There is a HUGE difference between being a citizen/member of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and being a Canadian citizen who happens to have indigenous ancestry. Although these differences are mainly ideological and political nevertheless, they exist.
Canadians who happen to have Indigenous ancestry band council, Christians, unadopted or clanless, do not get to make decisions for members/citizens of the sovereign Haudenosaunee confederacy. Yet, they’re still trying to impose a faulty jurisdiction established by the RCMP in 1924.
This distinction needs to be made very clear.
I bring this up because of the protest yesterday and the people saying, “these are our people,” about the band council and the police force. Let me remind you of something when those people became officers and band councillors; they swore oaths which effectively removed them from the protection of the Kayanere’kowa under wampum 58
WAMPUM #58
ANY CHIEF OR OTHER PERSONS WHO SUBMIT TO THE LAWS OF A FOREIGN PEOPLE ARE ALIENATED AND FORFEIT ALL CLAIMS IN THE IROQUOIS NATIONS
The minute these people take these oaths, they remove themselves from the circle of protection offered by the Kayanere’kowa, and they commit to upholding the interests of the colonizers. They are no longer citizens of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy; they are just Canadian citizens who happen to have Indigenous ancestry. There is a considerable difference between these two concepts of political identity.
The sooner our community realizes this, accepts it, and upholds our laws, we will all be better off.
The city of Brantford agreed to rethink its plans for a road extension crossing over a Mohawk Village settled by Tehowagherengaraghkwen in the 1780s. He was recognized as a “War Chief” in the revolutionary war between the Americans and British and again in 1812. The position was not hereditary but one awarded after observable actions in combat.
Another war erupted soon after the war of 1812, fueled by religious organizations driven upon the claim to be the first to bring about the true civilization of Onkwehonwe. Onkwehonwe men presented this history during the last attempts to develop the area.
Kayanerekowa
Allows freedom of thought and expression without compromising one’s core identity and persecution regarding one’s spiritual choices. Onkwehonwe understood that Politics and Religion are separate matters.
Village School
Records indicate a school was located on the Mohawk village site referred to as Davisville and was funded through Wesleyan Methodist. An Ojibway missionary Peter Jones provides a short account of an illness that had struck Davisville children, causing his nephew’s death. Although not considered a residential school, the children who attended lived on the same property.
The likelihood of the source of the infection was either Alvin Torry or Jones himself; who recorded feelings of fatigue and fever in the week before symptoms presenting in the children. The circuit preaching missionary undoubtedly came into contact with diseases between his preaching “appointments” in various settlements and villages.
Peter Jones was the son of Augustus Jones. The latter being notable as an American surveyor turned British Crown Surveyor with the endorsement of John Graves Simcoe. Jones is painted as a close friend to another War Chief Thayendinaga while simultaneously participating in land removal strategies that saw large tracts of land removed from the Mohawks and others.
Several denominations were struggling for supreme stewardship over Onkwehonwe during this time with little care or concern for the youngest members of the nations.
In 1703, tensions grew from ratihnaraken encroachment on territory, and It just so happened to be where the Tuscarora lived and thrived for ages untold. According to David Cusick; The Tuscarora crossed a great vine that unfortunately separated them from their family once the crossing became too dangerous.
The boundaries for where the settlers were to remain had started to move, and they were given years of reminders, but it wasn’t until 1711, and the death of a trespasser named John Lawson brought these tensions boiling over.
The act of war had been deliberated by Clan Mothers, Chiefs and Warriors, and included their relations words. This deliberation went on for nearly a decade before any actions took place in 1711
Even then, it was to only lay waste to any villages of trespassers who had been given ample opportunity to remove themselves from the protected forests and clearings.
The British historians of the era had wildly exaggerated The loss of life, and the wordsmiths claimed that it was the Tuscarora who had killed many innocent people. In fact, it was the Tuscarora who had suffered greatly at the force of a combined North Carolinian and South Carolinian British militia.
Enslaved Tuscarora distribution (Left) Cost of Tuscarora slaves (right)
This war and the eventual rape, torture and enslavement of their people may have impacted the visiting Tuscarora’s decision in the 1780s in New York State during the American revolution when they returned home rather than coming to Canada to fight alongside the British.
In 1803 years after the Tuscarora had reunited with members of their nations who had remained in North Carolina, The Nation set about reminding the USA that despite the efforts to kill them all, They had only missed a few thousand of them. Thus the United States of America rekindled the war on Tuscarora territory.
The few warriors who stayed back with their Seneca cousins in New York would again take up arms, but this time for the United States of America. They would commit a grave act with their services to the United States; The few Tuscarora who remained took up arms against their elder brother nation during the war of 1812.
