Deyohahá:ge:, “two roads or paths” in Cayuga language, evokes the Covenant Chain-Two Row Wampum, known as the “grandfather of the treaties.” Famously, this Haudenosaunee wampum agreement showed how Indigenous people and newcomers could build peace and friendship by respecting each other’s cultures, beliefs, and laws as they shared the river of life.
Written by members of Six Nations and their neighbours, this book introduces readers not only to the 17th-century history of how the Dutch and British joined the wampum agreement, but also to how it might restore good relations today. Many Canadians and Americans have never heard of the Covenant Chain or Two Row Wampum, but 200 years of disregard have not obliterated the covenant. We all need to learn about this foundational wampum, because it is resurging in our communities, institutions, and courthouses—charting a way to a future.
The writers of Deyohahá:ge delve into the eco-philosophy, legal evolution, and ethical protocols of two-path peace-making. They tend the sacred, ethical space that many of us navigate between these paths. They show how people today create peace, friendship, and respect—literally—on the river of everyday life.

After finishing high school in Ethiopia, Daniel Coleman earned university degrees at the University of Regina and the University of Alberta. He now holds the Canada Research Chair in Critical Ethnicity and Race Study in the English department of McMaster University. Daniel Coleman is a leading researcher in the depiction of immigrant men in Canadian literature. He has won the John Charles Polanyi Prize for his study of how literary texts produce and reinforce categories of cultural identification such as gender, ethnicity and nationality. His critically acclaimed book, Masculine Migrations: Reading the Postcolonial Male in "New Canadian" Narratives, published in 1998 by University of Toronto Press, is considered the foundational Canadian work in the field. While being a bahir-zaff throughout his childhood brought Daniel Coleman the pain of never fully belonging, it also gave him the immeasurable benefits and insights of an intercultural life. Several of his essays on his missionary childhood have appeared in magazines and journals. "The Babies in the Colonial Washtub," included in a revised form in The Scent of the Eucalyptus, won a Silver Medal in the National Magazine Awards. 

Daniel Coleman's profile page

Ki’en Debicki is a queer, Kanien’keha:ka, enby poet living and loving along the banks of Kanyatarí:io (beautiful lake) in Anonwarore’tsherakayon:ne (Hamilton ON). They are an assistant professor at McMaster University, and associate professor at Six Nations Polytechnic. Ki’en’s writing has been published in The Malahat Review, Grain Magazine, Studies in Canadian Literature and Storytelling, Self, Society, among others.
Ki’en Debicki is a queer, Kanien’keha:ka, enby poet living and loving along the banks of Kanyatarí:io (beautiful lake) in Anonwarore’tsherakayon:ne (Hamilton ON). They are an assistant professor at McMaster University, and associate professor at Six Nations Polytechnic. Ki’en’s writing has been published in The Malahat Review, Grain Magazine, Studies in Canadian Literature and Storytelling, Self, Society, among others.

Ki'en Debicki's profile page

Bonnie Freeman is Algonquin/Mohawk and a member of the Six Nations of the Grand River. She is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Work and Indigenous Studies at McMaster University, as well with the Six Nations Polytechnic. Bonnie has published the article, “Promoting global health and well-being of Indigenous youth through the connection of land and culture-based activism.”

Bonnie M. Freeman's profile page

“Deyohahá:ge: brilliantly reminds us of our obligations and responsibilities to one another, and the more-than-human world. It shows that pathways can only be forged by respecting the waters, earth, fires, and skies through which all creation travels.”

John Borrows, Loveland Chair in Indigenous Law, University of Toronto