♪ MICHELLE SCHENANDOAH: We are living in a time of great change and it's critical for us to come together as one human family so that all of our grandchildren, many greats into the future, will be able to enjoy life here on Mother Earth.

♪ May Rematriated Voices create a space within your heart and mind to join with indigenous thought leaders and allies.

We've been brought together for a reason.

It's up to all of us to figure out why.

♪ Welcome to Rematriated Voices.

I'm your host, Michelle Schenandoah, Wolf clan member of the Oneida Nation of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.

Haudenosaunee governance supports a matrilineal and matri-focal culture that is rooted in democracy and peacemaking.

On this episode of Rematriated Voices, I'm joined by Mohawk Bear Clan Mother Mommabear, Louise McDonald Herne and Mohawk Bear Clan Faithkeeper Sandra Fox, Onondaga Hawk clan Chief Spencer Lyons, and Tuscarora turtle clan chief Brennen Ferguson.

♪ This is Rematriated Voices!

I'm so just really, truly honored to be here with each of you.

And I just want to first start out by saying, nya:weh sgeno for the responsibilities that you carry for our nations and for our people, and ensuring that our future generations will be able to say that we're Haudenosaunee.

So we all know that the recital of our Great Law of Peace can take many days.

And it's a very involved story.

Would you briefly describe what is the Great Law of Peace?

SPENCER LYONS: The Great Law of Peace is the way that the Haudenosaunee people come to call ourselves Haudenosaunee people.

Prior to that, we didn't identify ourselves as people of the longhouse, but only identified ourselves geographically and where we were all living.

So the Great Law of Peace established our traditional governance system and unified the four warring nations at that time, the original Five Nations, and later would be joined by our brothers, the Tuscaroras.

And it brought us together in unity and reestablished a mindset of Kanikonhrí:yo, good mind and peace.

And it's what we use today to - still, the structure we still continue to use today to govern ourselves as Haudenosaunee people.

MICHELLE SCHENANDOAH: What existed before the Great Law of Peace, and how does that tie back to our women's leadership and how our communities care for one another?

MOMMABEAR: Right from the get-go, we're a culture of procreators and cultivators, and we had, based upon our food system, colossal cornfields that came along the Mohawk Valley all the way down to the Susquehanna and in front of - at the lead of each of those colossal corn fields were corn mothers.

And they determined the wealth.

And they determined the the national economy.

And they ensured that everybody got their equal share of food.

However, when the war and the bloodletting started, it was mayhem.

And they couldn't conduct their communities to have abundance and to have food.

So back to my point is that when the Peacemaker did come and he approached the worst people in the East, on his route he came across a woman who was very vital to the continuation of a war, and he presented his message.

And because she was a woman who navigated the spirits of men, she also understood that this was kind of like her, her pay back to accept this message because she's seen the brilliance in it, and she wanted something different.

And I think in anybody's life, when they know they're on a wrong path, there's that empty feeling and they want to fix it.

And so his message conveyed to her that it was a different way and a different life, but it's because of her brilliance, I believe, that she lobbied for a woman's position inside the foundation of the league, because the women were already the foundation based upon clanship.

So I think that preexistence of the clanship is foundational to what we call the Great Law of Peace.

And women are the foundation.

And the men became - came later on to become the walls and the roof to our Confederacy.

So I think the brilliance of the Peacemaker was he didn't throw the women away.

He built upon it.

And I think that was so fundamentally necessary in order to build the peace, because he understood that women are peacemakers.

And she became - Jigonsaseh became deemed as the Mother of All Nations and also Peacemother.

So, you know, we have that innate ability to call for peace and want peace.

BRENNEN FERGUSON: You know, it was a time period when the families in the Great Lakes region that became known the Haudenosaunee, they developed agriculture.

And this agriculture helped their families to grow.

And when your families grow to a point where you need resources, there's different pressures.

We see that even today, you know, peoples competing for resources.

And so what happened, it started to be, you know, the young men that were taking it upon themselves to get their parties together and try to use violence rather than diplomacy to acquire different resources and influence.

And I think we can see that, you know, throughout our culture that our people still hold on to that memory.

We know that that the young men have this tendency for recklessness and chaos.

And I've heard that that's why when the young boys get their names, it's because we know that they have the potential.

And so we sing these songs to them when they get their names as a way to help strengthen their minds and keep them on a good path, even as a little baby, because they have that potential to be kind of chaotic.