Tuscarora Reserve in NY state
The 1812 war itself was not in favour or against the Onkwehonwe, and the Oneida bid to remain neutral was observed by the entire confederacy until such time that our peace was broken. While we were never meant to take up arms against each other, The war of 1812 served as a valuable reminder as to why we are not to fight wars for other nations.
Courtesy of T. Locklear Bear Clan, Tuscarora from Drowning Creek, NC
On the other hand, the 1711 North Carolina Tuscarora war has never had peace declared, leaving one to boldly state that they remain the Bad### cousin who survived every attempt to eradicate them and are STILL warriors
The Canadian Government-appointed Councils became fashionable in 1876 under the reign of Alexander Mackenzie’s Prime Ministership. Only nine years after Canada itself was born, according to their legends, The young Dominion of the Commonwealth of Britain made the daring move to usurp control over Onkwehonwe in the Sewatokwat’shera’t.
The 100,000-year-old ways belonging to the Onkwehonwe civilizations were outdated and were very difficult for the new country to adapt to. They presented significant hurdles according to the colonization schedule; the new Canadian state needed a new and shiny tool that would keep the savages separated from their federal system but would stroke the egos of Onkwehonwe.
Target: Women
Onkwehonwe women are the life-givers keepers of the Nations’ land while men protect it and the women as they live their roles. Men are not superior or inferior, for that matter. It’s about balancing respectfully within the world that gave Onkwehonwe Women the power of absolute freedom, first documented by Jesuits in the 1600s despite these types of balancing displays having existed for thousands of years.
The Canadian strategy targeted this balance by removing women’s voices from political matters for over 116 years. This strategy effectively removed the unbroken matrilineal bloodlines for millions of women and even forced them out of their community by having male members siding with the young nation.
Despite being a common practice amongst some onkwehonwe nations, women took men from other nations as partners for as long as we have been here. It was a means to redistribute the gene pool and avoid inbreeding into oblivion properly.
Onkwehonwe women did not get the right to vote equally until 1985, unlike their non-native counterparts, having earned their right in 1916. Still, many Onkwehonwe do not vote in any federally recognized elections to this day.
The VOTE out of the canoe
Excerpt of Letter signed Nov 2nd, 1896, by Governor-General John Campbell Hamilton Gordon Signed with a simple “X” by three Indian Warriors and two Chiefs of the Iroquois Confederacy, witnessed by Seth Newhouse.
Canada’s attempt to shame China only places the spotlight on its treatment of Onkwehon: we.
CANADA –
While a Canadian House of Commons Subcommittee on International Human Rights refused to acknowledge its acts of genocide towards Onkwehon: we who have existed on these lands for thousands of years.
They had the nerve to release a scathing report on China’s treatment of ethnic Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims.
The Sub-committee is composed of all three major Canadian political parties. Felt that the list of reports satisfied that the Chinese Communist Party’s treatment met the guidelines of genocide as laid out in the Geneva Convention for genocide prevention signed in 1948 and enacted in 1951.
The committee further points out the use of birth control on women of childbearing age while refusing to acknowledge Canada’s Indigenous women’s forced sterilization.
In the face of acquittal after the acquittal of the perpetrators of murders of Indigenous people, MMIW, Wellness checks gone wrong, Serial murders going undetected despite mountains of evidence, Apprehension of children from hospital rooms,… Be careful, Canada; your hypocrisy is showing.
The condemnation of mass incarceration centers for forcible political indoctrination and skills training sound eerily similar to the Canadian Correctional facilities that house staggering amounts of Onkwehon: we more now than any other time in history
Canadian law enforcement officers belonging to the Ontario Provincial Police attempted to remove Onkwehonwe forcefully from a land-back resistance in Ontario, Canada; This happening just before releasing the report.
As a result of this arrest, the Judge presiding over the matter declined to allow an Onondaga man’s participation in a judicial proceeding where he is explicitly named
Photo credit: S.Antone
In a bold move, and with a clear plan to silence and repress not only an Oneida Onkwehonwe media journalist breaking through into mainstream; but the Ontario Provincial Police issued and carried out several warrants for an Independent Mohawk Journalist ironically within their ancestral territory.
And just so we don’t get it twisted as an Onkwehon: we reporter, I condemn all forms of genocide from all settler-colonial states that have interfered with traditional lifeways – from Canada to China and everywhere in between. (Description of writer’s eyes: Glares to the North and South of the Canadian States).
It looks Like Canada’s Dirty secrets are about to hit the World Stage.
