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The Walking People:
A Native American Oral History
Written by Paula Underwood/translated by Jun Hoshikawa Shoeisha |
Writer Jun Hoshikawa who writes books and articles focused on the societies and wisdom of native Americans. President of the Yamada Bee Farm, Hideo Yamada, in connection with the beekeeping business, engages in activities to talk to children about the importance of agriculture that fosters life. The two talked about the importance of looking over a peaceful, democratic society that native Americans had amidst the growing tension in the world.
| Yamada: |
I read through "The Walking People: A Native American Oral History," translated by Mr. Hoshikawa, with deep interest. It's a grand oral history of a clan of the Mongoloid similar to the Japanese who originally lived at the base of the Korean Peninsula and, prompted by a natural disaster, walked across the Bering Strait at the end of a glacial age to become what we call native Americans in a period of about 10,000 years. It's a substantial book.
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Hoshikawa: |
Yes, by reading the book, you can easily understand how the wisdom and culture of the native Americans developed. Naturally, when they went over to North America, they were not the ancestor of all native Americans, but a small clan of about 50 people. Each event, for instance, how wild plants were cultivated, how dress customs were started, and who drew the first picture, is depicted in a surprisingly concrete form.
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Yamada: |
The book is titled an oral history. Have the stories actually been transmitted from generation to generation?
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Hoshikawa: |
The author of the original book, Paula Underwood, wrote them down in words for the first time. Their technique of transmission is indeed very advanced, but the main feature of this clan is the strong sense of purpose to transmit what they learned to the next generation reliably. As you know, the scene "Let's make them presents all for children of children of children" to encourage each other occurs in the story repeatedly.
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Yamada: |
I've heard that you have met Ms. Underwood.
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Hoshikawa: |
Yes. Though I myself had not been formally handed down the material, I think that I was entrusted with many things through the translation of "The Walking People" while exchanging words personally with Ms. Underwood. Because she died two years ago, its importance has increased.
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Yamada: |
What is it that the clan who learned from generation to generation so painstakingly wanted to communicate?
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Hoshikawa: |
In a word, if people discuss things with each other, wisdom will naturally develop among them. Turn an attentive ear to other people, regardless of sex, age, health, position, or status. This clan has single-mindedly continued that idea.
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Yamada: |
They seem to be democratic.
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Hoshikawa: |
Actually, democracy stems from these people.
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Yamada: |
What do you mean?
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Hoshikawa: |
The clan was later involved in the formation of a tribal alliance called the Iroquois League, which greatly influenced the independence and founding of the USA in the 18th century, leading to many democratic movements in the world including the French Revolution.
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Yamada: |
I learned in my school days that democracy originated from Greece and Rome and developed through the parliamentary system in Britain and the philosophy of the Enlightenment in France.
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Hoshikawa: |
No, that's only a half truth and the other half of the story is not told.
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Yamada: |
The other half of the story?
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Hoshikawa: |
Yes, history viewed from the perspective of the native Americans. A story about the origin and development of democracy is contained in it in America. Postwar Japan, which inherited democracy from America, is also very much related. Native tribes around the world who suffered from the destruction of natural environments and traditional culture began to talk about "the other half of the story" on their own at various places during the second half of the 20th century. (*1)
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Yamada: |
What is the story of the Iroquois League?
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Hoshikawa: |
About a thousand years ago, just when the clan of "The Walking People" settled for the last time on the southern shores of Lake Ontario, which is one of the Great Lakes near the border with Canada, a social reformer called "peace maker" appeared. He visited each of the five tribes engaged in bloody strife and tenaciously persuaded them by appealing to them to "Stop settling disputes by force. Instead of violence, settle disputes by discuss and reason," and he got the support of more and more people. According to one story, after the minds of all five tribes were united over a period of one hundred years, they gathered at the root of a big pine tree called the white pine and buried all arms, swearing never to use arms again. They called the tree the "great peace tree" and made it the symbol of the Iroquois League.
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Yamada: |
That's just like the renunciation of war of the Constitution of Japan.
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Hoshikawa: |
"The Iroquois Great Law of Peace " created at that time is the unknown origin of the Constitution of Japan. People of the Iroquois League ran a matrilineal, democratic society according to the peace law. When 13 British colonies tried to become independent from Britain in the 18th century, they were taught to unite by taking the Iroquois League as a model and make use of it to found a new country. Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, who are called the "Founding Fathers" of the United States had learned of the structure of the Iroquois League and how it functioned in their childhood and adopted many elements of the Iroquois League in the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution of Iroquois, the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of Japan, and the United Nations Charter, which is affiliated with the Constitution of Japan, can be deemed to be direct descendents.
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Yamada: |
Only the US deviates from the principle of talks rather than force. (*2)
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Hoshikawa: |
Within the framework of federation, the US has ceased to settle disputes between the states by force since the Civil War. However, in the sense of international renunciation of arms, the Constitution of Japan indeed directly inherited the spirit of the founding of Iroquois. When the US really becomes capable of settling disputes through reason and talks without resorting to guns and missiles, we will be glad to say "Welcome back."
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Yamada: |
However, some people say that the Constitution of Japan was forced on Japan.
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Hoshikawa: |
That's because they have heard only half the story. Democracy has mixed blood, half of which stems from Europe and the other half from native Americans. The latter half, namely the blood of Mongoloids since the Jomon Period also flows in our bodies. In the short period of time between the end the Second World War and the beginning of the Cold War, not only Americans and Japanese, but also people all over the world felt "We have had enough of war" and held up an ideal to "settle disputes through discussion and reason." The Constitution of Japan and the United Nations Charter are results of an outflow from within these universal hopes. It's an illusion to maintain that the Constitution of Japan was forced on Japan. The theory of enforcement is fruitless because Americans themselves who are proud of their freedom and democracy have not yet noticed that they inherited half of their democracy from the indigenous culture rooted on American land.
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Yamada: |
Is the fact that half of freedom and democracy was inherited from native Americans taught in their history education?
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Hoshikawa: |
In the past decades, symposia by researchers were held and several books supported by materials of the natives and Caucasians were published in the US, contributing considerably to such recognition. According to an Iroquoian scholar, the facts are clear-cut. In the second half of the 18th century when the US became an independent nation, he asked where in Europe was there any country in which all people were free and equal. Apart from his ideas and principles, he assumes that only after Europeans came to the American continent and saw how people there practiced freedom and democracy, did they have any idea of implementing such a society.
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Yamada: |
I see, there is no invention without a model.
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Hoshikawa: |
The impact of the American native society as a model, especially the Iroquoian democracy has moved Europe profoundly. I call it the "Pacific rim double spiral." (*3) Starting in the 16th century, spiritual and ideological interactions have made roughly two round trips across the Atlantic between Europe and America. In the first round, navigators and adventurers after Columbus brought back the images of "people who lived freely on the New Continent" and those images enlightened Locke of the Glorious English Revolution and then Montesquieu and Rousseau of the French philosophy of the Enlightenment. In the second round, with a mass emigration from the 17th to the 18th centuries, ideas of democracy and enlightenment developed in Europe crossed the sea to be realized in the independence and founding of the US. Then, after the ideas again returned to Europe via the French Revolution, they spread throughout the world.
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Hoshikawa: |
The impact of North and South America on the world is greater than such resources realized.
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