HIAWATHA: Synergic Pioneer
Monday, January 31st, 2005
Horatio Hale wrote in 1881: It is well known that the Iroquois tribes, whom our ancestors termed the Five Nations, were, when first visited by Europeans, in the precise condition which, according to all the evidence we possess, was held by the inhabitants of the Old World during what has been designated the Stone Age. … A singular fortune has attended the name and memory of Hiawatha. Though actually an historical personage, and not of very ancient date, of whose life and deeds many memorials remain, he has been confused with two Indian divinities, the one Iroquois, the other Algonquin, and his history has been distorted and obscured almost beyond recognition. Through the cloud of mythology which has enveloped his memory, the genius of Longfellow has discerned something of his real character, and has made his name, at least, a household word wherever the English language is spoken. It remains to give a correct account of the man himself and of the work which he accomplished, as it has been received from the official annalists of his people. The narrative is confirmed by the evidence of contemporary wampum records, and by written memorials in the native tongue, one of which is at least a hundred years old. … The six national leaders who have been mentioned—Dekanawidah for the Mohawks, Odatshehte for the Oneidas, Atotarho for the Onondagas, Akahenyonk for the Cayugas, Kanyadariyo and Shadekaronyes for the two great divisions of the Senecas—met in convention near the Onondaga Lake, with Hiawatha for their adviser, and a vast concourse of their followers, to settle the terms and rules of their confederacy, and to nominate its first council. Of this council, nine members (or ten, if Dekanawidah be included) were assigned to the Mohawks, a like number to the Oneidas, fourteen to the lordly Onondagas, ten to the Cayugas, and eight to the Senecas. Except in the way of compliment, the number assigned to each nation was really of little consequence, inasmuch as, by the rule of the league, unanimity was exacted in all their decisions. This unanimity, however, did not require the suffrage of every member of the council. The representatives of each nation first deliberated apart upon the question proposed. In this separate council the majority decided; and the leading chief then expressed in the great council the voice of his nation. Thus the veto of Atotarho ceased at once to be peculiar to him, and became a right exercised by each of the allied nations. This requirement of unanimity, embarrassing as it might seem, did not prove to be so in practice. Whenever a question arose on which opinions were divided, its decision was either postponed, or some compromise was reached which left all parties contented. (01/31/05)
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John Mohawk writes: By the time the British military came along and had to engage in the peace making conferences and truce making conferences, the British adopted some of the Indian protocol on how you have meetings and discussions. In the British adoption of that kind of protocol, you’ll notice that in historical records, the British stand astonished at the quality of oratory that was set forth by the Indians. Almost all the Indians that they met exhibited a kind of oratory that left the British somewhat amazed. … Here was a period of time when people made wars with clubs and bows and arrows and traps and not with so-called weapons of mass destruction. Actually at one time, a good solid club was a weapon of mass destruction wielded by the proper parties. In any case, there was going to be a lot of conversation going on when they actually got to the peacemaking part about the idea of casting their weapons beneath a tree and burying them. This is of course, entirely symbolic, just like modern disarmament is entirely symbolic. The next time you get a paycheck, you go out and buy some more. The same thing was true with the Indians. They could always go home and whittle some more of those weapons. In any case, they couldn’t give up weapons entirely because they depended on them for hunting and for food supplies. So when they say they are putting the weapons of war under the tree, the conversations is just symbolic language meaning that they are not going to use them on each other anymore. They put together this idea of seeking peace and they had to make it practical. So there is an attention to practice, to what’s pragmatic, to making promises to one another that are likely to be kept. So you’re going to have a peacemaking process that begins with some principles, which are just symbolic, one of which is the destruction of weaponry. The second one is that we are now going to put our minds together to create peace. Of the quotes you can think of about the Indians, the most famous ones are the one from Sitting Bull. “Now let us put our minds together to see what kind of world we can leave for our children.” And the other one out of The Great Law, “Now we put our minds together to see what kind of world we can create for the seventh generation yet unborn.” Both of these are pragmatist constructions. They lay out the idea that we are now going to put our minds together to create some kind of desirable outcome. And pragmatism is entirely about outcome. To begin with, you lay out the outcome and then you step back and negotiate the steps to go from here to the outcome that you want. (01/31/05)