I am Deganawida. With the statesmen of the League of Five Nations, I plant the Tree of Great Peace. I plant it in your territory, Atotarho and the Onondaga Nation: in the territory of you who are the Firekeepers. I name the tree Tsyoneratasekowa, the Great White Pine. Under the shade of this Tree of Great Peace, we spread the soft, white feathery down of the Globe Thistle as seats for you, Atotarho and your cousin statesmen.
We place you upon those seats, spread soft with the feathery down of the Globe Thistle, there beneath the shade of the spreading branches of the Tree of Great Peace. There shall you sit and watch the Fire of the League of Five Nations. All the affairs of the League shall be transacted at this place before you, Atotarho and your cousin statesmen, by the statesmen of the League of Five Nations.
Note : The term Five Nations makes it evident that all the laws were made before 1714 at which time the Tuscarora Nation was admitted into the Confederacy, but without an equal voice, contrary to the Plan of Deganawida. Apparently, the first Grand Councils of the Iroquois Confederacy were held under the evergreen white pine, the largest tree in Eastern North America, more than 250 feet high. All cut down 200 years ago by the white men who afterwards never let the great tree grow to full size again in their haste and eagerness to exploit it.
After ushering a new President into the highest political position within the United States of America’s highest office, Onkwehon:we (original people) everywhere took notice that one of his first acts was to cancel the Keystone pipeline’s permits. A sure shot for Joe Biden, who is already making some other beneficial changes for Onkwehonwe. Is this just smoke and mirrors for another four years of finely controlled care measures for Onkwehon:we?
Why do we care?
Colonists have never separated Wisk Nyonwhenhtsake, nor by the imaginary lines they have drawn on paper; Rotinonhsonni can only be separated by force from the clay that makes us. That solely rests with Shonkwaya’tison. The President’s colonial laws directly impact our relatives who do remain on their traditional lands.
Turtle Island
In Kanyen’keha, the term Konotokarious loosely translates to the idea of a Town Eater or Town destroyer. It was less than an endearing name for a particular type of depraved colonizer and mercenary soldier, and the name itself continued to hang on the neck of every president that was elected since that time. Names are given differently among different Onkwehonwe nations or communities, but our names are our inheritance and passed down within the Rotinonhsonni worldview, and we grow into them.
How we have come to know Konotokarious
The most famous bearer of this name is George Washington, the first president of the United States. George himself inherited the name long before the Sullivan campaign waged against Onkwehon:we. Given to him by Tanaghrisson, a Seneca Royaner, George was not the first to be given that name. Kanotokarious is a variation of an Algonquin word given to John Washington, a great-grandfather of George Washington.
George Washington family coat of arms with pedigree
When John Washington had murdered five Chiefs from the Sussquenhannock Nation while negotiating peace with the coward, the name came about. In the form fit for only the privileged, he then shifted blame to a mob of “Marylanders” in his account of events for a deposition. His punishment was a public shaming by Governor William Berkely, a small token that did nothing compared to what he inflicted on the Nations who had weakened after their leaders’ fall.
To strengthen the nation-to-nation relationship while ensuring the right to vote, Biden must first accept and recognize the Onkwehonwe Declaration of Independence, subsequently offering dual citizenship to those who can obtain dual citizenship. Our two-row binds Rotinosonni, so we would not be eligible for this option. I would be speculating if I said that this is how Joe Biden intended his mandate interpretation. It implies that the American dream is dependent on this new relationship and includes a landmass loss in their countries portfolio.
Photo Credit: Starla Myers
After returning control of our lands to us through his restoration mandate, Onkwehonwe can begin the process of returning to our ancient governance systems in their totality and demonstrate how the entire collective held a place of importance in decision making. We can then restore the health of the land according to our understanding of health.
You lost me at Father.
Biden lost me at his paternalistic perspective in his assertions that he will find solutions to problems created due to colonization. From that point on, he seems inconsistent with wanting to develop any type of real relationship truly. Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women is a direct result of colonization; I’m not trusting to take food from the same system that over-sexualized our women in the first place.
The same way of thinking is in play when Biden mandates strategies to support our health. Health and wellness are the people’s responsibility; for us as Onkwehon:we it also falls to us how to determine the methods that we address those elements of our being. Yes, it results from colonization, and Yes, we can use some help but on our terms using our traditional medicines and ceremonies.
It’s up to the people in that ship to hold Biden to his campaign mandates rather than viewing them as just promises that he could break. He should be held to these standards, as should, every inheritor of that name should until they grow out of it. If Joe Biden truly wants to start that growing process, he will want to stop interfering in Onkwehon:we matters. First, he needs to find all the families that his predecessor separated and free all of the Onkwehon: we IN CAGES.
