Somewhere between the 15th and 17th centuries, members of the feuding Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca nations gathered on the shores of Onondaga Lake in what is now known as New York State, and formed the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.
Accounts of this summit describe legendary leader Deganawida – known best as ‘The Peacemaker’ – uprooting the tallest white pine tree in the area and asking the assembled leaders to bury their weapons beneath its roots, providing the genesis for the idiom ‘bury the hatchet’.
Later joined by the Tuscarora people, the Confederacy – which at its peak governed territory across much of New York, Ontario, Quebec and parts of Virginia and Kentucky – was united under the Great Law of Peace. Laid out by The Peacemaker at Onondaga Lake, this Law was passed on in an intricate oral storytelling tradition and is still used today. At its centre is the ‘Seventh Generation’ principle: ‘Make your decisions on behalf of the seventh generation coming – defend them, protect them…’ The idea being that any governance decisions would have to keep in mind the wellbeing of seven future generations.
This kind of long-term thinking seems to elude many international