And I think when the Peacemaker did his work, he also recognized that.

And that's why he gave the women such a strong role.

Hoping and understanding that the women would bring balance to that and kind of prevent that type of thing from happening again.

MICHELLE SCHENANDOAH: Most people in the United States are unaware that the Founding Fathers were inspired, to say the least, by the Haudenosaunee, by our form of governance.

And they modeled the US Constitution after our form of government.

But most Americans are not educated on this history.

And so would you highlight some of the parallels between our form of governance and the US government?

MOMMABEAR: Just quickly, I'll say, our system, vested in the clan ship was a deliberate separation of power, which meant that there had to be a process of going back and forth to deliberate the issues.

And, you know, there was three sides and and again, you see that in the government as the United States government as it is today.

But theyre infants, theyre little kids on the block.

SPENCER LYONS: I think it was at the Treaty of Lancaster, at the treaty signing is when they were proposed and one of the chiefs stood up at that time and offered that idea, and he told them that they should make a confederation a union such as ours, referring to the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, and in the Articles of Confederation, that in Albany, when they started trying to piece this thing together for the forefathers, they were using terms, literal terms from the Haudenosaunee like Grand Council and all of these different divisions of power that would later on be part of the pillars of the Constitution.

It's known for us Haudenosaunee that part of their conflict resolution that's built into the Constitution was part of - was influenced by the Haudenosaunee governance system, separation of powers.

But even looking deeper and understanding at academic level, this idea of federalism, and this idea where, that we have the - the highest form of government for the Haudenosaunee is the Grand Council and that the laws or the issues that are passed by the individual nations shouldn't or couldn't supersede what comes out of the Gajyeñhowaneñh, the Grand Council.

So it kind of showed how this relationship would end up being working with what they call federalism, with the states and the and the government and the US government and the federal government.

You can look at the back of a quarter and see the eagle holding arrows in unity.

And those are direct symbols that come from who we are as Haudenosaunee.

I was even told at the time when they were putting this thing together, they actually had ongweh'onweh, Haudenosaunee people, in Philadelphia as they were constructing the Constitution, and they would consult with them and they would say, well, if this happens, how would you resolve that?

MICHELLE SCHENANDOAH: Yeah.

Spencer, you had talked about, symbols that you see, on a coin.

But are there other symbols that you see the U.S.

government uses that are meaningful to our people?

And what are those symbols mean?

SPENCER LYONS: For the Haudenosaunee, we understand the way the Great Law of Peace was founded and when the Peacemaker had planted the Tree of Peace, he placed atop of the Tree of Peace the eagle, and how significant that was and what that really means and how that works for the Haudenosaunee, is that the eagle is supposed to be ever watching over the entire Confederacy, and there's supposed to be a warning.

But it's also understood that that might be invested in part of who the title of Tadodaho might be and his role to the Confederacy.

But you can see that eagle has become a symbol for the United States as well as their national bird.

And it's - I always found it interesting and kind of funny that Benjamin Franklin was actually advocating for nidaheñhwah, a turkey to be the national bird during his time.

And he was obviously, you know, they didn't take the turkey, but he had a lot of admiration for the turkey.

And it's funny because even that word means “he guards the path.” And so obviously, the ongweh'onweh people, us as Haudenosaunee recognized, you know, what the turkey does and where the turkey is.

But the most obvious is the eagle for the United States and the parallel for what that means, in terms of symbols for the Haudenosaunee.

MICHELLE SCHENANDOAH: A lot of people will think that the arrows that are in the eagle's talons actually might mean more, but what do they actually symbolize?

MOMMABEAR: Well, in the in the story of the coming together, in the unification of the, of the Great League, the Peacemaker held up one arrow, and he used it as a metaphor to see if there's only one nation, symbolized by one arrow, he could break it.

But if he unified five arrows together, it was harder to break.

So to me, Haudenosaunee are big on symbols.

And he used those arrows, emblematic to our unification to say if we all stick together in unity and agreement and cooperation and an understanding of what peace is, with our power in each other, but our basic structure is to be founded on peace, then we're a force to be reckoned with.

I also would like to expand a little bit, and I think that it was, diving deeper and looking at that, it was understood that unity and the power of the mind was more powerful than ruling through physical prowess, which was happening during the time of establishing the Great Law of Peace.

