Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 34

Essay Example This study will focus on one nation, the Iroquois, as a prime example. The Iroquois people, who called themselves Haudenosaunee envisioned their Nation as being one giant family. In truth they created a governing body that was a family of nations. The name, Haudenosaunee, which is used to refer to this Iroquois nation, means literally, "People of the Longhouse." They built long houses that were large structures creating a long hall and became the meeting place for local and distant chieftains and other dignitaries to speak, make laws, give announcements, etc. Some of these structures were hundreds of feet long for meeting of all the nations, while single villages’ were less than fifty feet in length. However, the width and height of longhouses varied only slightly. Haudenosaunee longhouses were usually between twenty and thirty feet wide and the apex of their roofs were generally between eighteen to twenty feet high. The true center of longhouse family relationships revolved around the fireside family. (Johnson, 2003, p. 12) In fact their many c enturies old culture may have actually been the first congress of democracy in the America’s long before the Declaration of Independence or the United States Constitution. The Iroquois Nation was bound together by what is probably the worlds first constitution, known as the Gayanashagowa (Great Law of Peace). They are also touted as being the first true participatory democracy on the planet. (Benner, 2005, p. 32) They formed a United Nations among themselves. While our very recent constitution states that â€Å"all men are created equal,† in practice if certain people have something you need and do not want to give it up, then suddenly they are no longer people, savages and not men, but animals. While there had always been many disputes over the Native American, the Iroquois would find that in 1785 New York and its then Governor, George Clinton, along with a company called The New York Genesee