The New Farm – The Willamette Valley is Oregon’s organic farming heartland. Here in the broad green floodplain between the Cascade and Coast Ranges, stretching north from Eugene to Portland, excellent markets combine with good soils, a favorable climate and still-affordable land to create real opportunities for aspiring organic farmers. Spend a few days here and you think, this is how it should be: a place where apprentices can become journey-people and then move on to farms of their own without leaving behind hard-won contacts and local knowledge. Groundwork Organic Farm, owned and managed by husband and wife team Gabe Cox and Sophie Bello, is a case in point. In just six seasons, Cox and Bello have built Groundwork from scratch into a thriving independent enterprise, cultivating over 40 different crops on 41 certified acres, including greens, cucurbits, root crops, tomatoes, beans, brassicas, alliums, corn, rhubarb, strawberries, herbs and cut flowers. They run a 100-member CSA, service a wide range of wholesale accounts and do a staggering seven farmers’ markets a week–three in Eugene, two in Portland, one in Bend and one in Lake Oswego. “The farmers’ markets are where we really saw the opportunity,” Bello explains. “Markets in this area are really good, and they’ve been getting better and better,” Cox agrees. When Groundwork first got started, he says, $3,000 for the day was a good farmers’ market gross. Since then, Groundwork and other local organic farms have been regularly breaking their own records, topping $7,000 and even $8,000 on a good day at the height of the season. (01/31/05)
BBC Health – The notion that children grow taller while they sleep is probably true, US researchers say. They put sensors into the leg bones of baby lambs and confirmed that most growth spurts occurred when the animals were at rest or sleeping. The University of Wisconsin scientists believe the same is true in humans, and say it might explain why children get growing pains at night-time. Their findings appear in the Journal of Pediatric Orthopedics. Bone length was continuously measured by the sensors every 167 seconds for around three weeks. At least 90% of the bone growth occurred when the lambs were asleep or resting. Researcher Dr Norman Wilsman said: “What was really interesting was that the bones were growing only when the animals were lying down, and almost no growth occurs when the lambs are standing or moving around.” The researchers believe that when the animal is at rest, pressure on the bones involved with growth - the growth plates - is eased, allowing them to elongate. “Growth plates may be like springs that, during standing and walking, experience compression and tension,” said Dr Wilsman. “When these strains are eased, as when the animal lies down or goes to sleep, they resume growing,” he said. (01/31/05)
BBC Environment – The coming weeks could bring the most severe thinning of the ozone layer over northern Europe since records began. The conditions are being driven by unusual weather in the high atmosphere above the Arctic, says the European Ozone Research Coordinating Unit. The stratosphere, where the ozone layer lies, has seen its coldest winter for 50 years; there have also been an unusually large number of clouds. These factors hasten the rate at which man-made chemicals destroy ozone. “The meteorological conditions we are now witnessing resemble and even surpass the conditions of the 1999-2000 winter, when the worst ozone loss to date was observed,” said Dr Neil Harris, from the Cambridge University-based unit. Ozone is a molecule that is composed of three oxygen atoms. It is responsible for filtering out harmful ultra-violet radiation (less than 290 nanometres) from the Sun. … At the moment, the area where the ozone layer is particularly thin is constrained by winds, which to some extent isolate the Arctic from the rest of the global climate system. Scientists say this natural barrier will break down in the coming weeks, and the low ozone area will spread southwards over northern Europe, including the UK. This will mean more of the Sun’s ultra-violet rays reaching ground level, potentially increasing the risk of skin cancer. The incidence of malignant melanoma, the worst kind of skin cancer, is rising; but to what extent that has been caused by decades of ozone depletion is far from clear. “We will watch the development closely from day to day, and will inform the public and our authorities if the situation becomes worrying,” said Dr Harris. (01/31/05) 
BBC Environment – One of the most highly charged topics preoccupying the governments of the world is to be thrashed out at a UK conference starting on Tuesday. But Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change, a three-day meeting at the Met Office in Exeter, is mainly about the science. The participants, more than 200 in all, will try to agree how to define what is a danger level, and what it should be. This, they hope, will lead to a better understanding of methods the world can employ to avoid catastrophic warming. The conference, sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), was announced last September by the UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair. It will try to answer three questions: “For different levels of climate change what are the key impacts, for different regions and sectors, and for the world as a whole? What would such levels imply in terms of greenhouse gas stabilisation concentrations and emission pathways required to achieve such levels? What technological options are there for achieving stabilisation of greenhouse gases at different concentrations in the atmosphere, taking into account costs and uncertainties?” … Dr Jenkins said: “The big problem is the uncertainties. But the science is hardening up quite a lot, and it’s come on by leaps and bounds since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change first met in 1988. There’s been enormous progress in observations, in our understanding of the processes and our modelling of them - they’ve all moved on brilliantly.” (01/31/05)
