The Haudenosaunee Creation Story, the Thanksgiving Address, the Great Law of Peace, the Two Row Wampum, and the Code of Handsome Lake are the foundations of Haudenosaunee culture. Each represents a unique way of thinking, being, seeing, and a protocol that is grounded in the environment and in a respect for all living things. The turtle, which symbolically represents the formation of the earth among the Haudenosaunee, is one of many species of life that holds certain responsibilities to the natural world. Humans, as one species, have a responsibility to be the voice for those who cannot talk our language - those of the natural environment of fish, birds, grasses, trees, etc, as well as those unborn - for the natural world and to ensure the cycles of creation continue for all future generations. This sacred trust is evident in the measured ways in which our people used the natural resources around them, ensuring that only what was needed was taken so that a species of plant, fish, or wild game would be able to regenerate and flourish in subsequent years and for future generations. That respect for life is a large part of the Thanksgiving Address which provides us the opportunity to greet, honor, and thank all species of creation so that we, as humans, may survive.

As a matrilineal society, the Haudenosaunee are guided by the leadership of clanmothers, elders who serve to represent their extended families known as clans. This honor was bestowed among women by the Peacemaker (Skanenrahowi in Mohawk), whose message of Peace was first accepted by Jikonsaseh (Tsiknosaseh in Mohawk), a Seneca woman. Her title, as the mother of nations, gave women, in particular clanmothers, the authority to appoint or remove a chief within a clan and to protect the names of titles and children. Among the Mohawks, there are three main clans: Turtle, Wolf and Bear.

The fire for the Mohawks rests at Akwesasne with the Mohawk Nation Council of Chiefs. The Mohawk Nation is one of the original Five Nations, of the Haudenosaunee or Iroquois Confederacy. The other nations (from East to West) are the Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca. In the 1700s, the Tuscaroras joined to form the Six Nations. No one knows when the Confederacy was formed, although some academic experts believe it was as early as 1142. The inspiration for the founding of the Confederacy came from a messenger who is simply referred to as the Peacemaker, a spiritual being who worked to fulfill the mission of bringing peace to Nations at war. Over the course of many years, the Peacemaker, with the help of a Mohawk named Ayonwatha (or Aiionwatha), worked to produce a lasting peace that bonded the forces of each of the Six Nations into one social, political and spiritual institution that was based on traditional cultural values. The Peacemaker helped to reorganize the Nations into extended families (clans) and then raised leaders from each of the clans who were given the duty of working together for the good of the people. He called these men "roiane" or "men who are of the good mind" The Peacemaker and Aiionwatha introduced wampum (a bead made from the shell of a mollusk) as pneumonic devices for agreements and/or treaties between the Five Nations and other Indigenous Nations, and then with the European Nations. At the time of the formation of the Confederacy, many spiritual, social, political, ceremonial and other functions of the roiane (chiefs) were instituted among the Haudenosaunee, which are still practiced today.

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