THE CONSTITUTION OF THE FIVE NATIONS 



13 



The second manuscript was compiled by the chiefs of the Six 

 Nations council and in the form here published has been reviewed 

 and corrected by several of their own number, including Chiefs 

 John Gibson, Jacob Johnson and John William Elliott. The official 

 copy was made by Hilton Hill, a Seneca, then employed by the 

 Dominion superintendent for the Six Nations. It has been reviewed 

 and changes were suggested by Albert Cusick. , 



The Newhouse code was divided into three sections. These were, 



" The Tree of the Long Leaves,"' " The Emblematical Union Com- 



pact," and " Skanawatih's Law of Peace and War,'' Each law gVt-^^ 



was associated with a wampum belt or string of wampum beads. ' 



The string number and the section of the code from which it is 

 extracted is indicated after each law, as given in the text. 



In examining this code of Iroquois law it will be noted that no 

 reference is made in the Canadian codes to the " Long House of 

 the Five Nations.'' Various reasons are assigned for this. Mx-^ 

 Newhouse cut out all reference to it from his original manuscript ^JVl^^^^^ 

 because some of the older chiefs said that Handsome Lake, the 

 destroyer of the old religious system, had successfully __as§pciated ^jV'i'^^^ — 

 his religious teachings with the Long House. The force of this 

 fact is apparent when we learn that a follower of the Handsome 

 Lake religion is called among other names, Ganuii'sisne'ha, " Long 

 House Lover." Another reason is that the historic Long House 

 territory is in New York State, and that the Ontario Iroquois who 

 left New York after the Revolution to cling to the British, dislike 

 any reference to their former habitation that seems to bind them 



to it. The Dekanawida code provides a refuge for the confederacy • 



in distress, and in Canada they believe they have found " the great -^WS-O^ 

 elm " under which they may gather in safety to continue their ' 

 national existence. 



In presenting these documents the original orthography has been 

 retained. The only attempt to record Iroquois names and words 

 phonetically is in the notes. This will account for some variations 

 in spelling. The Mohawk and Onondaga writers in their manu- 

 scripts used Ayonhwatha and Hayonhwatha interchangeably and 

 there are other variations. 



