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We seek peace with all but we do not shrink from war.ĭefeat: You have defeated us - so be it. Will you accept this challenge, great leader? Will you build a civilization that will stand the test of time? Oh noble Hiawatha, listen to the cries of your people! They call out to you to lead them in peace and war, to rebuild the great longhouse and unite the tribes once again. Though outnumbered and facing weapons far more advanced than the ones your warriors wielded, the Iroquois survived and prospered until they were finally overwhelmed by the mighty armies of the new United States. For many years, your people battled great enemies the Huron and the French and the English invaders. With no written language, the wise men of your nation created the great law of peace, the model for many constitutions including that of the United States. In the mists of antiquity, the five peoples, Seneca, Onondaga, Mohawks, Cayugas, and Oneida united into one nation, the Haudenosaunee, the Iroquois. Greetings noble Hiawatha, leader of the mighty Iroquois nations! Long have your people lived near the great and holy lake Ontario in the land that has come to be known as New York state in North America.

What little the West knows about Hiawatha is usually seen through the prism of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's remarkable epic poem, The Song of Hiawatha. Hiawatha is also believed to have been a skilled orator who through his honeyed words persuaded the five tribes − Cayugas, Onondagas, Oneidas, Senecas, and Mohawks − to form the Five Nations of the Iroquois.

Little is known about Hiawatha the man according to Iroquois tradition he taught the people agriculture, navigation, medicine, and the arts, using his great magic to conquer all of man's supernatural and natural enemies. Hiawatha (or "Ayonwentah") is the legendary chief of the Onondaga Indians who, with the equally-legendary Chief Dekanawidah, formed the Iroquois Confederacy. The Iroquois are an amazing people: with a population that probably never exceeded 20,000, lacking a written language and possessing no manufacturing base at all, for two centuries the Iroquois managed to hold their own against the French, English, Dutch, and later Colonial Americans.

The Confederation was a union of five (later six) Native American tribes.