And so one of the teachings that I also heard was that the fact that he used leather, or what he used sinew or leather to bound those arrows, were also supposed to symbolize our relationship to the natural world at the same time.

We also have the idea of One Dish and that wampum belt that exists to talk about why the warring was happening and again, the sharing of what they call resources.

I don't really like the term resources, because for me, it's a relationship.

Again, relationship to the natural world, knowing that all of those things are living entities.

So we can't call it a resource when they're equal to my own life.

And so that's just more symbolism to show what was intended when they were unifying the arrows.

MICHELLE SCHENANDOAH: Yeah.

Would you speak about the cultivation and selection of our leaders?

MOMMABEAR: Well, I think, leaders, the right of nomination belongs in the women, in the clan women.

And young boys are watched over to see the boys grow.

And which young boy shows leadership and that's taken care of and cultivated in the character of that young boy.

So when a clan mother calls for her rite of nomination in a particular clan, bear, wolf, turtle, hawk, that she has to look at how that boy grew up.

And was he kind to his elders, was he helpful.

Is he like, careful with his words?

Is he driven on ego, you know, so the ladies would watch and they would confer to see which boy could be a good leader.

And it's not one who talks a lot.

It's not one who is in the front.

And those women look for the guy in the back row in the corner who's listening, and he's got to know how to listen to his people not campaigning on his own agenda.

So I think it's really important that, you know, our leaders are raised and groomed to be in those position.

But, you know, I heard the men talk earlier and I think, you know, one of the men made a point about how to emulate leadership.

And if we are going to connect to the universal powers, the sun is an excellent, excellent symbol of strong masculinity.

He knows what his job is, and he does it every day without complaint and without whom we don't exist.

And it's his job to bring a smile to his family, to his people.

And it's his job to ensure that we're warm when it's cold.

And it's his job to pull the food from the land.

So he has an all inclusive job, and it's a hard one.

But he doesn't complain.

So those are characters in a leader that women have to look for.

One who listens, one who shows up, and one who doesn't complain about his own miseries, but is in perpetual gratitude for what he does have.

And I believe that women can really appreciate that kind of masculinity.

MICHELLE SCHENANDOAH: Do you also want to talk about clan mothers, how a clan mother comes into her position, and the faithkeepers as well.

A clan mother comes into being to, according to who her mother and her grandmother is, and the responsibility of a clan mother, rests in how many daughters she has.

Because the work of a clan mother has to carry on and so those titles are continuous in the women, but the men are borrowed.

So when a clan mother appoints a leader and places upon his brow his emblem of authority to lead his clan and to sit with the other chiefs, she's got to keep an eye on that.

So part of that process begins at the time of his birth, and that becomes a lifelong job for a clan mother to guide the leader of the future.

And it's also her job to make sure that her daughters know what their job is, and that she can pass that down.

Now, let's say in the instance she has no daughters, then it would go to her sister's daughters, and then she would take into consultation other clan women within that family to say, well, do you agree with this?

Do you not agree?

To me, the clan mother is the true representative of the people, and she buffers out the topic.

She determines what is domestic.

She determines what is a nation issue, and she determines what is an international issue.

So she has to constantly comb the issues of the discourse of her people from day to day.

But she also, again, determines how many babies are going to be born that year.

She's in charge of the name.

She's in charge of the chiefs names.

There's a lot put upon her, and she's really the center post of a title.

And she can - as much as she can nominate, she can also recall her nomination.

So, she really has to keep every everybody in check.

So it's a super duper heavy, extra colossal job.

And she can't do it alone.

That's why she needs the woven web of women's wisdom constantly surrounding her to ensure that she doesn't stand alone.

And that's why those titles are continuous in the woman who has a lot of daughters.

MICHELLE SCHENANDOAH: Would you describe the relationship between a clan mother and her chief, and how does this represent the voice of the people?

BRENNEN FERGUSON: I think that'll be a different answer for everyone, right?

Because you kind of make that relationship work between the two.

So, you know, I can only speak for myself and my experience and the way that my clan mother and I have gone about business, and, you know, it's pretty complicated.

She has her regular helpers and they kind of follow her everywhere, or at least one of them goes with her everywhere.

And I also have helpers who, you know, help us carry the bulk of the work.

But she and I, we meet very regularly and anything that comes in on short notice or something of urgency Ill let one of her helpers know because she is in her late 80s, you know, she's got good energy, but she is, you know, I'm respectful of the fact to not interrupt her throughout the day when I don't need to.

