All ages.

"The Great Peace" refers to the formation of the Iroquois Confederacy centuries ago. The five nations who make up the Iroquois were at war with one another until the arrival of The Peacemaker, who gave the people their confederacy government, which is still in force today. The Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk make up the original Iroquois confederacy; they were joined by the Tuscarora several centuries later, making up what is now known as the Six Nations. The peoples’ name for themselves is Haudenosaunee, or People of the Longhouse.

The Great Peace CD-ROM takes the user on a multimedia journey into traditional and contemporary Iroquois history, culture, and philosophy. Three years in the making, this interactive CD is the brainchild of Tuscarora artist and writer Raymond Skye. There is probably more written about the Iroquois peoples than just about any other Native nation in the U.S. American anthropology pretty much began with Lewis Henry Morgan’s classic ethnography League of the Iroquois, written in the mid-nineteenth century. Since then, volumes have been written about Iroquois culture, government, and history, some of it by Iroquois scholars themselves. Raymond Skye has taken Iroquois Studies into the cyberage with this phenomenal product.

A main menu presents the user with five interrelated modules - Creation, Dark and Troubled Times, Birth of the Great Law, Great Peace Interactive Journey, and Peace. It is recommended that first-time users begin with Creation and move counterclockwise, ending up at Peace, but it is not essential. Creation gives a brief animated version of the Iroquois creation story. Dark and Troubled Times recounts some of the strife and warfare existing among the five nations before the coming of The Peacemaker. Birth of the Great Law tells how the League was formed, and the nations united. Peace introduces the user to the philosophical and moral concepts behind The Great Peace. But the meat of the CD is found in the Great Peace Interactive Journey.

A three-panel painting by Skye depicting a chief from each of the Six Nations is the entry into this section. Sliding the mouse around the screen highlights different areas like an interactive map. Stopping and clicking on any of these areas takes the user into a multimedia presentation about that area. The content could include audio, video, animation, or text, or any combination of these. Clicking on one of the chiefs activates the chief who comes to life and greets the user in his language and invites her to come and meet his people. Doing so then provides a kaleidoscope of information about that nation.

The information itself is arranged in three sections, geared for elementary, secondary, and post-secondary users. However, this arrangement should not be considered exclusive to any level; much in the elementary level can be used by adult users, and vice versa. The arrangement of material on each nation follows roughly the same pattern. The elementary level contains basic information on the nation, such as name, position in the Confederacy, historical and contemporary locations, a brief historical overview, and the clans. The secondary level contains biographical sketches, information on the language of that people, and a little more in depth history of one or two significant events in that nations’ past. The post-secondary level contains bibliographies and as many full-text essays and papers as possible. This last section is a

gold mine for teachers as a resource for background information. Subject content varies depending on what has been published.

Besides the tribal sections, there are also sections on other topics depicted in the painting, such as the eagle, wampum strings and belts, clan mothers, children, warfare, clothing and environment. Again, there are three levels of information for each topic, allowing the reader to delve as deeply into the subject as he likes. And all of the content contains hyperlinks in the text, as well as audio, video, and animated information. Textual sections often have the option of being read aloud by clicking on the speaker at the bottom of the screen.

Finally, a "More Info" section provides background information about the creators of the CD, a printable outline of the structure of the CD, a searchable index to all of the textual information that will give you all occurrences of a word or term throughout the CD, a link to additional resources and support at The Great Peace web site, and three interactive animated activities. Two interactive context-sensitive helpers, Stix and Stumpy, pop up and speak to the user whenever the help button is pressed.

In addition (can there be more?!), the CD is accompanied by an exhaustive, highly user-friendly, loose-leaf "resource guide" by retired Cayuga educator Brenda Davis. This manual alone is worth the already reasonable price of the CD. Well-organized into sections that mirror the organization of the CD-ROM, each component of the CD is described and explained, making it a wonderful teacher’s manual. In addition, there are plenty of materials in the manual not in the CD, including a hundred-page section of teaching units and activities. For anyone looking for curriculum help, this is a dream come true! There is also a glossary of English and Iroquois terms used in the CD, a chapter on "curriculum connections" offering additional suggestions on how to integrate the CD into elementary subjects such as history, geography, and social studies, again organized by elementary, secondary, and post-secondary, and a set of appendices containing maps, tables, directories of Iroquois libraries, and lists of Iroquois and native newspapers. Two minor complaints: it would be nice to have keyboard options when moving around the CD, rather than the mouse. And the print Resource Guide lacks an index. However, the table of contents and organization of the guide itself almost makes that unnecessary.

Version 2 of The Great Peace CD-ROM will contain an Interactive Table of Contents. This new feature allows the user to explore the various topics throughout the CD. You are given an alphabetical list of these topics and when you click on a chosen topic you are immediately taken to that area. This new feature can be accessed at anytime by simply clicking the "T" Key. Another new shortcut is the print/index, which can be accessed by clicking on the "P" key. Version 2 is due for release September 99.

While there have been several CDROM products on Indians published in recent years, this is the first from the People themselves. This highly professional, superbly-designed resource is clearly a labor of scholarship and love from a team intimately immersed in their subject, but not to the point of lacking objectivity. It is accessible and easy to use for all ages. It has application and relevance to Iroquois individuals seeking information on their peoples’ cultures and history, to other Native Americans and college Indian Studies departments studying Native North America, and to non-Indians studying native peoples and American history. Every library, school or public, serving Iroquois students should own this title. Every library in New York State and Ontario should own this title about the people who continue to be a critical part of their region’s history. Adults can learn as much from The Great Peace as young people. This is truly a gift from the publisher.

Lisa A. Mitten
Social Sciences Bibliographer, University of Pittsburgh
Past President, American Indian Library Association
8/27/99