City of Geneva planting a Tree of Peace with the Haudenosaunee

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The Tree of Peace is an symbole important in Iroquois tradition and played a role in the founding of the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy.

Age-old friendship

Led by a Seneca Nation elder, the planting ceremony will witness the burial of traditional Iroquois weapons under the tree to seal the age-old friendship between our city and the Haudenosaunee.

The ceremony will be conducted in English and French.

The event is part of a series of activities jointly organised by the Haudenosaunee External Relations Committee and the City of Geneva in commemoration of the centenary of the visit to Geneva of Chief Deskaheh.

In 1923, Deskaheh, chief of the Cayuga Nation of the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy, came from Canada to Geneva to claim sovereignty and rights for his people before the League of Nations. When Deskaheh was refused the right to speak at the League of Nations, the Mayor of Geneva invited him to address the people of Geneva. Deskaheh has become a symbol of the determination of indigenous peoples to have their existence and their rights recognised.

For improved recognition of indigenous peoples’ rights

Since the creation of the United Nations, Geneva has become the world capital of human rights and is home to a number of organisations working for improved recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples. Relations between the City of Geneva and the Haudenosaunee have deepened over time, with Iroquois delegations making a number of visits to our city in 1977, 1997, 2013 and 2019.

A programme of commemoration

The Executive Council of the City of Geneva and the Haudenosaunee External Relations Committee have organised a commemorative programme, beginning at the Geneva Museum of Ethnography (MEG) with a public ceremony to return two sacred objects belonging to the Haudenosaunee at 2.30 pm on 7 February 2023.