find the language a bit difficult and I also lack the academic background in anthropology and philosophy. I think I’ll try your book before I tackle McIntosh. ** Reviews
“I think your paper is an excellent intro and overview on these issues. Very well researched and presented in an accessible and very smart way. I hope you pursue this line.”**Taiaiake Gerald Alfred, Ph.D** : Kanien’kehá:ka author from Kahnawà:ke, adjunct professor of Political Science, Director of Indigenous Governance Programs and the Indigenous Peoples Research Chair at the University of Victoria, member of Wasáse Movement, author of *Wasáse: Indigenous Pathways of Action and Freedom*, *Peace, Power, Righteousness: An Indigenous Manifesto*, and *Heeding the Voices of Our Ancestors: Kahnawake Mohawk Politics and the Rise of Native Nationalism*. ----
“I found your article to be interesting, partly because it adopts a thesis as a political position and then assembles evidence to support that thesis. This is not the way in which a scholar with my kind of training usually work. Because we don’t share a common mode of argumentation I don’t think that I can offer much in the way of constructive criticism. I was interested to see that you cited Harold Barclay. I think that this was the same Harold Barclay who joined the anthropology faculty at the University of Oregon the last year I was a grad student there back in the 1960s. I recommend that you also look at Joseph Brandao’s book Your Fyre Shall Burn No More. Joe does a good job of shooting down Hunt’s ideas that the wars of the 17th century were all about the economics of the beaver fur trade. You might find some use for that source.”**Dean R. Snow, Ph.D** : Professor of Archaeological Anthropology, President-Elect of the Society for American Archaeology, Secretary of the Society for American Archaeology 2003–05 and Secretary of Section H (Anthropology) of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 2000–06, author of *The Iroquois*, *Mohawk Valley Archaeology: The Collections*, *Mohawk Valley Archaeology: The Sites* and *In the County of the Mohawks: Early Narratives about a Native People*. ----
“That’s really interesting. Lot of stuff in there I didn’t even know. Very nicely put together.”**David Graeber, Ph.D** : Associate Professor of Anthropology at Yale University, author of *Towards an Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of Our Own Dreams* and *Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology*. ----
“This is a pretty good paper. I enjoyed reading it. Just one thing. Where did you want to go with it? Part of it is a rebuttal to another authors point of view. I think you need to sum up your point a little better near the end. It is like you got diverted a bit from your argument with all the information you presented. It is well written but needs to be pulled together; nonetheless, an informative article.”**Natoway Brian Rice, Ph.D** : Kanien’kehá:ka author, assistant professor of aboriginal Education at the University of Winnipeg, author of *The Great Epic* and *Seeing the World with Aboriginal Eyes*. ----
“Your piece was a joy to read — full of good information, and thank you for using the Native languages for names. You write very nicely!”**Bruce E. Johansen, Ph.D** : Frederick W. Kayser Professor, Communication and Native American Studies,University of Nebraska at Omaha, author of *Forgotten Founders, Benjamin Franklin, the Iroquois and the Rationale for the American Revolution*, *Exemplar of Liberty: Native America and the Evolution of Democracy*, and *Debating Democracy: the Iroquois Legacy of Freedom*. ----
“Good work! I’m impressed!”**Sakoiatentha Darren Bonaparte** : Kanien’kehá:ka author from Ahkwesáhsne, Editor of *Wampumchronicles.com*, author of *Creation and Confederation: The Living History of the Iroquois*, former elected chief of the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne, member of Wasáse Movement. ----
“I have read your piece and it looks quite good. You have certainly done a great deal of solid “homework”! Your interest and commitment are commendable and you write well. Your work here could be a pamphlet!**Hunter Gray (Hunterbear) John R Salter, Jr.** : Ahkwesáhsne Kanien’kehá:ka, Mi’kmaq, St. Francis Abenaki, labor organizer and civil rights activist, former departmental chair of Indian Studies at University of North Dakota, member of Solidarity, Socialist Party USA, Democratic Socialists of America, Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism and the United Auto Workers Local 1981 (National Writers Union). ----
“I finally got to go through the article. Very good and thorough. I loved your article. It’s well articulated and an accurate overview of the sociopolitical structure of the Haudenosaunee. It did our people justice.”**Teiowí:sonte Thomas Deer** : Kanien’kehá:ka journalist and illustrator from Kahnawà:ke, editor of *Revolutionarycreations.com*, member of Wasáse Movement.