So I do go through her helpers a lot.

And she and I will kind of decide, kind of what Louise was talking about, at what level is an issue?

Is this an issue that we settle here with the clan, or is this an issue that we need to bring to the Council?

And, is this an issue that we want her and her helpers to take on, or does she want me to take it on?

So, we have this constant dialog to deal with all these different issues.

At the end of the day, I report to her on basically everything I do.

I told her that I was coming here, I told her what was happening.

I told her who was going to be here.

And anything where there's a decision to be made I talk to her about it, and it's very rare, but if we come to a point where we don't - if we can't come to a place where we agree on how to go.

I always defer to her answer, even if I don't believe it, I defer to her answer because I'm supposed to be carrying her voice.

And it's a very effective way to go about business.

You know, everyone, for the most part, feels good about the work being done.

Everybody feels heard.

We meet with our clan quite frequently, especially when there's big issues that pertain to the whole nation or the whole clan.

And we do our best to keep everyone informed.

And I do my best to keep her, you know, as involved as I can without being disrespectful to her time.

SPENCER LYONS: So for myself, the way that I understand it is through the context of the language used in the Great Law of Peace.

And within that context, it says the relationship is supposed to be a mother and son.

And so the clan mother is supposed to operate as the chief, as her son.

The relationship to the people and their representative, their hoyane, also is laid out within the language in itself and when they're using the language and they're going through the Great Law of Peace, they say “hagnoseñh sayane”: “My uncle, you are the chief.” And so I always said to to my clan family, I said I'm supposed to be like the cool uncle, that you can kind of come and talk to me about anything, like, I'm not going to judge you.

I'm not going to have - I'm going to have that compassion for you, and sometimes and when I need to, I'll have the words that you may not like, but you may have to hear, and that relationship when it comes to the idea of democracy, in discussions within our clan family, I said, this is where the discretion needs to be had and given to the hodiyohnehsonh, is that I'm the representative for the mindset of the clan within the council.

But we have to realize that in Onondaga and everywhere else, there's more than one clan.

And so the way that I view it is that the hodiyohnehsonh are supposed to be like mediators.

We have to go into the council knowing - the clan goes into council knowing that we have an opinion or a mindset, maybe as a clan, but within the other eight clans, they also have a mindset.

And that's how we have to come to consensus.

Even the idea of consensus might get misconstrued, in the way that I understand consensus and the way others understand consensus.

It takes a really - it would be a really long process to get a 100% agreement, and for people to just see eye to eye and say yes about everything.

My understanding about consensus isn't 100% agreement, but 100% understanding.

And we also have this this aspect what we call the protocol or mandate to peace.

Because in the language we say “Hyah hweñdoñh deoñgwanigoñhäkhasya": “we can never pull apart our minds or separate our minds.” “Na gwa sganigoñhädah eñwadoñ”: “we can only have one mind.” And that's when you move forward in any process is when you're of one mind.

MOMMABEAR: You know, I just want to add real quick the relationship between a clan mother and her chief.

I think that's one of the hidden roots of democracy, is that there has to be consultation and, I know in Grand Council, my own chief, if they're stuck on an issue, he'll get up and he'll walk to the women's side of the house and hell say, what do you think about this issue?

You don't see that too often.

But our Mohawk chiefs do that because they know if they don't consult with us, therell be hell to pay when they get home.

No, but on a serious note, like, to me, that's just, a gesture of decency to include the women, especially if the decisions being deliberated are being made that's going to affect them.

And sometimes women just have a different perspective on issues and matters that ain't like a ma And so to me, that's the integrity of the chief to get up and come over and ask the women, well, what do you think about this?

And it was written in history where General Proctor, who was a general under Washington's command, who was meeting with the Six Nations chiefs somewhere near Albany, and he came over a hill and he's seeing all the Six Nations chiefs sitting around a tree.

And there was a woman sitting next to each one of them, and in his Eurocentric mind thought that was a spectacle because he could not comprehend in his own ways how a woman could even have a political thought.

MICHELLE SCHENANDOAH: So leadership is on the span of a hand, and so you have your chief and he has a sub chief.

And then there's a female faithkeeper and a male faithkeeper.

And so, Sandra, you are a bear clan female - SANDRA FOX: Community Faithkeeper, they call it.

MICHELLE SCHENANDOAH: Faithkeeper, community faithekeeper.

