An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity
Feb 14 2007
I just published an article "Where License Reigns With All Impunity": An Anarchist Study of the Rotinonshón:ni Polity in the latest edition of Northeastern Anarchist (#12, Winter 2007).
(* note to Libcom librarians, please don't add this text to the library here for about a month. I'd like the hits to go to nefac.net, thanks)
Here is the introduction:
Quote:
"Their Policy in this is very wise, and has nothing Barbarous in it. For, since their preservation depends upon their union, and since it is hardly possible that among peoples where license reigns with all impunity -- and, above all, among young people -- there should not happen some event capable of causing a rupture, and disuniting their minds, -- for these reasons, they hold every year a general assembly in Onnontaé. There all the Deputies from the different Nations are present, to make their complaints and receive the necessary satisfaction in mutual gifts, -- by means of which they maintain a good understanding with one another."
François le Mercier, 1668 (1)
Some historical materialists claim a densely settled, agricultural population will inevitably develop into a hierarchically stratified society, with a centralized state and an exploitative economic redistribution system, in order avoid warfare while resolving blood feuds among its members.(2) While this is a common occurence, it is not the only way these issues have been resolved. Located along the southern banks of Kaniatarí:io (Lake Ontario), the traditional society of the Rotinonshón:ni (Iroquois),(3) "The People of the Longhouse," was a densely settled, matrilineal, communal, and extensively horticultural society. The Rotinonshón:ni formed a confederacy initially of five nations: Kanien'kehá:ka (Mohawk), Oneniote'á:ka (Onedia), Ononta'kehá:ka (Onondaga), Kaion'kehá:ka (Cayuga) and Shotinontowane'á:ka (Seneca). Generations before historical contact with Europeans,(4) these nations united through the Kaianere'kó:wa (“the Great Good Way”) into the same polity(5) and ended blood feuding without economic exploitation, stratification, or the formation of a centralized state.
Jared Diamond hypothesizes that when stateless egalitarian hunter-gather societies develop agriculture and experience population growth, blood feuds and new resource management problems challenge their ability to maintain horizontal political relationships and economic communalism. (6) According to Diamond, the material transition itself leads inevitably to the State, which he refers to as "the kleptocracy," and the most the oppressed can hope for by revolting is for a change in the rate of exploitation and oppression by installing a new group of kleptocrats. In his view, "the kleptocracy" is ultimately a function of material culture.(7)
Some Marxists agree with Diamond's perspective. They argue that in the transitions from hunter-gather communism to feudalism, and from there to capitalism, society develops the industrial production of the social wealth necessary for communism to become an option again. There is at least one strong counter example to this vulgar historical determinism and unilinear cultural evolution: the formation and continued survival of the Rotinonshón:ni in the northeast of North America.
While critical of Marxism, Murray Bookchin acknowledges the cooperative and peaceful internal nature of hunter-gather societies but also brings up the problems of external warfare.
Quote:
"To members of their own bands, tribes, or clans, prehistoric and later foraging peoples were normally cooperative and peaceful; but toward members of other bands, tribes, or clans, they were often warlike, even sometimes genocidal in their efforts to dispossess them and appropriate their land.... As to modern foragers, the conflicts between Native American tribes are too numerous to cite at any great length... the tribes that were to finally make up the Iroquois Confederacy (the Confederacy itself was a matter of survival if they were not to all but exterminate one another), and the unrelenting conflict between Mohawks and Hurons, which led to the near extermination and flight of remnant Huron communities." (8)
The conflicts Bookchin mentions occurred around Kaniatarí:io and Lake Erie in the 17th century and are often referred to as the “Beaver Wars,” due to the connection with the fur trade between indigenous and European people. Bookchin’s description the conflict of Kanien'kehá:ka and the Wendat (Huron) as “extermination” or “genocidal” is inaccurate. Rather than a matter of ethnic cleansing or economic competition, that conflict is better understood as a civil war of political unification among Iroquois speakers. It is ironic that in Bookchin’s tirade against modern anti-civilizationist mystification of the primitive, he acknowledges the formation as of Rotinonshón:ni polity that ended the warfare among the Five Nations, but fails to reflect upon this momentous accomplishment or see how much their achievement has parallels with his own political ideas.
