Gayanashagowa

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Gayanashagowa or the Great Law of Peace of the Iroquois (or Haudenosaunee) Six Nations is the oral constitution that created the Iroquois Confederacy. The law was developed by a Huron man known as The Great Peacemaker and his spokesman Hiawatha.

The Iroquois Confederacy was once thought to have started in the 1500s, but more recent estimates date the Confederacy, and its constitution between 1090 and 1150 A.D. These estimates were based on the records of the Confederacy leadership and astronomical dating related to the lunar eclipse that coincided with the founding of the Confederacy (Mann, 332).

The Gayanashagowa is said to have provided some inspiration for the United States Constitution.

References

Mann, Charles C. . New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005.

External links

• [Description at the Haudenosaunee Home Page]
• [Description at The University of Oklahoma Law Center]

 

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