SANDRA FOX: And Louise has one that would be under her title.

MICHELLE SCHENANDOAH: Yeah.

SANDRA FOX: And that one would help her with meetings or whatever, she helps her, that faithkeeper, and a man helps her hoyane with getting the meeting together, whatever they do, that kind of stuff.

But what I am is I'm a faithkeeper within the ceremonies, so I just keep that going.

That's my job, but we work with them too, we try to work together.

MICHELLE SCHENANDOAH: So do you see a comparable role like within the US culture, they structured so much of their government based on what they saw.

Is this a role that you see in the US government in any way?

I really thought about that and I couldn't find one.

I couldn't find nothing that would be similar.

MICHELLE SCHENANDOAH: So how do you think that that might be a detriment to say the US government in the fact that they didnt include the role of a clan mother, they didn't include the role of faithkeepers.

Those were taken out, right.

And the US Constitution was really created for white landowning men.

So what have they missed out on?

SANDRA FOX: A lot.

Because we live in harmony and I don't know how they do it when they don't include women, you know, like, I don't understand it because the women is the foundation of families, and the families are what brings all the people here.

You know, that's how we're here.

And, they didn't think it was important, but our ways were all connected and everybody's connected.

They have different titles or jobs or whatever, but we're all interconnected.

That's why it's so hard to bring up one issue, because it's all connected.

And there's a lot to it.

And most of it's living it.

It's like, that's what it is nowadays.

It's like, can you live it?

And I can see we're trying to live it by bringing back our seeds, bringing back our songs which we almost lost.

And that's what our job it is, faithkeepers, to keep it going.

To bring the teachings back.

But to live it.

Because it doesn't mean nothing if you're not doing it.

And I see we're trying to do it by what we're doing here.

People are going to see this, they're going to, they're going to say maybe that's what was going to wake them up because it's what he said.

He says everybody's got a responsibility.

We do.

And that's what's not functioning is the people's responsibility.

They don't know their responsibility.

Like we can do all the work but we have to work hard.

It was meant for people to work together.

And we'll still do that even no matter what goes on.

Our people still have that in us to do that work together, help each other even no matter how much dysfunction we have.

And it wasn't our fault we have dysfunction.

But we got to deal with that every day and it's still ongoing.

It's hard to address that because people have so much hurt, so we can't get to the real things because it's all emotional.

That's not our fault.

We are awesome.

We can pull it together like this and still do all this stuff.

And we still have this land, we still have this air, the water.

I mean that's so awesome.

I don't know, that's how I feel about everything.

MICHELLE SCHENANDOAH: What are some misconceptions about our chiefs?

SANDRA FOX: That theyre higher than the people.

SPENCER LYONS: Absolutely.

I agree with that 100%.

This idea of hierarchy or again, like what I had mentioned, the idea of authority over people.

Even the term chief implies that there is a hierarchy, and there are people below the chief, and the chiefs can appoint and do.

And it's really simple.

And I feel like ongweh'onweh in general in a lot of our teachings, we were very practical.

We're a very practical people.

And I always think to myself, in my own work, in my own community, is that if authority or delegation of powers only works when you're working too.

And so you have to not be afraid to go and be in the field with the people, or be in the grind with the people, or bring them along with them to bring them along with you, so they can see.

So there's a lot of misconceptions that I feel, like, chiefs live above the people or are above or put on a pedestal.

And maybe that's happened in instances, but that was never the intention when the Peacemaker brought this thing together.

BRENNAN FERGUSON: Well, I agree with everything that they had said.

The only thing I'll add, it's kind of from a different perspective, is there's this misconception I see sometimes where people think that, there's like a perfect way to be a chief or a perfect way to be a clan mother.

And it's pretty upsetting, especially when they're kind of ridiculing our leaders of the past, you know, because we don't know the pressures that they had faced at that time.

And we know that it was worse than it is now.

And we don't know what their circumstance was.

But what I do know is and what I hope is that whatever their circumstance was, that they did their best with what they knew and what they had at the time.

There was, you know, a long period of time where our very existence was in question.

And when chiefs are raised, theyre given specific instructions.

And the number one instruction is to look towards the future, right, our vision is supposed to pierce deep within the earth.

Meaning, you know, those future generations are also included in our thinking.

And so I think about that because those chiefs at that time and those clan mothers, during a time of great uncertainty, they did their best hoping that their people would have a future.

