The History of Genesee, MI, Ch. 2, The Story of Ay-oun-a-wa-ta

THE STORY OF AY-OUN-A-WA-TA.

Many, many years ago, as the Indians say to designate time long past, there was born among the people of the hills, Ono-nun-da, a boy who grew to manhood among the warriors of his tribe, but, unlike them, averse to war and oppressed by a consciousness of its wickedness and unutility. He saw around him the results of this wrong. He saw that his people were victims of the wrongs inflicted by other tribes and that in retaliation they gloried in returning wrong with wrong; that consequently they were feeble in numbers and slept insecure, for with the dawn might come a war cry of an enemy. The war lust had seized upon his people. He looked to the east and there saw the people of the stone, the O-ney-yote-car-ono, whom we call the Oneidas, and in them a people of the same language of his own, but they were his enemies; he looked farther toward the rising sun and there were the Ga-ne-gao-ono (Mohawks), also of his own language, but they, too, were enemies; when he looked toward the setting sun he beheld the men of the Gwe-no-cweh-ono, the Oneidas, of his own blood and language, and beyond them the Nun-da-wa-ono, the people of the big hill, and they, too, were of his own speech and blood, but all were enemies. It grieved him that he was to go out some day to kill these people whose fathers' fathers had been his fathers' fathers, and who were his brothers.

He often sat with bower head and brooded over these things that were in his mind, whole others youths exercised with the bow and the club. The old men said of him that he would be greater than hose warriors, for his words burned, and that it would come to pass that he would lead the men who make war, and they would follow.

And when it came to him to dream his dreams, he went into the deep forest and there he lay for days, fasting, and when he came to be like on dead, his dream came to him, and he saw a beautiful vision of a world at peace. After he saw the wonder river, the O-hee-O, and upon its bank grew the great trees and their branches hung over its waters, filled with fruits and nuts; and he saw the canoes on the river, those on the right side floating down stream, and on the left side, they floated up the stream, and the paddles were idle, for they needed no propulsion. And when the people in the canoes were hungry they held up their hands toward the trees, and the boughs bent down and gave their fruit into the hands of the hungry. And there were no thorns on the briers, nor on the trees, no beasts of prey, and no wrong, for such was the world before the pride and ambition of the Indian had challenged the power of Rawennyo, who made the world, and wars had not come, nor hunger and pestilence, to curse the people of the world.

And when he had dreamed his dream, he arose and, weak with fasting, but with a vision of the peace that was once the heritage of the world, he came to the village of the hill people, and there he lifted his hands to the east, the south, the west, and the north, and said: "Oh, Rawennyo, I have seen the world at peace in my dream, and I understand what you have set for me to do; I accept the task and will perform what you have appointed for me to do. I cam content."

Then Ay-oun-a-wa-ta went out among the men of his tribe and told them of his dream, and besought them to make peace forever with their brothers to the east and to the west, for they were of one blood and flesh. And he told them that it was the will of Him-who-made-the-world that they should form an alliance to last forever with these, their brothers; and the men said that his words were good, but in the council that ws called the people rejected the words of Ay-oun-a-wa-ta because they feared. A-ho-tar-o, the war chief, who carried serpents about his neck, so he was called A-ho-tar-o of the Snaky Locks.

Then Ay-oun-a-wa-ta, rejected by his own people, went to the east, till he came to the land of the Mohawks, bearing the white wampum which means peace, and he told them of his mission from Him-who-made-the-world, to unite the people to the east and the west in one league so that the people of the race would be forever at peace and become numerous so they would fear no other tribe, and the Mohawks said that this was good, and they adopted Ay-oun-a-wa-ta to be one of them, for his own people had rejected his words, which were the words of Rawennyo. They then sent him with others of the Mohawks to the Oneidas, the Cayugas, and the Senecas, bearing white wampum and all of these people said likewise that his words were good. And when they had taken council all together, they went to the people of the hill, bearing the white wampum, and told them that they had entered into an alliance forever, and that they wanted the people of the hill to join then, as they were the fathers of all, and that A-ho-tar-o should be the great chief of all the tribes, in war. So it was agreed that they should become the great league, and this was the great peace, Kayanerenh-kowa, and all the five tribes took an oath to be forever at peach with each other. So became the Wis-nyeh-goin-sa-geh, or the five peoples bound together by an oath, and it became in the history of the land of American what the Romans were in the early history of Europe.

Ay-oun-a-wa-ta, adopted by the Mohawks, became the great man of that tribe and honored as the founder of the confederacy of the Iroquois, called by the whites the "Five Nations." To this day the Mohawks in their new home in Ontario, whither they moved after the War of the Revolution, still have their Ay-cun-a-wa-ta, the successor in a line of chiefs, "raised up" to perpetuate the name and the place of the great dreamer, who brought about the league.

This poetic account of the formation of the great league is given here because its marks one of the most important events of Indian history, and in the opinion of the writer a far-reaching event in determining not only the subsequent trend of Indian history, but that of the whites in America.