Feb 14 2007
#2
thanks for posting this, flint!
Feb 15 2007
#3
yay! its finally done! You can start bugging me to finish mine now. I've got nothing done because you've been to busy to bug me.
Feb 15 2007
#4
revolutionrugger wrote:
yay! its finally done! You can start bugging me to finish mine now. I've got nothing done because you've been to busy to bug me.
I want to see a draft, or whatever you have in the way of notes by March 1st.
Feb 15 2007
#5
Saw this on Livejournal and ignored it thinking it would be the usual primmo crap that place is awash with. Now I know it might actually be interesting I'll have a look later.
Feb 15 2007
#6
ticking_fool wrote:
Saw this on Livejournal and ignored it thinking it would be the usual primmo crap that place is awash with. Now I know it might actually be interesting I'll have a look later.
I am certainly not a primitivist. Neither was Engels, or so I'm told.
Quote:
"No soldiers, no gendarmes or police, no nobles, kings, regents, prefects, or judges, no prisons, no lawsuits - and everything takes its orderly course. All quarrels and disputes are settled by the whole of the community affected, by the gens or the tribe, or by the gentes among themselves; only as an extreme and exceptional measure is blood revenge threatened-and our capital punishment is nothing but blood revenge in a civilized form, with all the advantages and drawbacks of civilization. Although there were many more matters to be settled in common than today - the household is maintained by a number of families in common, and is communistic, the land belongs to the tribe, only the small gardens are allotted provisionally to the households - yet there is no need for even a trace of our complicated administrative apparatus with all its ramifications. The decisions are taken by those concerned, and in most cases everything has been already settled by the custom of centuries. There cannot be any poor or needy - the communal household and the gens know their responsibilities towards the old, the sick, and those disabled in war. All are equal and free - the women included. There is no place yet for slaves, nor, as a rule, for the subjugation of other tribes."
Engels, Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State
Feb 16 2007
#7
Flint wrote:
The conflicts Bookchin mentions occurred around Kaniatarí:io and Lake Erie in the 17th century and are often referred to as the “Beaver Wars,” due to the connection with the fur trade between indigenous and European people. Bookchin’s description the conflict of Kanien'kehá:ka and the Wendat (Huron) as “extermination” or “genocidal” is inaccurate. Rather than a matter of ethnic cleansing or economic competition, that conflict is better understood as a civil war of political unification among Iroquois speakers. It is ironic that in Bookchin’s tirade against modern anti-civilizationist mystification of the primitive, he acknowledges the formation as of Rotinonshón:ni polity that ended the warfare among the Five Nations, but fails to reflect upon this momentous accomplishment or see how much their achievement has parallels with his own political ideas.
I completely agree that Bookchin's view of this war having been led for extermination and as genocidal is wrong. On the other hand, from what I heard and read, the war between the Haudenosaunee (Iroqois) and Wendat seems to have been not a civil war between two peoples with a related language, but a war for economic dominance. This explanation also does not collide with the war no being for extermination (which should be obvious, because part of the Wendat joined the Confederacy when the war was over). I'd be interested where you found this info about the war being a matter of political unification. thnx
Feb 16 2007
#8
aswad wrote:
I completely agree that Bookchin's view of this war having been led for extermination and as genocidal is wrong. On the other hand, from what I heard and read, the war between the Haudenosaunee (Iroqois) and Wendat seems to have been not a civil war between two peoples with a related language, but a war for economic dominance. This explanation also does not collide with the war no being for extermination (which should be obvious, because part of the Wendat joined the Confederacy when the war was over). I'd be interested where you found this info about the war being a matter of political unification. thnx
Economic dominance is the typical explanation that most European historians used for a long time. The interest of the Dutch and the French in the Beaver Wars was economic. While there were economic incentives in regards to the fur trade, I think those were mostly motivated because of the suddenly created need for fire arms and metal weapons , that the Rotinonshón:ni could not create for themselves.
