LEAGUE OF IROQUOIS HEWITT. 541 



The dominant motive for the establishment of the League of 

 the Five Iroquois Tribes was the impelling necessity to stop the. 

 shedding of human blood by violence through the making and rati- 

 fying of a universal peace by all the known tribes of men, to safe- 

 guard human life and health and welfare. Moreover, it was intended 

 to be a type or model of government for all tribes alien to the 

 Iroquois. To meet this pressing need for a durable universal peace 

 these reformers proposed and advocated a constitutional form of gov- 

 ernment as the most effective in the attainment of so desirable an end. 



The founders of the league, therefore, proposed and expounded 

 as the requisite basis of all good government three broad " double '' 

 doctrines or principles. The names of these principles in the native 

 tongues vary dialectically, but these three notable terms are expressed 

 in Onondaga as follows: (1) AV ' Sken'no n \ meaning, first, sanity 

 of mind and the health of the body ; and, second, peace between in- 

 dividuals and between organized bodies or groups of persons. (2) 

 Ne" GaiPhwiyo^ meaning, first, righteousness in conduct and its 

 advocacy in thought and in speech; and, second, equity or justice, 

 the adjustment of rights and obligations. (3) Ne" Ga , s i Iw)sde ai 'sd\ 

 meaning, first, physical strength or power, as military force or civil 

 authority ; and, second, the orenda or magic power of the people or 

 of their institutions and rituals, having mythic and religious impli- 

 cations. Six principles in all. The constructive results of the con- 

 trol and guidance of human thinking and conduct in the private, the 

 public, and the foreign relations of the peoples so leagued by these 

 six principles, the reformers maintained, are the establishment and 

 the conservation of what is reverently called Ne* ' Gayamen i sa'go'na l — 

 i. e., the Great Commonwealth, the great Law of Equity and Right- 

 eousness and Well-being, of all known men. It is thus seen that the 

 mental grasp and outlook of these prophet-statesmen and states- 

 women of the Iroquois looked out beyond the limits of tribal bound- 

 aries to a vast sisterhood and brotherhood of all the tribes of men, 

 dwelling in harmony and happiness. This indeed was a notable 

 vision for the Stone Age of America. 



Some of the practical measures that were put in force were the 

 checking of murder and bloodshed in the ferocious blood-feud by 

 the legal tender of the prescribed price of the life of a man or a 

 woman — the tender by the homicide and his clan for accidentally 

 killing such a person was 20 strings of wampum, 10 for the dead 

 man and 10 for the forfeited life of the homicide; but if the dead 

 person were a woman, the legal tender was 30 strings of wampum, 

 because the value of a woman's life to the community was regarded 

 as double that of a man. And cannibalism, or the eating of human 

 flesh, was legally prohibited. Even Hiawatha forswore this abom- 

 inable practice before taking up the work of forming the league. 



