Mohawk Women Are the Holders of the Land

The genius of Skennenrahowi, the Peacemaker, takes many forms from his use of universal symbols such as the “Tree of Peace” to his creation of the world’s oldest united nations and his teachings showing humanity that there is an alternative to war.

Central to his thinking was the idea that women are the life givers in creation and as such have specific powers designed to protect the unborn, foster the young and provide for the people. Of necessity, Skennenrahowi reasoned, women must have the ability to provide for the physical needs of their families and clans, which meant they must have the resources to do so. This in turn required the men to provide protection to women but also to insure they were in a state of good health and security.

Women should have direct, unqualified access to those things by which they could sustain the people. They had a lawful right to seeds for planting, to those tools needed to plant and to the natural elements by which the resulting plants could grow.

Men had to clear the planting fields but women planted the seeds; men carried the water but women nurtured the seedlings. Men provided fertilizers such as fish but women weeded the gardens; men kept animals away but women pruned the plants. Both genders knew their duties and worked in symmetry to insure sufficient food was grown so the people were well fed.

This system went beyond agriculture but involved the most vital elements of Iroquois human rights and freedoms. Skennenrahowi’s set of rules, his constitution, became known as the Great Law of Peace. Through this way he hoped to remove any artificial restrictions on women and, by natural law, recognize that they were the foundation of all human communities and the keepers of the home, of the land and of the nation. He knew that the more self assured and stronger the female the more stable the nation.

In his Great Law he set as one of the most important statutes in what some refer to as Wampum 44:

“Women shall be considered the progenitors of the Nation. They shall own the land and the soil.”

There is no ambiguity or doubt as to what he meant and to which all the assembled Iroquois delegates agreed-earth is mother and women are, by extension, her protector and the custodians of all which comes from her. By progenitor they meant that women begin and direct; that they determine the usage of the land and how its resources will be allocated.

This is truly unique in the world. As any student of politics or economics knows that the ultimate source of all wealth (not to mean materialism) comes from the ability to cultivate land and distribute that which comes from the land. Iroquois women, through their respective clans, defined labor and how the results of that labor were shared among the people.

It goes further.

In the Great Law it clearly provides for the political power of women as permanent, central and without qualification. Women oversee the selection of all leaders and they have the exclusive right of impeachment.

Further, no lands may be alienated from the Iroquois without the specific approval of women.

In spiritual and linguistic terms the Mohawks affirmed this through ceremony, music and dance.

What is the first ever song and dance brought to this world by the Skywoman? It was the women’s dance whose earth caressing foot movements are seen in the longhouse to this day. And what are those movements and songs but ways to cover seeds and assure their growth?

All of this has to be relevant if the Mohawk people are to survive. We cannot waiver from this for the breach in the Great Law and the disruption of the women-earth relationship can only bring about suffering and conflict.

Skennenrahowi also warned, in Wampum 25, against any leader who tries to impose “any authority” separate from the Great Law which is an impeachable offense. The removal of the offender is done by the men at the direction of the women.

In modern times we have seen this break in women’s rights marked by the selling of the earth of the Americans. We have now placed a harsh money value on the earth and like our European neighbors experienced great internal stress. We now have those who would “forever” sell our sacred lands to protect commercial gambling and to take the earth and place it in the hands of the very people who robbed us of our ancestral homelands in a concession called “federal trust”.

We have listened as those who would sell the land deny the rights of the women to review this so-called “agreement” while citing Mohawk culture and history to justify this action.

At no point in any of these land concessions were the Mohawk women, the true owners of our lands, consulted. Their counsel was not sought, their standing ignored.

This is, sadly, to be expected by a system, which was created by European males to obscure, undermine and eradicate Mohawk culture and particularly the natural rights of women.

Can it stand? Not if the women of the Mohawk Nation say no, not if they compel their male partners (husbands, sons, fathers, uncles) to do their job and protect the earth. For generations the Mohawks have crossed the planet preaching about the merits of the Great Law and our grand history particularly with regards to women’s rights.

Now is the time to practice what we preach and abide by natural law or bear the consequences of this act of oppression against the living earth and all Mohawk women.