It is also important to keep in mind that Rotinonshón:ni and Wendat were already at war before arrival of the Europeans. French aid to the Wendat, however, greatly changed the nature of that conflict.
Another economic reason for many Wendat going over to the Rotinonshón:ni, was traditional Wendat objecting to Wendats converting to Christianity. The converts had exclusive access to French goods (including weapons) and violated the traditional communal practices.
The most compelling reason is actually religious. Among Iroquois peoples, disease was regarded as a spiritual attack form an unknown party. The Rotinonshón:ni blamed the Wendat, with whom they were already at war, and vice versa. Traditionalists (Wendat and Rotinonshón:ni) blamed the "blackrobes" (Jesuit Missionaries)--in this they were partially correct. The mourning war a cultural tradition shared throughout Iroquois culture (Wendat and Rotinonshón:ni). The Rotinonshón:ni did not really pick up the pace of the war until after 1634, that is after the first historically recorded small pox plague in their community. Wendat not only joined the Rotinonshón:ni after the war, but far more were captured and adopted during the war than were killed.
If you read the article, I cite my sources; but the view Beaver Wars as about being far more than economic dominance is increasingly prevalent among scholars who study the Iroquois. Daniel Richter and Daniel P. Barr are good places to start.
Feb 16 2007
#9
That is not to say that perhaps even the religous aspects of mourning wars weren't actually related to a material need. The pox hits the old and the young the hardest (but kills a whole lot of eveybody anyway). European diseases contacting the indigenous of the Americas was the largest demographic disaster in recorded history. Huge amounts of knowledge disappeared as almost all of the elders in epidemic disease, and almost all of the titles positions would have had to be replaced. It also would have been an unprecedented disaster to the female population who were generally not involved in warfare, and generally adopted if captured. The women provided the majority of the sustenance through their agricultural labor. The Rotinonshón:ni were experiencing a population crash and desperately needed to increase their number of laborers and warriors. They also needed to gain as much knowledge capital as possible. Most of those who would have been adopted (rather than killed) would have been women, children and the elderly.
So, if anything... the economic drive for the Beaver Wars was an effort for the Rotinonshón:ni poilty (and even culture) to survive as a viable entity by stabilizing it's laboring population.
It is also during this period in which there is the closest the Rotinonshón:ni came to a stratified society, in which some captives may have been treated similarly to slaves and not adopted. This practice ended with that generation. By the 1700s, the Tuscaroras joined the Rotinonshón:ni as an autonomous nation... they were fleeing not just warfare with the North Carolinans but also fleeing slavery. The Rotinonshón:ni would even adopt escaped african slaves (as well as native american slaves) as full members of their polity.
Feb 19 2007
#10
aswad wrote:
I completely agree that Bookchin's view of this war having been led for extermination and as genocidal is wrong. On the other hand, from what I heard and read, the war between the Haudenosaunee (Iroqois) and Wendat seems to have been not a civil war between two peoples with a related language, but a war for economic dominance. This explanation also does not collide with the war no being for extermination (which should be obvious, because part of the Wendat joined the Confederacy when the war was over). I'd be interested where you found this info about the war being a matter of political unification. thnx
I got a response from Dean R. Snow today.
