Mad Bear (Wallace Anderson), was an Iroquois nationalist, a Tuscarora by birth. In August, 1959, author Edmund Wilson had an interview with Mad Bear. In the course of that exchange, Mad Bear expressed his occasional despondency over the plight of his people and the seeming futility of his struggle for their rights. In such moments, Mad Bear related: "Sometimes I feel that the struggle is completely hopeless. Then again I don't know. I think that maybe some day the Iroquois will come into their own again."(61)<http://www.bahai-library.org/file.php?file=buck_native_messengers#N_61_>Then Mad Bear proceeded to relate a prophecy ascribed to Deganawida, which was presumably a source of encouragement whenever his collective hopes for his people flagged. He had heard this prophecy from the head clan mother of the Senecas, who resided on the Tuscarora reserve, and "from a number of other sources," which Mad Bear did not disclose.(62)<http://www.bahai-library.org/file.php?file=buck_native_messengers#N_62_>Mad Bear's version of the prophecy of Deganawida's return begins with a lament typical of apocalyptic literature in general:
- When Deganawida was leaving the Indians in the Bay of Quinté in Ontario, he told the Indian people that they would face a time of great suffering. They would distrust their leaders and the principles of peace of the League, and a great white serpent was to come upon the Iroquois, and that for a time it would intermingle with the Indian people and would be accepted by the Indians, who would treat the serpent as a friend. - This serpent would in time become so powerful that it would attempt to destroy the Indian, and the serpent is described as choking the life's blood out of the Indian people.(63)<http://www.bahai-library.org/file.php?file=buck_native_messengers#N_63_> Mad Bear goes on to describe how the appearance of a red serpent distracts the white serpent. As the two serpents feud, the Indian retreats to the "land of the hilly country" and revives the spirit and principles of peace that Deganawida had established. A seer in the form of a young boy appears and, while watching the contest between the red and white serpents, would impart a message of hope to the Iroquois people, with the promise: "And Deganawida said that they will gather in the land of the hilly country, beneath the branches of an elm tree, and they should burn tobacco and call upon Deganawida by name when we are facing our darkest hours, and he will return." The prophecy ends as follows: - The next direction that he [a young leader, an Indian boy, possibly in his teens, who would be a choice seer] will face will be eastward and at that time he will be momentarily blinded by a light that is many times brighter than the sun. The light will be coming from the east to the west over the water.... Deganawida said as this light approaches that he would be that light, and he would return to his Indian people, and when he returns, the Indian people would be a greater nation than they ever were before. (64)<http://www.bahai-library.org/file.php?file=buck_native_messengers#N_64_> Vecsey confirms that the prophecy of Deganawida's return is sufficiently attested in Iroquoian tradition to be considered an essential, though not prominent, feature in the Deganawida cycle.(65)<http://www.bahai-library.org/file.php?file=buck_native_messengers#N_65_>The Six Nations' version has the prophet condition his return on times of crisis: "If at any time through the negligence and carelessness of the lords, they fail to carry out the principles of the Good Tidings of Peace and Power and the rules and regulations of the confederacy and the people are reduced to poverty and great suffering, I will return."(66)<http://www.bahai-library.org/file.php?file=buck_native_messengers#N_66_>In 1990, a recent trade book, *Native American Prophecies,* has popularised Deganawida's prophecy as transmitted by Mad Bear.(67)<http://www.bahai-library.org/file.php?file=buck_native_messengers#N_67_> Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
