The Geneva-based World Future Council announced the Haudenosaunee Confederacy’s Great Law of Peace has been nominated as a finalist for a World Future Policy Award 2024, which recognizes top policy solutions that can be shared to transform societies towards a more just, healthy and sustainable future.
The Great Law of Peace, or Gayanashagow in the Indigenous Haudenosaunee language, was promulgated more than a millennium ago on the shores of Onondaga Lake in Syracuse, NY, when the Great Peacemaker gathered what had been five warring nations to create a governing structure that continues to guide the Nations to this day both in their internal dealings and in their relationship to the nations of the world.
Those five Nations – the Mohawk, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida and Seneca – were later joined by the Tuscarora to form the Six Nation Haudenosaunee Confederacy, based in upstate New York and Canada.
The Great Law of Peace is recognized as the oldest constitution in the world, incorporating ideas of individual liberty, collective responsibility and separation of powers that have served as a model for other federal systems of governance, including the United States Constitution when it was promulgated in 1787 by the American Founding Fathers who specifically cited its provisions in drafting that document.
“We are honored to have been recognized by the World Future Council for the continuing relevance of our guiding principles which have sustained us for time immemorial and are even more relevant today as principles to be shared with our fellow nations,” said Sid Hill, the Tadodaho (or Chief) of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and the leader of the Onondaga Nation. “In everything we do, we are thinking seven generations into the past, and seven generations into the future with the awareness we are one with the Earth and our fellow citizens on the Earth.”
That awareness that what citizens of the world do today, and what we did yesterday, is central to the World Future Policy Award which celebrates top policy solutions for us and generations to come. The award seeks to raise global awareness for exemplary laws and policies, accelerating policy action toward a common future, where every person lives in dignity on a healthy, sustainable planet.
After burying the weapons of war under the Great White Pine, the Haudenosaunee shared the Gayanashagowa (The Great Law of Peace) message as far as the Mississippi River to the west, the Tuscarora territory to the south in what is now known as North Carolina, and north into what is now Ontario, Through their leadership of the Onondaga-based American Indian Law Alliance, the Haudenosaunee have brought the message as well throughout the Western Hemisphere and beyond to the League of Nations, The United Nations, the Vatican and to more than 40 countries.
The governance of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy is in three branches. First, the clan mothers of each of the six nations choose the Hoyane (lit. Good Minds, colloquially chiefs) who will lead the Confederacy, and have the power to remove them. The Hoyane choose the Tadodaho from amongst the Onondaga. Each clan has male and female Faithkeepers who protect the traditional teachings and preserve the Haudenosaunee lifeways. It is a traditional matrilineal tripartite democracy.
The World Future Council, through its WFPA award, recognizes that enduring peace is perhaps the most critical component for the sustainable development of societies and protecting people and planet. Our global community is in desperate need of creative and inclusive policy solutions at all levels to resolve conflict, prevent war and foster a culture of peace.
Twelve finalists from around the world have been selected, and the five awardees will be announced in Geneva, Switzerland, on November 27th.
More information on the World Peace Council can be found here.
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The confederacy, made up of the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas was intended as a way to unite the nations and create a peaceful means of decision making. Through the confederacy, each of the nations of the Haudenosaunee are united by a common goal to live in harmony. Each nation maintains it own council with Chiefs chosen by the Clan Mother and deals with its own internal affairs but allows the Grand Council to deal with issues affecting the nations within the confederacy.
