Taylor, C.J. Peace Walker: The Legend of Hiawatha and Tekanawita illustrated by the author Tundra, 2004 45 pages, color illustrations grades 4-7 Haudenosaunee

Some 1,500 years ago, the Great League of the Haudenosaunee (or Iroquois Confederacy) was created, bringing together the Mohawk, Seneca, Oneida, Onondaga, and Cayuga into a powerful union governed by the Great Law of Peace.

The story of how Aionwatha and Deganawidah (also known as “the Peacemaker”) brought the five nations together is the seminal epic oral story of the Haudenosaunee, the details of which can change from teller to teller, from Akwesasne, New York, to Brantford, Ontario. But not like this painfully overwrought rendition accompanied by bizarre illustrations, the likes of which have brought C.J. Taylor her notoriety as an interpreter of “Indian legends” in picture books for children.

Note:  Deganawidah is known as “Peacemaker,” not “Peace Walker.” As a Mohawk friend quipped over the phone, “They all walked, and canoed on occasion, that’s pretty obvious.”

Another note: In made-up dialogue in a story that takes place way back, it is not a good thing to have people refer to themselves by what were enemy-names, such as “Iroquois.” They called themselves Onkwehonwe, Original People, or Haudenosaunee, People of the Longhouse. The five nations referred to themselves as Kanienkehaka (Mohawk), Shotinontowane’haka (Seneca), Onenyotehaka (Oneida), Ononta’kehaka (Onondaga), and Kayonkwe’haka (Cayuga).

Epic traditional stories are usually told in plain language. There are detail and drama enough to engage the listeners, to draw them into the story, but unless the story is outrageously funny, the details need not be embellished.

For example, Onondaga Clan Mother Audrey Shenandoah writes (in every day is a good day, Fulcrum 2004),

Our Onondaga traditional ways teach us that our ceremonies originate from the Creator’s land and that we have had them since the beginning of time. Attaining peace of mind is paramount in all our ceremonies. We don’t know how long our people lived in a ceremonial way before they began growing away from it. Their minds became polluted and finally, they were fighting and even killing each other.

Here is Walker’s version:

With time, however, the way of peace vanished. Clan laws permitted victims of injustices, such as theft or even murder, to seek compensation or even revenge for the wrongs done to them. But it is difficult to be fair in revenge. Sometimes two lives were taken for one, and thus blood feuds began. Soon it was no longer clan seeking revenge against clan, but nation against nation. Killing and hatred, suspicion and fear replaced peace. The once well-traveled waterways and trails were no longer safe. Those who did travel carried weapons of war. Clan leaders became greedy for power. They passed sentences of death for the slightest offence. Favors were bought with riches taken in battle and raids. Constant warring became a way of life for so long that no one could remember a time when there had been peace.

Okay, stop, C.J.! Either she’s being paid by the word, or she’s graduated with a More Is Better degree from the School of Really Belabored Overexplanation. There are 36 pages of this, plus nine pages of artwork that noisily fights the text for attention.

The told story is beautiful. What happens to Aionwatha’s daughters, how Aionwatha meets Deganawidah, how the two bring the song of goodness and peace to transform a powerful and evil man, how even his body changes as he begins to understand the song, how Aionwatha combs the snakes out of Atotarho’s hair, how the understanding of the message of unity and peace comes back to the warring nations.

Peace Walker does not even come close. It is so tedious a read as to strain the patience of even this intrepid reviewer. And the artwork perfectly complements the text. Poorly rendered in acrylic on canvas, Taylor’s heavy-handed strokes create strangely accented people, objects, longhouses, and landscapes in high-contrast white against a garish array of brightly saturated, ill-shaded color paintings.

Really. Not. Recommended.

—Beverly Slapin