A constitutional league of peace in the stone age of America

by J. N. B. Hewitt

Naturally, the ohwachira had as many firesides as it had women who were married. Each married woman of an ohwachira used one side of one of the fires at the center of the lodge. The Iroquoian lodge was extended lengthwise to accommodate those who dwelt in it, and the fires were kindled along the center from place to place.

The members of an ohwachira have (1) the right to the name of the clan of which that ohwachira is a constituent unit; (2) the right of inheriting property from deceased members of it; (3) the right to take a part in the councils of the ohwachira; (4) the right to adopt an alien through the advice of the presiding matron of it.

In the present organization of the league, only certain ohwachira have inherited chiefship titles, the principal and the vice-chief, and, consequently, the right to name any of its members to fill these offices; after the formation of the league these nominees had to be installed by federal officers, but previously by tribal officers. Strictly speaking, these titles of chiefship belong to the mothers in the ohwachira, over which the presiding matron held a trusteeship.

Rarely, the offspring of an adopted alien came to constitute an ohwachira having chiefship titles; but this was first only a trusteeship of the titles, which belonged to an extinct, moribund, or outlawed, ohwachira. A basic rule of the constitution of the league of the Iroquois provides in the case of the extinction of an ohwachira owning chiefship titles, that for the preservation of this title, it shall be placed in trust with a sister ohwachira of the same clan, if such there be, during the pleasure of the council of the league. This was a most important law in view of the fact that no new federal titles were instituted after the death of Deganawida, the prophet statesman of the Iroquois.

The women of marriageable age and the mothers in the ohwachira had the right to hold councils; especially, such as those at which candidates for chief and vice-chief might be nominated by the mothers alone. At such councils these women had the right to formulate some proposition for discussion by the tribal council; it might be done in conjunction with other ohwachira. (This is, in embryo at least, the modern so-called right of initiative.) In like manner, a proposition might be made to the tribal council to submit to the suffrages of all the people, including infants (the mothers casting their votes), any question which might be occupying the attention of the council or the people. (This is, in embryo at least, the modern so-called right of referendum.)

It is the right of the matron of the ohwachira whose chief wanders away from the path of rectitude to take the initial step in his deposition for cause—first, by going in person to him and warning him to reform and to return to the path of right and duty; if he fails to heed this warning she seeks out her brother or eldest son, as a representative of the men of her ohwachira, and together they go to give the erring chief the second warning. If still he persists in the neglect of duty and in doing wrong, the matron then goes to the chief warrior of the ohwachira, and then these three together go to him and merely inform him that he must appear on a given day at the tribal council. There the chief warrior asks him categorically whether he will or will not conform to the expressed wish of his ohwachira. If he refuse to reform he is at once deposed, the chief warrior figuratively removing from his head the “symbolic horns” (i. e., receiving back the wampum strings which are the certificate of his official title) of his title and handing them to the matron. (This is, in brief, the recall of modern times.)

In the structure of the league several ohwachira, some having a chiefship title, are incorporated to form one clan, so that this clan is represented in the tribal or the federal council by two or more chieftains. It so happens that the Mohawk and the Oneida tribes have only three clans each; but each of these clans has three ohwachira which have a principal chief and a vice-chief, respectively; and so these two tribes are represented in council, when all are present, by nine chiefs and nine vice-chiefs or messengers, the latter of course have no voice in the deliberations except in case the chief be, for some reason, unable to attend a council when he may deputize for such council his messenger to act for him. In the nature of things, every ohwachira of the Iroquoian tribes formerly possessed and worshiped, in addition to those owned by individuals, one or more tutelary deities or genii called ochinagenda, in modern usage, but formerly named oiaron (or oyaron) with a larger meaning, which customarily were in the secret custodianship or trusteeship of certain wise women who were usually named physicians, but who were in fact also so-called witches.

The ohwachira or uterine family was the primary unit of the social organization of all Iroquoian tribes. It must not be overlooked that the members of an ohwachira could not marry one another, nor could the members of a clan, composed of one, two, or more, such ohwachira, which by thus uniting to form a single organic unit become sisters, or sister ohwachira, and the members of the unit so formed become exogamous with relation to one another. The union of two or more organic units naturally produced an organization of a higher order and an enlargement and a multiplication of rights, obligations and privileges.

It will be needful to keep in mind the fact that the women of an ohwachira who elected to marry had to do so only with men from ohwachira which had a cousin relationship to their own, for they must not commit incest by marrying men from their own ohwachira or men from a sister ohwachira. Thus, every ohwachira which had women who were married was interrelated with many cousin streams of blood, and it is these outside ties which bound together the various blood streams. Iroquoian society is then held together by the bonds of affinity, while the tracing of the descent of blood through the women preserved its purity and insured its continuity.

When an ohwachira became an integral part of a clan—a higher unit—it necessarily delegated some of its self-government to this higher unit in such wise as to make this union of coordinate units more cohesive and interdependent. Thus the institution of every higher organic unit produced new privileges, duties, and rights, and the individual came under a more complex control and his welfare become more secure through tribunals exercising a greater number of delegated powers in wider jurisdiction.