And here we all are today, and we still have our nations, and we still have our languages.

We still have our ceremonies.

We still have our clans.

And so they did a lot of really good work in a hard time to make sure that we would still have all of these things.

MICHELLE SCHENANDOAH: What are the reasons a chief could be removed from his position?

MOMMABEAR: When he self agendas, when he's not listening to the clan or the clan mother and he's kind of like making decisions on his own and he is trying to make deals or agreements without the full consent of his clan Or if he's, you know, not acting according to what an honorable man should be like.

Is he out of town?

Is he with other women?

Is he respecting his wife and his family, you know, there's multiple reasons.

If he commits murder, if he commits rape, if he steals.

I think those are some of the infractions for the removal of a chief.

But, you know, or a hoyane.

I hate to use the word chief, too, because, it implies that he's above others.

But, you know, to to remove a chief, some of the laws are clear what the infractions are, and then others can get skewed up in rhetoric and, you know, what is the law, back and forth, but to me, if he doesn't have decency and respect for the people he's representing, then you know, you need to remove him.

MICHELLE SCHENANDOAH: Yeah.

And it's the clan mother, right, his clan mother who has the right to remove him?

MOMMABEAR: That's right.

MICHELLE SCHENANDOAH: Yeah.

Who calls for war?

Who calls for peace?

And why?

MOMMABEAR: Well, what I heard, and I don't want to be the one answering here all the time.

So I'm going silent on some of this.

Is that because the women have to make the moccasins of the warriors to go to war, it is up to them - and they got to prepare their food - it is up to them to decide whether they're going to make those moccasins or not, and that the mother will also decide, do I want to give the life of my son to a war where he might not come back?

So it rests with the women because she's got to carry the grief if he dies in that war.

Even the Oneidas in the Battle of Oriskany, it was the women who made the decision to fight on the American side.

Because they believed that their loyalty, the loyalty of the United States would ever protect the Oneidas.

And they got betrayed, and the women got betrayed.

But, you know, it's the women who really carry the grief and who will suffer the the pain of loss if our men die at war.

MICHELLE SCHENANDOAH: When new leaders are installed, why is it called a condolence?

And what does grief and loss have to do with installing our new leaders?

MOMMABEAR: When a chief falls, that clan mother or that clan has three days in order to raise a new leader again.

And it's called a condolence because you're dealing with the loss of that chief through death.

And so you're grieving the loss of that pillar that was there for you.

So it's to condole the minds of the ones who are still here to bring some kind of understanding and peace and comfort to the family that still remains.

And then, you know, and it's about condoling the other side of the house.

It's about standing in recognition of what that person's lifetime in both clan mother and a chief that, you know, what they stood for and it's to address the grief and, just to offer that comfort.

SPENCER LYONS: So one of my teachers had said that one time, he says, I didn't know what - he said, I don't know why they call it a condolence.

And why they say we're condoling this person.

And its true, everything that Mommabear said, and about the way that it addresses the one who had passed on and addressing grief and loss for the entire Confederacy, really.

And he said, but everybody in there was technically condoled.

So he didn't understand.

He said, I don't understand why they say, well, this guy's condoled or that guys condoled or this clan mothers condoled, or these people are condoled and they're not condoled, it's like, well, everybody who went through that process was given those words of condolence and recognition that this was a loss for the entire Confederacy.

Studying the actual language and the process that this ceremony, how it takes place and the words within it, it's also a lament to our ancestors to understand the condition that we find ourselves in as an entire confederacy.

And it gives recognition to all of the work that all of the hodiyohnehsonh in the past, right from the founding of the very first ones to ever hold these Confederacy title names, right to that one that had just passed and right to the new one, and it's a lament and an ask, and it's an understanding of the condition of the Confederacy at that moment in time, and to know and reestablish and reground ourselves in the meaning of Gayaneñhsä•go•nah, of what they called the Great Peace, or the Great Law of Peace.

MICHELLE SCHENANDOAH: Knowing that the United States modeled its Constitution after our form of governance as the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, we know we've been here a very long time as a confederacy of united nations in peace.

And whether that's a thousand years, 2000 years, 3000 years, we know it's really, really quite old and it's all centered around peace.

The Haudenosaunee Confederacy is the oldest continuous democracy on Earth, as far as I know.

Maybe you know something different.

or have heard something different.

But what's interesting is most Americans, most U.S.

citizens don't know this information.