Quote:
"I found your article to be interesting, partly because it adopts a thesis as a political position and then assembles evidence to support that thesis. This is not the way in which a scholar with my kind of training usually work. Because we don't share a common mode of argumentation I don't think that I can offer much in the way of constructive criticism. I was interested to see that you cited Harold Barclay. I think that this was the same Harold Barclay who joined the anthropology faculty at the University of Oregon the last year I was a grad student there back in the 1960s. I recommend that you also look at Joseph Brandao's book Your Fyre Shall Burn No More. Joe does a good job of shooting down Hunt's ideas that the wars of the 17th century were all about the economics of the beaver fur trade. You might find some use for that source."Dean R. Snow, Ph.D, Professor of Archaeological Anthropology, President-Elect of the Society for American Archaeology, Secretary of the Society for American Archaeology 2003-05 and Secretary of Section H (Anthropology) of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 2000-06, author of The Iroquois, Mohawk Valley Archaeology: The Collections, Mohawk Valley Archaeology: The Sites and In the County of the Mohawks: Early Narratives about a Native People.
Feb 21 2007
#11
Flint, you do realize that a majority of this thread is you talking to yourself right? I love you man, but you could probably stand to walk away from the computer once in awhile.
Feb 21 2007
#12
Smash Rich Bastards wrote:
Flint, you do realize that a majority of this thread is you talking to yourself right? I love you man, but you could probably stand to walk away from the computer once in awhile.
It's this or ATHATHATHATHATHATHATHATHATHATHA
Feb 21 2007
#13
Flint wrote:
Smash Rich Bastards wrote:
Flint, you do realize that a majority of this thread is you talking to yourself right? I love you man, but you could probably stand to walk away from the computer once in awhile.It's this or ATHATHATHATHATHATHATHATHATHATHA
Ever thought of taking up knitting or bird watching or something?
Feb 21 2007
#14
Smash Rich Bastards wrote:
Flint wrote:
Smash Rich Bastards wrote:
Flint, you do realize that a majority of this thread is you talking to yourself right? I love you man, but you could probably stand to walk away from the computer once in awhile.It's this or ATHATHATHATHATHATHATHATHATHATHA
Ever thought of taking up knitting or bird watching or something?
One of my co-workers knits, so I don't need to. As to birdwatching, I live in Baltimore and the air here kills most fowl.
Personally, I'm disturbed that most discussion about this article is actually on Anti-Politics. I must have done something horribly wrong.
Feb 21 2007
#15
Flint wrote:
Smash Rich Bastards wrote:
Flint wrote:
Smash Rich Bastards wrote:
Flint, you do realize that a majority of this thread is you talking to yourself right? I love you man, but you could probably stand to walk away from the computer once in awhile.It's this or ATHATHATHATHATHATHATHATHATHATHA
Ever thought of taking up knitting or bird watching or something?
One of my co-workers knits, so I don't need to. As to birdwatching, I live in Baltimore and the air here kills most fowl.
Personally, I'm disturbed that most discussion about this article is actually on Anti-Politics. I must have done something horribly wrong.
I hate those people. They are like the 'Dungeons and Dragons' fantasy roll-playing rejects of the anarchist world. Have fun with that.
Feb 22 2007
#16
Smash Rich Bastards wrote:
Flint wrote:
Smash Rich Bastards wrote:
Flint wrote:
Smash Rich Bastards wrote:
Flint, you do realize that a majority of this thread is you talking to yourself right? I love you man, but you could probably stand to walk away from the computer once in awhile.It's this or ATHATHATHATHATHATHATHATHATHATHA
Ever thought of taking up knitting or bird watching or something?
One of my co-workers knits, so I don't need to. As to birdwatching, I live in Baltimore and the air here kills most fowl.
Personally, I'm disturbed that most discussion about this article is actually on Anti-Politics. I must have done something horribly wrong.
I hate those people. They are like the 'Dungeons and Dragons' fantasy roll-playing rejects of the anarchist world. Have fun with that.
Haven't you seen Flint and his DnD pictures? Freaky.
Feb 22 2007
#17
Commodity wrote:
Haven't you seen Flint and his DnD pictures? Freaky.
You are soooo jealous.
I need to add this part so that my publisher is happy.
and order a subscription to Northeastern Anarchist!
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