Legend in a stone ~ Great Law Of Peace - 48" x 24", Acrylic on Fir, The Collection of The Fort Erie Historical Museum

It was MewinzhaÉwhen the Haudensaunee were ruled by warfare, in a time of anarchy, in a time of fear, in a time of terror ~ they were the terrorists of their time. Fighting all who got in their way, adopting and moving and killing, in a cycle of divides, the Iroquois who fought the Hurons, destroyed the Neutrals because they were Neutral with the Hurons, and numbered 4000, who then numbered nothing at all.

Across the Onondaga Lake he came, in a white stone canoe he came, floating he came, born of a virgin he came to change the rifts of violence into a spoken wave of peace. He went, one by one, village by village and nation by nation with Hiawatha who gave out the words and joined one by one, village by village and nation by nation together, like drops of water do, collecting into one big lake, no divides, no partitions, no separations, just only waves or ripples from time to time to time. At the first grand council, United Nations heard, The Great Law of Peace and the ways to form a society. It was a government born of freedom, washed in respect, floating in harmony within the ripples of words.

Five White Pine needles clasped in a talon, a confederacy of five nations united as one. Peacemaker uprooted a Great White Pine, and told the warriors to cast their weapons deep inside, into its cavern where a river ran, on its underside. And the river carried the tools of war, deep into its Earth and buried them soundly until another time. Peacemaker explained that, the Tree of PEACE had four white roots, pushed out to Earth's four corners, and those that yearn for peace can follow that root to its source and find shelter under The Great Tree of peace. Crowning the Great White Pine sits Eagle-That-Sees-Far. He is to be ever watchful, and to sound an alarm when evil threatens from near or from far. Five Pine Needles were bundled as five nations now become Six:

Mohawk, "Kanienkahagen," The People of the Flint, they are Keepers of the Eastern Door of the Symbolic Longhouse; The Onondaga - Keepers of the Central Fire, Wapam Keepers and The People on the Hill; Cayuga, "Guyohkohnyoh," The People of the Great Swamp; The Seneca, "Onondowahgah," The People of the Great Hill Ð Keepers of the Western Door; The Oneida - "Onayotekaono," The People of the Upright Stone; And later Tuscarora, known as "Ska-Ruh-Reh" the Shirt Wearing People

Peacemaker came in a Stone on Water with a message of Peace, to take the higher way and to not sink with the heaviness of the flint stone. His arrival was a dichotomy of stone on water; paddling a stone canoe, he brought with him a new way of living, one based on the art of reason over force of arms, of respect and honour, to bury their weapons and in the end, the weapons of stone were the ones to sink to the bottom of the river. Now those stones have been dug up and sit behind glass and the story of Peacemaker sits on glass with Eagle-That Sees-Far staring out watching in the windows that see both ways.

LauraLee K. Harris