Andrew, your beautiful maple-tree photos remind me of a reference I read recently in a book I bought this past weekend. This book is a children's book about the the Haudenosaunee, the confederation of Native American peoples more widely known as the Iroquois. Though a text oriented towards the needs and interests of children, I found the book a good introduction to a subject which interests me, and I have deemed it a worthwhile investment.
The Haudenosaunee were originally comprised of five nations, the Mohawk, the Oneida, the Onondaga, the Cayuga, and the Seneca. They were known to the British and British colonists as the Five Nations ('Iroquois' was an Algonquin term for these peoples that was appropriated by the French; these nations themselves referred to their confederation as that of the Haudenosaunee, or "the people of the longhouse"). In the early eighteenth century, the Tuscarora, an ethnolinguistically related tribe from the Carolinas that were fleeing poor relations with European settlers there, asked to be admitted to the confederation and were accepted. From this point, the British referred to the league as that of the Six Nations.
The Haudenosaunee were a highly developed culture, materially comfortable and enjoying a government of considerable sophistication and efficacy. All members were looked after and all had a productive, active role in the community and larger society. Intricate networks of clan kinship bound members of one nation to those of the others, further fostering the sense of fraternity that permeated the league. Clan kinship derived from the women, and the women chose the chiefs who would represent a particular community at league meetings, also having the authority to remove chiefs from office if they were deemed ineffective or negligent. The Haudenosaunee had no concept of land ownership; the land belonged to the community, and the people saw themselves as custodians of the land, whose bounty was to be shared by all. In all aspects of life, the Haudenosaunee were a radically democratic society, much more so than the early American republic (upon which much of the constitutional foundation was inspired by the Haudenosaunee example).
At any rate, I could go on with more detail on this fascinating society about which I am still learning, but right now I wanted to point out that the Haudenosaunee had six major annual festivals, and one of these was the Maple Festival in the spring. Maple syrup was collected and made into delectable foods to be enjoyed by the whole community. Communal feasting, game-playing (the Haudenosaunee developed the game of lacrosse), and visiting served to bolster the strength and love of the people. And this is what these gorgeous New England maple trees brought to my mind.
Edit: Correction of a minor typo.
