Deganawidah to deGama

In the New World of the late 1400’s North America was a dreamland. A story we have, of Hiawatha, portrays the red men as pained by one very human experience: the grief which accompanies loss of loved ones. Out of his receiving the ritual of mourning from the spirit guide Deganawidah, and convincing Mohawk, Oneida, Onandaga, and Cayuga leaders, the Iroquois formed their Great League of Peace and Power. That confederacy would strengthen native Americans in their upcoming contact with white-skinned Europeans.

At the time, Pocohontas’ father Powhatan was chief over 200 unbarricaded villages. He, his people, and the people of his father before him, dwelt in orderly cycles of agricultural tillage and shell fishing. Colors and shapes had great meaning in the spiritual world of native Americans; strawberries were symbolic for their red roundness in an angular black and white world. Religious awe was also conveyed upon naturally refractive surfaces such as calm water and crystalline rock. The land native Americans lived on could not be owned by any one individual: it belonged to everyone.

On the European continent in that day, out of scattered Magna Carta townships forged by plague and religious wars, expansionistic young nations emerged. Royal houses entertained petitioners who would carry their flag abroad, and rich clergy supplied the backing. Technological advances in sailing such as the astrolabe, rudder, and sail combined then, to lead European ships down the coast of Africa.

Each expedition added to the knowledge of maritime wind and currents on further reaches of the Atlantic ocean, and it was come to be believed that a short-cut to the spice-rich East Indies would be found out there, just beyond the horizon. So, to the west cohorts of Spanish, English, and French adventurers went, seeking the spices, gold, and souls their crown and church demanded.

By the mid-1500’s numerous contacts had been made between old and new world. Most "Indians" had yet to see a white face, but European diseases had cost native Americans untold human grief. As sickness depopulated one area, it moved right along with the captives of mourning wars to the next.

Already suffering a familiar world turned strange, when conquistadores made entrada of a new town, pueblo peoples were served with the "Requirement" of the Spanish crown, as represented by the oddly dressed pale men recently landed nearby, that they should swear fealty to it and prepare to be saved!