The folks at RatHaus have created this extraordinary selection of source materials about the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, and the foundational role that they played in the creation of the United States of America. Here’s just the opening paragraph and Table of Contents of this amazing resource! …
The people of the Six Nations, also known by the French term, Iroquois Confederacy, call themselves the Hau de no sau nee (ho dee noe sho nee) meaning People Building a 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 sixth nation, the Tuscaroras, migrated into Iroquois country in the early eighteenth century. Together these peoples comprise the oldest living participatory democracy on earth. Their story, and governance truly based on the consent of the governed, contains a great deal of life-promoting intelligence for those of us not familiar with this area of American history. The original United States representative democracy, fashioned by such central authors as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, drew much inspiration from this confederacy of nations. In our present day, we can benefit immensely, in our quest to establish anew a government truly dedicated to all life’s liberty and happiness much as has been practiced by the Six Nations for over 800 hundred years.
Table of Contents:
1) Beaver Full Moon, 24 November 1996: Inauguration of Six Nations subtree
2) A Basic Call to Consciousness, The Hau de no sau nee Address to the Western World, Geneva, Switzerland, Autumn 1977
3) Forgotten Founders, Benjamin Franklin, the Iroquois and the Rationale for the American Revolution, complete 1982 book
4) Oren Lyons Interview – Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan, Onondaga Council of Chiefs of the Hau de no sau nee, 3 July 1991
5) Exemplar of Liberty: Native America and the Evolution of Democracy, complete 1990 book
6) Native American Political Systems and the Evolution of Democracy: An Annotated Bibliography, complete 1996 living book
7) Reaching the Grassroots: The World-wide Diffusion of Iroquois Democratic Traditions, April 2002
8) Borked! Tales From the Ramparts of Multiculturalism
9) Oren Lyons at the UN: Opening Speech for “The Year of the Indigenous Peoples”, 1993
10) Telling The Iroquois Story On CD-ROM
11) Oren Lyons: World Bank, October 3, 1995 – Ethics and Spiritual Values and the Promotion of Environmentally Sustainable Development
“50 Years of the World Bank, Over 50 Tribes Devastated”
12) Dating the Iroquois Confederacy
13) Guest Essay, Sovereignty and Treaty Rights – We Remember
14) Guest Essay, Haudenosaunee Environmental Action Plan, and articles related to the 1995 United Nations Summit of the Elders:
• Summit of the Elders; Haudenosaunee Environmental Restoration Strategy
• Principles for Environmental Restoration
• Iroquois at the UN
• Presentation to the United Nations
• Demonizing the Big Glass House
15) Indian Magna Carta Writ In Wampum Belts