part one of four
part two part three part four
copyright 1998 by Tika Yupanqui
IROQUOIS FALSE FACE
from top to bottom:
IROQUOIS FALSE FACE
from top to bottom
In past centuries, the Iroquois indians of the Great Lakes considered dreams to be a guide to their lives, to dictate their choices in regard to fishing, hunting, war, dancing, marriage and other significant life events. The Iroquois especially listened carefully to dreams their people had prior to war and hunting - a war party would even turn back if one of its members dreamed of failure immediately before or during the hunt.
In The Shaman's Doorway, Stephen Larsen quotes the French missionary Ragueneau's Jesuit Relations, (and material by Ragueneau originally appearing in the American Anthropologist, April 1958) who carefully documented the Iroquois approach to dreams:
"The Iroquois believe that our souls have other desires, which are,
as it were, inborn and concealed. These, they say, come from the depths
of the soul, not through any knowledge.... They have no divinity but the
dream. They submit themselves to it and follow its order with the utmost
exactness. Whatever they see themselves doing in dreams they believe they
are absolutely obliged to execute at the earliest possible moment. Iroquois
would think themselves guilty of a great crime if they failed to obey a
Chief Cornplanter's Dream
Cornplanter felt this interpretation and guidance was correct, and he
burned up the gifts he had received from Washington, Adams and Jefferson.
He then chose an old friend as his successor, and sent him a tomahawk and
a belt of wantum to announce his resignation and to honor the new chief.
He was at peace with his decision, and content to follow the dictates of
his dreams and make choices which brought him into further harmony with
the Great Spirit and his tribe.
Dream Prophecy and Ely Parker
In 1828, four months before his birth at the Tonawanda Seneca reservation in Indian Falls, N.Y., Parker's mother had an unsettling dream in which she beheld a broken rainbow reaching from the home of Indian agent Erastus Granger, in Buffalo, to the reservation. Troubled, Elizabeth Johnson ...visited a Seneca dream interpreter in an attempt to better understand what she had seen. His translation of her vision was nothing less than spectacular.
The dream interpreter told Parker: "A son will be born to you who
will be distinguished among his nation as a peacemaker; he will become
a white man as well as an Indian, with great learning; he will be a warrior
for the palefaces; he will be a wise white man, but will never desert his
Indian people or 'lay down his horns as a great Iroquois chief'; his name
will reach from the East to the West--the North to the South, as great
among his Indian family and the palefaces. His sun will rise on Indian
land and set on the white man's land. Yet the land of his ancestors will
fold him in death." As it happened, the prophecy came true.
Dream Prophecy and Deganawida
About 1390, an Iroquois mother living near the Bay of Quinte had a very special dream: A messenger came to her and revealed that her maiden daughter, who lived at home, would soon give birth to a son. She would call him De-ka-nah-wi-da (De-kah-a-wee-da). When a grown man, he would bring to all people the good Tidings of Peace and Power from the Chief of the Sky Spirits. De-ka-nah-wi-da was born, as the dream foretold.
Years later, Deganawida became the founder of the Iroquois League of Nations, also known as "The Great Peace", and his teachings were considered to be "The Great Law." In several books, most notably, The Forgotten Founders: How the American Indian Shaped Democracy by Bruce E. Johansen, historians point out the both Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson had considerable contact with the Iroquois, that they studied and respected the political unity of the Iroquois federation, and that they patterned the United States constitution and system of government after the Iroquois system.
Again from De-Ka-Na-Wi-Da
"In the future, your Annual Confederacy Council Fire shall be held here at the Onondaga village.... It will be your Seat of Government. New Chiefs shall be confirmed by the Confederacy Council .... When other nations wish to accept the good Tidings of Peace and Power, they shall be seated within the Confederacy Council."
"...Let the good Tidings of Peace and Power and righteousness be
your guide in all your Council Fires.....I now proclaim the formation of
the League of the Five Iroquois Nations completed. I leave in your hands
these principles I have received from the Chief of the Sky Spirits. In
the future you will have the power to add any necessary rules for the safety
and well-being of the Confederacy....My mission is now fulfilled."
The Meaning of Dreams
Often in their dreams, the Iroquois looked for overt or hidden instructions, and religiously followed the guidance they heard or experienced. Following such dictates exactly was extremely important; failure to do so could cause misfortune. A past issue of Parabola magazine includes an article by Joseph Bruchach, in which he quotes an Iroquois story about following the direct guidance of a dream. The story begins:
One night Hanjanoh had a dream. In the dream his spirit protector, a great water bird, flew down. ``Beware the eyes of false friends," said the spirit protector. Then it was gone. The next morning Hahjanoh woke before dawn. He went out to the village and hid behind a large stone. Soon he saw a strange sight. From the village came the children who had been acting strangely toward him.
Often, the Iroquois believed that a dream called for enactment - acting
out the dream story with the witness or involvement of other members of
the community. Dreamsharing was often a communal experience; tensions experienced
in the dream were expressed and released through community sharing and
How Fire Came to the Six Nations
Three Arrows prayed to the Great Spirit. He begged that soon his clan spirit would appear in a dream and tell him what his guardian animal or bird was to be. When he knew this, he would adopt a bird or animal as his special guardian for the rest of his life. When the dream came he would be free to return to his people, his dream fast successfully achieve.
For five suns Three Arrows spent his days and nights on the rocky
plateau, only climbing down to the little spring for water after each sunset.
His heart was filled with a dark cloud because that morning his father
had sadly warned him that the next day, the sixth sun, he must return to
his village even if no dream had come to him in the night. This meant returning
to his people in disgrace without the chance of taking another dream fast.
Communal Dream Sharing
The False Face Society were a select group of Iroquois who wore masks (see Iroquois masks at left) in order to invoke the spirits and befriend them, in order to combat illness, diseases of the mind, and misfortune. In healing tribal members, the False Faces used ritual and curative dances. People healed by the False Faces often asked for renewal through repetition of the dances during tribal ceremonies. The False Faces led the communal dream interpretation and rituals during major ceremonies throughout the year, and especially the Midwinter Dream Festival (see part two to follow in the next issue).
The dreamwork of the Iroquois was not only an early precursor of the
dreamwork and analysis of Freud and Jung; it is very similar to the
approach to dream interpretation used today by many psychologists trained
in Freudian, Jungian and gestalt dream techniques. Consider the following
quotations from authors of contemporary books on dreamwork, and compare
these to the Iroquois approach to dreamwork:
James Hall: "A dream is a piece of reality...whose meaning is pregnant but uncertain, and whose fate in the world of the waking-ego lies in our own hands. If we treat it with respect, it serves us. There is never any doubt as to its underlying concern for our ultimate welfare."
Sam Keen: "Hatred, cruelty, confusion, despair, and madness must be admitted into consciousness before they can be integrated. I have to reverence my anger and fear before they become civilized."
Tracy Marks: As Perseus killed Medusa by encountering her image in a mirror ( direct confrontation was too potent an experience), so we may be best able to access and integrate the potent energy of our primitive and transpersonal selves through our inner images....Many conflicts between people and wars between nations result from lack of personal integration, from projecting the disowned facets of ourselves onto others and battling them externally. Within ourselves, in our dreamwork, we can begin to accomplish what couples, families, groups and nations in conflict may fail to accomplish, thereby contributing to our community.
Iroquois False Face Masks at left from Agawah Crafts Online and the