The Mohawk Ten Commandments
GANIENKEH – 40 years ago on this day, Karoniaktajeh (aka Louis Hall) authored what he termed “The Mohawk Ten Commandments” in the Warrior Society’s newsletter. Karoniaktajeh was an artist and teacher who designed the Unity flag, and he was also deeply involved with supporting the establishment of Ganienkeh, an “Independent North American Indian State” which was created through the reclamation of traditional Mohawk territory in what was then called Moss Lake, NY. (Ganienkeh was later moved to its current location in Clinton County, NY after a long standoff with state authorities led to successful negotiations.) For more information about Ganienkeh please visit http://www.ganienkeh.net/.
A MESSAGE FROM GANIENKEH • INDEPENDENT NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN STATE • NO. 9 FEBRUARY 10, 1976
This is to reassure that I, Karoniaktajeh, author of the following Mohawk Ten Commandments, did not go up a mountain and get them from the Lord as the white man says his ancestor Moses did, but they were conceived in the mountains of Ganienkeh Territory of the Mohawks, under what has been called harsh conditions (fifty below) and lay no claims to be a prophet and divinely inspired nor that these Mohawk Commandments shall lead to any Paradise in the after-life but were designed to meet the problems on earth and uncover the secrets of peace and happiness in this earthly life.
MOHAWK TEN COMMANDMENTS
l. BE BRAVE AND FEARLESS as there can be no peace on earth for those who are in fear.
2. BE STRONG. In this hard cruel world, only the strong may know peace and happiness. To be weak is to invite aggression, oppression, tyranny, misery and woe.
3. FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHTS FOR ONLY THOSE WHO FIGHT for it can achieve human rights and respect. There is a right and a wrong way to fight. Always propose to fight in a clever way for he who fights in a clever way is equal to a thousand men.
4. MAINTAIN A STRONG NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE AND SOVEREIGNTY under the GREAT LAW OF PEACE – GAYANEREKOWA – and let your slogan be Peace, Righteousness, and Power for not one of these is possible without the other two. Let no power abolish your nation.
5. MAINTAIN YOUR OWN NATIONAL INITIATIVEand let no other nation control your destiny. Respect Nature’s first law of SELF-PRESERVATION AND STOP ANY TRAITOR SEEKING TO DESTROY YOU AND YOUR PEOPLE for any nation which ignores this law stands condemned to extinction.
6. DEVELOP THE SPIRIT OF CO-OPERATION that your nation can rely completely on its own efforts. To become a competitive state is to create tensions, strife, panic, frenzy, fear, hate, bigotry, weakness and divisions.
7. THINK RIGHT so that YOU SHALL DO RIGHT and BE RIGHT for only the purely justice minded can achieve peace and happiness for all.
8. RESPECT THE RIGHTS OF OTHERS that your own rights may be respected and these rights include the right to live and be free, the right to a nationality, territory, government, possessions, freedom of speech, to think and believe as one seeks fit, human rights and to the pursuit of peace and happiness.
9. ACQUIRE WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORLD for only understanding among all people will misunderstanding and wars be eliminated. Let there be a special course of study on the subject of devising a proper moral government and that proper people be trained to operate this very important device to ensure the peace and happiness of mankind; and that a study be included to produce a most worthy economic system to eliminate poverty, misery and wretchedness. Let only those who pass a most rigid test on the subjects of government and economic knowledge be allowed to run governments and nations.
10. ACQUIRE ADVANCED HUMAN RELATIONSHIP.Human birth is an act of Nature and all humanity is equally subject to Nature’s law of death. No one has the right of lordship over others. The more able only have the right to help those less able; the appointed leaders of governments only have the right to be the voice and will of the people that all may share the bounties of nature and know peace and happiness.