They don't know this truth, this influence that our people had on those founding fathers.

What is the greatest lesson that people can learn from the Haudenosaunee about governance and leadership?

SPENCER LYONS: I think, automatically the first thing that comes to my mind is the way the - again, we talked about parallels between the Haudenosaunee and the US democracy, and theyre so ready to say power of the people or power is invested in the people.

But yet we look at the outside process and the power really isnt invested in the people when choosing the leader.

But more so now the electoral votes in the electoral system and the interest that has been able to influence those electoral system.

And so I think that we still have a process that involves heavily the people in itself, as Haudenosaunee.

And I think for myself, I would think that that's one thing that would be able to influence on the outside or guide governance a little bit stronger would be to invest more into the people, into the true power of the people, or into into the voices of those people.

MOMMABEAR: I guess for me, it's like, you know, the United States in its founding, lived in the Indian world.

It lived in Indian world.

And that's how influential and present we were at the time of their confederation.

And there was a recent article that came out that indigenous nations were supposed to be considered the 14th the colony.

They were supposed to be unified under that confederation.

But our leaders at the time refused it because they didn't include the women.

And so what people need to know that, the United States Constitution even says - mentions Indians in its first paragraph, you know, it's an acknowledgment that there was something preexisting here that predates them.

And, you know, to bring it home in a way, is to have them know that as much as they copied our system, they also didnt follow it to a T and that they themselves left out the mother.

So they are a motherless country because the Founding Fathers failed to acknowledge, the true power of the land.

And I think that falsehood needs to be unearthed.

And to have them understand there was founding mothers here, and that women were very integral and a very big part of all of that union making.

And as a matter of fact, if you go back on the historical records, they wouldn't exchange, they wouldn't start a meeting between the Six Nations chiefs or any Indian nation unless there was an exchange of belts.

And those belts were beaded by the hands and fingers of women because they were the historical recorders of those meetings and of those treaty makings and those agreements and all that got recorded in wampum belts.

And we know that through Ben Franklin's essay, he says, I've never seen, even though we call them savages, I've never seen a more sophisticated society because they're organized, they arrive on time.

And then when the old guys in front can't remember, they defer to the young guys in the back who defer to the third row, which is the women, because the women never forgot, because they wove the symbols into the belts.

And so the historical record clearly shows that there was an exchange of the recording of those minutes through our wampum belts.

SANDRA FOX: I think the structure, because we have a structure to it, where people know where they fit, how they can help.

Because we include everybody, everybody's included, and we still use that as far as I can see.

We still have the youngest to the oldest, still all working together, and we still include them.

Where the US government and whatever - they don't, I don't see that.

I see it's man-run mostly.

That's all I see.

I don't see no working together.

BRENNEN FERGUSON: I think one thing, that could benefit, you know, American society is to - and this is coming out of our law, right?

Because our treaties are an extension of the Great Law, while the One Dish wampum is a law that we have to share.

And, you know, in what other country is there a law that you have to share with each other?

And, you know, we can you know, that's kind of a bigger discussion, you know, relating it to colonialism and colonialism and capitalism, you know, is it the same issue?

Is it two sides to the same coin?

They definitely go hand in hand.

And we hear a lot of talk about decolonization.

And I'm kind of talking to our own people now.

We hear a lot of talk about decolonization and asking, how can we decolonize, you know, learning language, planting.

Another huge avenue for decolonization is sharing with each other, sharing your time, sharing your energy, sharing anything that you have that could help somebody else that's decolonizing us, sharing with each other.

MICHELLE SCHENANDOAH: One of the things that we do as Haudenosaunee for any of our gatherings, for our ceremonies, we have lots of protocols, very, very organized, very structured.

And one of those is the Thanksgiving address, also called the opening address.

And would you explain what is the Thanksgiving address and why do we do this?

BRENNAN FERGUSON: The Thanksgiving address.

It's a cultural protocol whenever we have a gathering, a ceremony, a political meeting.

And what we're doing is we're first greeting and acknowledging everyone that showed up to our gathering place.

And we're offering words of greeting, but also gratitude that they made it and safe, and they made it healthy and that they had a good road.

And from that point, we extend that greetings, that acknowledgment and that gratitude to all people of the earth.

Understanding, as Spencer has said repeatedly, that we all have equal value.

And from that point, we kind of spend our time going through the different levels of creation, starting with our Mother Earth, and we acknowledge her and we give her gratitude that she continues her duties, recognizing that we depend on her.

