Concordia | Emergence of the Chief

  . The Monument
  . The Project
  . Pictures

. Unveiling
. Pictures

"THE MONUMENT"

The Emergence of the Chief is the first piece in a new geographical locale, the Eastern Woodland Series. The primary focus will be the nations comprising the Iroquois Confederation of the mid-1800’s, a unified group holding over 24 million acres of beautiful and resource wealthy lands.

The remarkable Confederation of the Iroquois was founded sometime before the arrival of the European Intruder. This is typically dated to 1451 but is believed to have actually occurred earlier in the historical timeline to 1142 A.D. Depending on how democracy is defined, the earlier date would rank the Iroquois League with the government of Iceland and the Swiss cantons as the oldest continuously functioning democracies on earth. All three precedents have been cited as having helped shape the intellectual development of the United States’ system of representative democracy.

The people of the Six Nations, also known by the French term, Iroquois Confederacy, refer to themselves as the “Haudenosaunee” meaning “People of the Long House”. Located in the northeastern region of North America, originally the Six Nations was five and included the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas and Senecas. The Tuscaroras, expelled by the English from North Carolina in the mid 1700’s, took refuge with the Iroquois and became the sixth nation in the League.

According to Iroquois tradition, there was once a time when all tribes in the region were locked in bloody battle and endless wars. Deganawidah, a holy man of Mohawk lineage said to have mystical powers, had a vision in which he saw the Five Nations drawn together, unified. A noble Mohawk named Aionwantha (or Hiawatha) was so moved by the words of Deganawidah that he began spreading the message himself, traveling from one tribe to another traversing the area that is today New York State.

Since the societies were matriarchal, the third person, a woman and first clan mother, Tsikonshase, insisted on gender balance in the formulation of the constitution. A council of the five nations was called. The laws of the confederacy, the customs that were to be maintained, were stated and agreed to. Hence, the birth of the Iroquois Great Law of Peace which has endured and ruled the political landscape for centuries. (While allowing each nation to act independently, the League also provided a mechanism for concerted action that could place thousands of warriors in the field, and later served the Indians in their dealings with the Europeans once they were on the scene.)

Elaborately beaded Wampum Belts were exchanged by the tribes and within clans to finalize treaties and solemnize agreements. The Great Law of Peace was finalized with such a mnemonic aid. All the tenets of the Great Law are contained in the pattern of the beads and they act as the guide during the oral recitation of the Great Law. The white beads were made from the inner spine of the Atlantic whelk shell and the deep purple beads were cut from the quahog (clam) shell. First Americans gave these to one another, and to the white people, so frequently that the action was mistaken for currency exchange. There are many historical Wampum belts in major museums world-wide.

In The Emergence of the Chief it is the Two Row Wampum Belt being given to the newly elected chief. The two dark rows of the belt represent the canoe and the sailing ship, a metaphor for the relationship between the Dutch settlers and the First Nation peoples. The belt tells the story of how the two peoples sail the same waters and exist in harmony; they never interfere with one another and always treat each other with respect.

Under Haudenosaunee law, clan mothers choose male candidates as chiefs. The women also maintain ownership of the land and homes, and exercise a veto power over any council action that may result in war, as well as the power to impeach/remove a chief from office for due cause. It also rests with the women to continue the oral traditions and instruct the children. After many conversations about their inner structure, and based on these insights into the Mohawk Nation, Dave McGary changed his original design to depict an actual ceremony.

The ceremony echoes the Mohawk “Creation Story” which begins with the first woman falling from the skyworld and landing on a turtle’s back. “Skywoman” grabbed at the roots from the tree of the heavens as she fell, and with these she created earth. Given soil from under the water by one of the water dwellers (beaver, muskrat, otter, etc.), she planted the roots on the back of the turtle and sang the planting songs as she walked around the shell. Each time she walked around it, the shell and its plantings grew until it became the land we know today, North America or Turtle Island. The six sided base on this bronze is a stylized representation of the turtle shell.

Echoing the Skywoman’s circling movements, the clan mother strides around the chief in The Emergence of the Chief and is instructing him in his lifelong duties and responsibilities. The chief is an appointed official who speaks as a representative of the nation and is said to hold the responsibility of the position, not the power over the confederacy. When selecting a new chief, the clan mothers look for a man who is of the Good Mind and is married and has children so he will care for his people and his country like he does his own children.

This Mohawk chief, from the Turtle clan, wears the feathered and deer antlered “gus-to-weh” headdress designating him as the head chief of Mohawk Nation. He is seated holding a pictograph carved, wooden “Condolence Cane” also known as the “Stick of Enlistment”. A condolence cane is used as an aid to memory, or mnemonic device, in the ritual recollection of the names of the preceding chiefs and their grouping by Nation.

This will be an important chief as is shown through his silver arm bands, his white colonial period linen shirt (circa 1830-1850), the beaded cuffs and yoke signifying his turtle clan within the Mohawk Nation. The chief’s leggings, breechcloth, moccasins and tobacco pouch show the elaborate raised floral beading style of the Eastern Woodland tribes. His leggings are beaded with the delicate ‘pierce-work’ beading, which resembles a blanket stitch, symbolic of the men protecting their village.

Appropriate to her position as chief clan mother, her headpiece is beaded in the raised floral pattern, almost bas-relief style, of her nation. The red skirt is edged in the “Celestial Sky” motif, a scalloped inward-facing border of inverted domes signifying the twelve months of the year, as well as the trinities of Earth, Moon, Sun; Fire, Water, Air; Corn, Beans and Squash. The same pattern edges the chief’s blanket. Sacred tobacco appears as the five blossom flowering plant on the skirt. The smallest white seed beads, signifying purity, were used in the beading resulting in a lacelike appearance. The silver medallions on the tan tunic are typical trade items added after contact with the Europeans.

The name by which the constitution of organic law is known among the Haudenosaunee is “Kaianere:kowa” properly translated as “great peace”. The national hymn of the confederacy, sung whenever their “Condoling Council” meets, commences with the verse “We come to greet and thank the Peace” concluding with an outburst of praise in these words “This was the role of you – You that were joined in the work, you that confirmed the work, The Great Peace”.

The Emergence of the Chief pays homage to the Iroquois Confederacy in all its richness and complexity, inviting us to delve further into our own personal notions of what we were, what we are, and what we may become.