Peace Follows War

Hi, my name is Hiawatha. I am an adopted child. My father Deganawidah adopted me in the south. We have just come to the Iroquois. The Mohawk nation has accepted us. I think their ways are very strange. We live in longhouses built on high ground and surrounded by a tall oval fence. Earlier, we used to live in small teepees out in the open. We eat very healthy though, which is a great thing. Me and my father hunt like twice a week but we only kill what we need. Since we’re newcomers, we have to help wake up the babies after their nap. That’s the job of every new person. The Iroquois eating habits are very strange however. We only eat breakfast with our family! All our other meals we eat alone! At least we still use wampum as money.

“Oh, I hear loud noises to the far side of camp. Must be time to wake up the babies.” I thought. I traveled to the far side of camp to wake up the babies. I ran into the baby longhouse to wake them up, but strangely they were already awake. They were screaming and pointing past the giant boulders onto the battle grounds. I ran toward the grounds and what I saw astonished me past my worst dreams. The nations were fighting.

“Why are our nation's fighting?” I screamed into the sky! Deganawidah came up beside me. “I don’t know, but we’ve got to find out. Will you help me find out?” Dad asked.

“I shall--I shall join you”, I said to my dad. I prepared to run into the battle but my dad hesitated.

“What if we get killed?” he asked.

“Then we do,” I replied and jumped past the boulders and onto the battle grounds. I looked back when I was on the grounds waiting for my father to jump but he never did. I did see however some of the babies in the baby longhouse sitting up in their diapers and clapping. I rushed into the battle and grabbed a sword from one of the people who had died.

The battle grounds were jam packed and I nimbly rushed under legs and threw out a stab whenever I could. After a while, I realized my plan would not work. I rushed out of battle and picked up wounded soldiers from my nation. I dragged them back up the boulders and Deganawidah met me at the top. He hugged me in his relief. “Go and jump down while I take care of the wounded”, I screamed to him. He hesitated but then jumped down and screamed “STOP!”. I ran to the sick longhouse and grabbed the herbs I needed. While I was working, I saw the medicine woman. She told me she’d take over while I ran and grabbed more wounded. I silently agreed. I ran back to the battlegrounds but what I saw astonished me. The battle had stopped and Deganawidah was right in the middle of the nation's, telling them about peace.

He had done it! The nations all backed away and the healthy people battling in our nation lifted my father on their shoulders and walked away into the camp cheering. I grabbed more wounded and walked them to the sick longhouse. On my way there, I met the people who were carrying Deganawidah. The parade was so cool but my father deserved it. He was a hero!

Later in the day, Deganawidah told me what he had said during the battle. He told the nations that all of us were brothers and that our ways of killing and scalping should stop. He told them we should form a League of Iroquois that could punish anyone who stopped peace. I told him it was a good idea and that if a League was there, he could represent the Mohawk nation in it.

After me and my dad had our discussion, it was time for me to take a bath. Now I must explain to you how we take a bath around here. We take baths outside our oval fence in a small sweathouse. We heat stones and put water on top of them. We stay in the room for as long as we can stand and then go outside and rub ourselves with sand. Then we jump into the nearest lake and wash ourselves. We have a bath once or twice a day.

After my bath was over, it was time for prayers. We sleep at 9:00 PM and wake up at 5:00 AM. We have prayers at 8:00 PM. In prayers, we always honor anyone who was a hero in that day and repeat our laws and rules and beliefs. Then we pray for a good night and go off to bed. This is basically how prayers went off today. First, Deganawidah was honored for stopping the battle. Then me and the medicine women were honored for helping with the wounded. We then repeated our beliefs and rules out loud and this time there was one more belief. “I believe that we should have a League of Iroquois and a great law of peace!” Finally, we prayed for a good night and went off to bed. I went to the longhouse I share with 50 other families, and the bed I share with Deganawidah. I slept.

In the morning when I woke up at sunrise, I went and did the cooking with 35 other girls. Deganawidah was already awake. When I was eating breakfast with him, he told me, “I am going to talk to our leader Lakota to make the League of Iroquois I was dreaming about.” I said to him,

“It’s a great idea. Can I join you in your journey to make peace?”

“Yes”, he said. “Come with me to our leader’s longhouse.”

After breakfast, me and Deganawidah walked to our leader’s longhouse. When we knocked, he said “Come in.” Me and my father explained to our leader our idea for the League of Iroquois. Unfortunately, Lakota didn’t like the idea. He said,

“It will be too much work.” Although he did said “I will agree if we get 500 signatures of people in our village.” Deganawidah tried to argue that it would be too hard but Lakota wasn’t budging. He just sent us out of there with a large numbered paper to have people sign. My father told me,“we better get started if we want this League to be there”. “There is one issue though. Only one nation can’t start the League.” So in the end, we both realized we needed to go into the other nations to see if they would agree.