And we go through all these different segments of creation: the grasses, the animals, the berries, the medicines, the trees.

And we keep going up into the sky and our relatives in the sky, being the moon, the stars, the sun.

And we finish in the Creators land, greeting and acknowledging his helpers, the four protectors, as well as himself, extending that same gratitude and and greetings and recognizing that we're dependent and all of these things and I think, you know, the practical use of it, you know, in our more intimate settings, you know, it's just a reminder for us and it's grounding us.

But I think something that's really kind of significant is we also do this when we meet with political delegations from other places, people that we have work to do and people that we might not have - fully agree on things.

And certainly when we meet with folks that aren't native, we see the world, and we prioritize things differently.

But by doing this practice, we're starting the conversation by having already agreed on what we value most, and that being each other, our mother, the Earth and all of the segments of creation and our place in creation.

We start, before we get into any conflict or discussion, we start with acknowledging our shared humanity, and by acknowledging what we value most as people.

MICHELLE SCHENANDOAH: And who's considered - when you make decisions, who's considered?

MOMMABEAR: Everybody.

MICHELLE SCHENANDOAH: Everybody.

MOMMABEAR: All of creation, even the ancestors and the ones who arent born yet.

So from the past to the present to the future, from the heart of the earth to the heart of the sky, you know, we're a universal family.

And we're like, what she expressed so great is we're all connected.

We're all connected.

MICHELLE SCHENANDOAH: Yeah.

And what about young people?

Their voice and decisions?

SANDRA FOX: I think they are so important.

I think that's where everything seems to be going, focus is towards them.

And it's real hard because we have technology and the young people are doing that technology, and that's not living.

That's whats hard for me, because I can't understand it.

I don't know it, and I just know it doesn't feel real to me.

So any chance I get, I always talk to my grandkids, my grandkids about this stuff.

Look at the tree.

Look at the ground.

We still have that.

We still have water.

Let's go outside.

Go outside.

Give me your phone.

Put it away.

Go outside and play.

I want them to connect with the earth.

Run, play.

Have fun, you know?

I understand what it's about and everything, like for everyday living for people now.

But I don't know what kind of future they're going to have because they're not relying on - they're supposed to be taking care of the Earth.

That's what it was here.

That's why we give the Thanksgiving to remind us that this is still here.

This is what was put here for us.

And if we acknowledge all those things and we use it, that'll keep us healthy, they'll be - we'll be okay, you know?

So what are my grandkids learning?

MOMMABEAR: Just quickly, I want to add because I think this is important about the youth, because it's a dream, a prophetic dream that came from our elders [Mohawk name] probably a decade ago, and he said there'll come a day when the eyes of the world will be upon us, and those children will have something important to say, and theyll step as youth into the roles of our leaders, and they'll be seven times more powerful than we have ever imagined ourselves to be.

And that is our youth.

MICHELLE SCHENANDOAH: You say something often that I find really beautiful, and you say that the Haudenosaunee are the pearl to the world.

MOMMABEAR: Were the pearl to the world.

MICHELLE SCHENANDOAH: I love that, yeah.

So I just want to acknowledge that each of you, you were selected for the positions that you have.

You didn't decide, I'm going to go run for office and go convince millions of people to select me.

You were selected based on the attributes of who you are as a human being, and that you had community watching you your whole lives.

And so when you took these, when you accepted, when you accepted these positions, it's a lifetime position.

MOMMABEAR: It's a lifetime position and you're not paid for it.

MICHELLE SCHENANDOAH: And you're not paid for it.

Yeah.

And it's a responsibility to the people and to carrying on in our way of life.

That's so beautiful.

So beautiful.

Yeah.

SPENCER LYONS: It's only a lifetime position unless you break the law.

MICHELLE SCHENANDOAH: That's right.

MOMMABEAR: And I say to my people, it is you I serve.

I'm not your servant, but it is you I serve, and I don't know what you need until you tell me.

BRENNEN FERGUSON: I would just respond, I guess, by saying, you know, it is, you know, a responsibility and a lifetime responsibility, but everybody has a lifetime responsibility if this is going to work well, it's not just on leadership, you know, it's - we rely on everybody as much as the people rely on us.

We rely on them.

And so we all have that lifetime responsibility to make sure that this continues into the future.

MICHELLE SCHENANDOAH: Beautiful.

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