Bronze edition: 20 | Height: 33″
“None of the most famous heroes of rome have discovered a greater love of their country or a greater contempt of death than these people.”
The 5 nations of the Iroquois league (Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca) were governed at the highest level by the grand council comprising 50 mostly old men. Elected by the council of women, these grand sachems, known as “the confederate lords,” came from certain royal families who provided a hereditary lineage going back centuries to the birth of the league itself. Below the grand council were the pine tree chiefs who were not hereditary but rather were elected on the basis of some unusual gift or talent such as diplomacy and oratory. In that capacity, acting as envoys, they were the chiefs who negotiated treaties with other native nations as well as Europeans. In contrast, bravery, cunning and superior ability as a charismatic military leader, able to attract many warriors to his banner, caused “Warhawk” to be elected war chief.
“I had always supposed heretofore that the paintings and the busts of the roman emperors, represented the ideal of artists rather than men who had actually ever existed … until I came to this country. For among these people I see everywhere the heads of Julius Caesar, augustus, pompey and others so strong and so powerful are their features.”
Fr. Paul Lejeune, 1634
“…yet in them was often seen a native dignity of bearing which ochre and bear’s grease could not hide and comported well with their strong, symmetrical and sometimes majestic proportions.”
Francis Parkman “Jesuits in North America,” 1867
“…we have known from our experience that the Iroquois is of a crafty disposition, adroit, dissembling and haughty and that he will never descend so low as to be first to ask peace from us unless he has a great scheme in his head or is driven to it by some very pressing reason.”
Fr. Jerome Lalemont, c.1663
“It is [rightly] imagined in france that the Iroquois are of a ferocious aspect and that their very sight and name would strike terror into all who would encounter them … Generally speaking you would nowhere find finer looking men. The savages [algonquins] are of a better build than the French but even so side by side with the Iroquois these others seemed dwarfed,”
Fr. Bonin C.1735
“None of the most famous heroes of rome have discovered a greater love of their country or a greater contempt of death than these people.”
Cadwallader Colden, 1727
