Last month I was invited to preach at my Alma Mata Union Theological Seminary for Indigenous Peoples Day. I eagerly accepted, but found there was a challenge: the topic was peace. I had to pause for a moment. Peace! In the context of being indigenous and struggling to connect with my own ancestry peace is not a word that comes to mind. There is a profound sense of loss, of culture, traditions, language, and customs. And there is pain. And having worked with the Ramapough Munsee Nation for five years, there is some progress, but indigenous nations are still affected. This is the result of experiencing first contact by the onslaught of Europeans coming to their homeland, making and then breaking treaties, stealing land-taking children, in order to fulfill Manifest Destiny- so where can we see peace given this reality?
The peace we seek must be involved with telling the truth, and so I have given you this reality but I will also point you to the peace that the people created, prior to colonization. And it is with the Haudenosaunee nation, and the story of The Peacemaker, as the prime example of peace. (credit given to Betty Lyons, President and Executive Director of the American Indian Law Alliance for providing me with this text, Basic Call to Consciousness, Chapter on Thoughts of Peace; The Great Law, p. 31.)
In their oral history, the Haudenosaunee people of the northeast woodlands were in crisis. A person might be killed or injured for even a slight offense; such was the atmosphere of violence among them. During this time, a male child was born who grew up to become one of the great political philosophers in human history, known as the Peacemaker. He had been born of the Wyandot people, in northern Ontario, but they refused his idea of ending the blood feuds. He then traveled to the people of the Flint, to the southeast shore of Lake Ontario which covered the vast Mohawk River Valley. He sought out those individuals who were known to be the fiercest and most fearsome destroyers of human beings. He sought them out one at a time -even cannibals-and he brought to each one his message. One by one he ‘straightened out their minds’ as each grasped the principles that he set forth. Nine men of the Mohawks-the nine most fear men in all the Mohawk Country- grasped hold of his words and became his disciples.
The first principle that he set forth was indisputable to those who heard his words. He said it can be observed that human beings are seen to abuse one another. He said that people should consider that some force or someone created this world – the Giver of Life- and that creator did not intend for human beings to abuse one another. Human beings whose minds are healthy always desire peace, and humans have minds that enable them to achieve peaceful resolutions to their conflicts. This was the explanation for the Giver of Life.
From this explanation, comes the idea that the Giver of Life does not intend for humans to injure or abuse each other. He then proposed that human societies must form governments that serve to protect humans from harm and ensure peace. Governments must be established for the purpose of abolishing war and ensuring peace and quietness among the citizens. He drew the Mohawks together under those principles and then went to the Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas with the same teachings.
Peace was to be defined not as the simple absence of war, but as the active striving of humans for the purpose of establishing universal justice. He called for the people to put their minds and emotions in harmony with the flow of the universe and the intentions of the creator. The principles of righteousness demand that all thoughts of prejudice, privilege or superiority be swept away, one must recognize that all creatures should benefit equally including the birds, animals, trees, and insects. Everything the people need -food, shelter, clothing, protection- are gifts of the Creator- even your labor and talents are gifts. Human beings do not own anything. Therefore, everyone is entitled to the things needed for survival -even those who do not work or cannot work should not be deprived of the things needed for survival.
The Peacemaker taught that the use of reason, would allow the people to learn to settle their differences without using force. We should use council, arbitrate, negotiate to address their differences. The Peacemaker understood that peace flourishes if there is absolute and pure justice. The power of persuasion and reason, and the product of a spiritually conscious society, uses the power of the inherent good will in a united and resolute people. When all else fails, only then is the power of force used. And all the people must have a voice in their government for peace to prevail.
The Peacemaker was centuries ahead of his time. He set forth a system of governmental organization that was a complex enactment of the concept of participatory democracy- as opposed to a representative democracy.
This system of government had councils of women appoint men who would function as a conduit of the people’s will. The concept of moral justice was overriding, not statute of law, designed so that each member’s rights were absolutely protected under the law. Women not only had rights, but power as a community of people composing half of the population. This has never been fully adopted by our government which did appropriate the structure of our three branches of government from the Iroquois Confederacy, completely leaving out the role of women as justices.
Under the Peacemakers vision, it a moral duty to defend the oppressed against the oppressors. This principle extends to all the right to the fruits of one’s own labor and that no one has a greater share of the wealth of society than anyone else. The Peacemaker believed that if absolute justice was established in the world, then peace would naturally follow.
This vision that the Peacemaker had was not only for the tribal nations, but for all the countries of the world. Now he lived prior to colonization. Fast forward to our times, when WWII came to an end, and the idea of a United Nations was proposed, it was only the plan and structure of the Haudenosaunee that was seen as offering a possibility for nations around the world to come together in the interest of peace. Indeed, the peace we seek, is Indigenous!
As UUs, we can see our values throughout the Peacemakers vision: transformation of the mind and heart
towards peace through reason, absolute justice, generosity and equity, interdependence. In respecting others right and worth, there is pluralism. All this put’s love at the core. May we walk in faith that peace can be achieved as it was so long ago, in good governance and making right our minds. Aho, and Blessed Be!
