“The Tree of the Great Peace”—an excerpt from the prefatory articles to the Constitution of the Iroquois Confederacy—predates the arrival of European colonists in what is now the United States, and has not historically been a part of the tradition of antiwar and peace writing that this anthology documents. Though it remained incompletely transcribed and published until the early twentieth century, this constitution reflects a continuous oral tradition and cultural practices that emerged in precolonial times, c. 1450–1600 by consensus estimates, when the legendary Dekanawideh, the “Great Peacemaker,” united five warring Iroquois tribes to begin the Haudenosaunee, or Five Nations. (The Five are now Six: Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, and Tuscarora.)
The peace celebrated here was extended to outsiders only on Iroquois terms, and was sometimes vehemently refused; the Iroquois Constitution also contains rules for war. And yet, across time and great cultural distance, aspects of Dekanawideh’s peacemaking seem widely resonant. One is his use of objects from the natural landscape as images of the peace he sought. Another is his concrete emphasis on war’s weapons, and on the means by which those weapons can be rendered undangerous—not, as in the biblical image, beaten into plowshares, but here (and later in the passage from the Book of Mormon) simply buried, like so much radioactive waste.
I AM Dekanawideh and with the Five Nations’ confederate lords I plant the Tree of the Great Peace. I plant it in your territory Adodarhoh and the Onondaga Nation, in the territory of you who are fire keepers.
I name the tree the Tree of the Great Long Leaves. Under the shade of this Tree of the Great Peace we spread the soft, white, feathery down of the globe thistle as seats for you, Adodarhoh and your cousin lords. . . . There shall you sit and watch the council fire of the Confederacy of the Five Nations.
Roots have spread out from the Tree of the Great Peace . . . and the name of these roots is the Great White Roots of Peace. If any man of any nation outside of the Five Nations shall show a desire to obey the laws of the Great Peace . . . they may trace the roots to their source . . . and they shall be welcomed to take shelter beneath the Tree of the Long Leaves.
The smoke of the confederate council fire shall ever ascend and shall pierce the sky so that all nations may discover the central council fire of the Great Peace.
I, Dekanawideh, and the confederate lords now uproot the tallest pine tree and into the cavity thereby made we cast all weapons of war. Into the depths of the earth, down into the deep underearth currents of water flowing into unknown regions, we cast all weapons of strife. We bury them from sight forever and plant again the tree. Thus shall all Great Peace be established and hostilities shall no longer be known between the Five Nations but only peace to a united people.