HAUDENOSAUNEE WAMPUM BELTS, SILVER CHAINS AND TREATIES

Continued from last week.

The individual councils, which have been described as treaties had well-defined processes. They can be described and documented, as can the fact that the British understood, accepted and used those processes. These councils, though, were not isolated incidents, but part of a dynamic stream, a continuing and increasingly well-defined relationship. Beyond that relationship, the impact that each side had on the world of the other is equally important.

The spirit of the Kayanerekowa-seeking peace and power through the Good Mind-pervades these councils, and through three centuries of turmoil has survived. The law has survived, and remains a respectable law. The relationship between the Haudenosaunee is based on that spirit, and the Haudenosaunee would like to think that it, too has survived, and is worthy of respect.

It is important to acknowledge the extent to which the Europeans adopted, understood and respected Haudenosaunee processes in treaty making. The following extract from the United States case of Jones v. Meehan (175 U.S. 1 (1889) was quoted by the Supreme Court of Canada with approval in R. v. Sioui in 1990. In terms of documents written in English legal language, the statement may be accurate. In terms of what took place in council, it is dead wrong:

…it must always…be borne in mind that the negotiations for the treaty are conducted, on the part of the United States, an enlightened and powerful nation, by representatives skilled in diplomacy, masters of a written language, understanding the modes and forms of creating the various technical estates known to their law, and assisted by an interpreter employed by themselves: that the treaty is drawn up by them and in their own language; that the Indians, on the other hand, are a weak and dependent people, who have no written language and are wholly unfamiliar with all the forms of legal expression, and whose only knowledge of the terms in which the treaty is frames is that imparted to them by the interpreter employed by the United States.

During the first century of treaty making with the Haudenosaunee, most of this statement would have had no application. The Confederacy was not a weak and dependent nation; its representatives were at least as skilled in diplomacy as the Europeans; the council would have been held in Mohawk, with interpreters on both sides; the technical terms would have been those of Haudenosaunee law; and the lack of a written language would no have been an obstacle to the preservation of the commitments made in the treaty.

If the laws of Canada require treaties to have just, broad and liberal constructions and interpretations, let it not be because of some imagined incapacity of the Haudenosaunee, but rather because of the intention of the Crown to act with honor and justice for their own sake.

Where the written documents vary from the understanding arrived at in the treaty, it must be recalled that those documents themselves are not the treaties. They are merely the record of the treaties, preserved by one side. The full record of the treaties consists of writing, memory and action. Where there are written records, though, containing technical or legal language, and one party is both unschooled in that law or technology and illiterate, a great deal of caution is required to ascertain that party’s understanding of the transaction. The 1701 Nanfan Treaty’s “trust deed” is an excellent example of this kind of problem, for history shows that there were clearly separate understandings, after the fact, of what had been intended.

PROCEDURE IN TREATY COUNCILS

Generally, council would be called by the sending out of runners, carrying both wampum and sticks notched to indicate the number of days until the council, as well as carrying a message about the matters to be discussed.

The Haudenosaunee had people renowned as messengers – word could be carried the entire length of the geographic Longhouse, from the Seneca country of Niagara to the eastern door on the Mohawk River, nearly five hundred kilometers, in less than three days.

In response to the invitation, delegates from the invited nations would come to the place of council known as a “council fire”, or “fire place” carrying their invitation wampum with them.

The Haudenosaunee council fire burns at Onondaga, the place of the Firekeepers as well as the geographic center of the Confederacy’s territory. For meetings with the British, the council place was Albany, which lay on the border between Mohawk Territory and British lands. The council fire of the “Indian Confederacy” of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century lay on the Miami River, south of Lake Erie. In all cases, the council place was convenient to reach for all participants, and a place appointed by tradition. However, councils could be held in different places as circumstances demanded. There have been Haudenosaunee councils at Buffalo Creek, near Niagara River, when necessary.

Continued next week.