Did Iroquois form a confederation that may have inspired the US Constitution

One of the main influences on the framers of the Constitution was the unwritten democratic constitution under which the Iroquois Confederacy had operated since the 16th century, according to a group of American Indians and scholars.

''If Americans are going to celebrate the anniversary of their Constitituion, we figure we had better tell them where the idea came from,'' said Chief Oren Lyons, an Onondaga and an associate professor of American studies at the State University at Buffalo.

The Onondaga, based south of here, are one of the six nations that now make up the confederation, which stretches from the Mohawks near Albany to the Senecas near Buffalo.