After a while of discussion, me and Deganawidah decided to do one nation at a time. After we got 500 signatures in this nation, then we would move on to the next. We started getting signatures immediately and after 5 minutes flat we had about 20 signatures. Soon it was time for lunch. Me and my father sat together at lunch instead of each alone. It turns out we had 33 signatures already. It seems like a lot of people wanted a League of Iroquois and peace. After lunch, me and Deganawidah started up again on the signatures. We went to our neighbors. Some of the competitive ones said they would not sign but most of them did. We spent our whole day getting signatures. Me and my father slept well that night, knowing that we had 111 signatures.

The next day we woke up and had breakfast. We traveled to the south side of camp, near the battlegrounds, to see if we could get more signatures but we saw not people but warriors. Another battle had started.

Me and Deganawidah immediately launched into action. I did the same thing I had done the other day and brought wounded people up the boulders. I put them in the sick longhouse and then ran to join my father in the battle. I walked between it asking people in tribes “Why are you fighting?” It turns out the nations wanted more land and were fighting for some of the Mohawks. Me and Deganawidah asked them

“Why are you killing people for land?” That would just mean less people to help feed our nations.” They just laughed and said it would mean less people to feed as well. Me and my father knew we would not be able to stop this battle. We needed more people. We did the one thing we could do. We ran back.

Me and Deganawidah ran to our neighbors houses and ushered them out. Then we asked, “Who will help us stop this battle?” Half of the people said they didn’t want to get killed in battle so we gave them another job. “Go to the other tribes and get more people who are willing to help stop this battle,” we said. About an hour later, 389 eager people who wanted to stop the battle had arrived. They all jumped into the battle; me and Deganawidah in lead and started making the nation's stop fighting. We spoke to them about what war did to people and how peace should begin. We asked the nation's leaders to come forth and told them about our idea of a League of Iroquois. Out of the five nations, three of them liked our idea. They said they would go for peace for all.

Two of them said they didn’t like our idea, including Lakota, who had said that earlier. Both of them said it was hard work and didn’t know if their aggressive tribes would like the idea of peace. Our leader specially wouldn’t budge and he only said he would agree if we had gotten those 500 signatures. The other leader who disagreed was of the Oneida nation and she was a bit more open-minded. She said, “I will agree to peace, if you get 200 signatures from people in my tribe.” At least that was a lot easier than 500 signatures. Me and Deganawidah then left all the nations to leave in peace. Now that we knew what to do to start our League, me and Deganawidah set right to work.

By prayers, we had 488 signatures! So many people wanted to sign after they knew what we did during the battle. Me and my father decided we needed to plan this our a little more. We estimated that it would take about 2 weeks to start our League. At prayers today Lakota made a new rule. He said he would be allowed to punish anyone who was too aggressive no matter what the cause. That of course, started a riot between so many of our aggressive people. Lakota, however, said, “That is the rule”, and then prayers ended.

That set us back a little bit. Some of the aggressive people who had signed our sheet came up to us and said “I want my signature erased.” Reluctantly, we had to erase about 20 signatures. By the next morning, me and Deganawidah had our 500 signatures! We came up to Lakotas longhouse and told him we had our signatures. He studied them for about 10 minutes then said “Ok, I’m in.” As soon as he said that, he went outside his longhouse and told everyone who was an adult to gather around the high rock his  longhouse was located on. There, he made a small speech. “From now on, our tribe shall be part of the League of Iroquois. I shall choose two representatives from our tribe to represent us in the League. I shall choose the people who started this League. Our representatives will be Hiawatha and Deganawidah!”          

Me and my father were so proud! After that was decided, Lakota said “Everyone, you can now leave.” He then told us “Meet me privately in my longhouse.” We did just that and then he allowed us to go to the Oneida nation to get the 200 signatures we needed there. It turns out many more people in the Oneida Nation wanted to sign. In only that one day, we had gotten our 200 signatures. We were then lead to the leader of the Oneida nation’s longhouse. Her name was Little Blossom. When she saw our signatures, she laughed and said, “I will now agree to the League of Iroquois”. Me and Deganawidah went back to the Mohawk territory just in time for prayers. We were so happy! The League of Iroquois was about to begin!

The next morning a meeting between all the tribes and me and Deganawidah was organized and the League of Iroquois was started in it. Me and my father were so proud that our dream of peace had finally come true!

The first meeting of the League of Iroquois took place today. All of the representatives from all the nations met by the river. There we had a meeting about peace. Now that the League was formed, there were never any battles about anything. Instead, if their were any reasons to battle, the League discussed and decided how to solve the problem. Everyone in the League had to agree to make the decision final.

This League of Peace lasted very long. Indeed very long, until the Iroquois had all disappeared from this earth. Until then, peace was there in all the nations and everyone agreed on one thing; peace will give more happiness than war.

Writing Girl(WG)

Peace for America