The Hiawatha Wampum survives as the oldest constitution in North America, perhaps the oldest in the world. The edges of the beaded belt have frayed slightly, but the skilled hands that made the purple and white beads from whelk shells, carefully tied each bead into its place. The Hiawatha Belt signifies the union of the nations of the Haudenosaunee, the Iroquois League, founded approximately six hundred years ago by Deganawidah and Hiawatha.

The wampum offers a simple message written in pictographs. The symbols depict four squares joined like the links of a chain, with a tree in the center of the belt. They represent the nations of the league united with one another by the chain of friendship. The tree signifies law and peace, and its branches represent the security and shelter given to humans by the law. Deganawidah named this constitution Kaianerekowa, “the Great Law of Peace,” and he taught that peace and law had to be inseparable.

Before Deganawidah could make peace among the nations, he needed to banish the Evil Mind that caused fighting and dissension. He persuaded the warriors to bring their weapons to him beside a great tree that grew over an underground cavern. He buried all the weapons deep inside the cavern beneath the tree.

With the Evil Mind destroyed, Deganawidah taught the new philosophy of the Good Mind based on Righteousness (Gaiwoh), Health (Skenon), and Power (Gashasdenshaa). Righteousness referred to relations between individuals and nations. Health referred to the condition of both the body and mind as well as to the social condition of peace. Power referred to the authority of law and custom that supported justice, and to the spiritual power that was inseparable from daily life (P. Wallace).

When Deganawidah finally succeeded in bringing peace to the tribes, he planted a new tree to commemorate the alliance of friendship and to remind future generations of the precepts of the Good Mind. The tree had four large white roots, each of which grew in a different direction. Deganawidah prophesied that the roots of the tree would eventually grow to the far parts of the world, that in time the four roots would grow to include new nations of people not yet known. From many nations they would create one.

This story was already an ancient one when the first settlers came from Europe, and the native people shared their knowledge of the Good Mind with the newcomers. The new people came to live under the Great Tree of Peace, but they did not know its history. They did not know of the weapons buried in the earth, or of the white roots of peace that needed to be watered and nourished to help the tree grow.

In the bountiful life we have been given in America, we have not always remembered the law of the Good Mind. Sometimes we have reached out and taken an unfair share of the fruits of the tree. Sometimes we have enjoyed our place in the shade, but have not wanted to welcome others still suffering in the heat. Sometimes we have fouled the earth around the tree. We have spoiled the air and contaminated the water. In ignorance, we have even hacked at the roots of the great tree. But the tree has survived.

The great pine tree of peace is now more than half a millenium old. Some of the centuries have been harsh ones, but the tree has weathered the struggles between natives and settlers, an evil era of slavery, a bloody civil war, and heavy losses in foreign wars. Despite the hardships and cruelties of American history, the roots of that great tree have continued to grow, and new nations have found shelter under its branches.

The tree offered sanctuary to people of all cultures looking for a better life in a new world, to people fleeing from war, tyranny, poverty, oppression, famine, persecution, and genocide. The newcomers often had no water to give the white roots other than their own sweat, tears, and sometimes even blood. When they came without nourishment for the tree, the tree lived on their dreams and hopes, and it continued to grow.

We are the inheritors of a great American legacy: we are the children of Deganawidah. We are the children of Africa, Asia, Europe, the South Pacific, and all of the Americas, who have come to live under the peace of the great tree. We are the people who must uphold the Good Mind that our children may inherit this legacy of righteousness, health, and spiritual power. We are the people who now must nurture the Great Tree and water its white roots of peace.