Our lives are valued again as high as man’s.
And from the Iroquois at the UN: Opening Speech by Oren Lyons for "The Year of the Indigenous Peoples, 1993
This proclamation brings home inspiration and renewed dedication to our quest for self-determination, justice, freedom and peace in our Homelands and our Territories. Indeed, the quest is a renewal of what we enjoyed before the coming of our White Brothers from across the sea. We lived contentedly under the Gai Eneshah Go’ Nah, the Great Law of Peace. We were instructed to create societies based on the principles of Peace, Equity, Justice, and the Power of Good Minds. Our societies are based upon great democratic principles of the authority of the people and equal responsibilities for the men and the women. This was a great way of life across this Great Turtle Island and freedom with respect was everywhere. Our leaders were instructed to be men of vision and to make every decision on behalf of the seventh generation to come; have compassion and love for those generations yet unborn. We were instructed to give thanks for All That Sustains Us. Thus, we created great ceremonies of Thanksgiving for the life-giving forces of the Natural world, as long as we carried out our ceremonies life would continue. We were told that ‘the seed is the law.’ Indeed it is the law of life. It is the law of regeneration. Within the seed is the mysterious force of life and creation. Our mothers nurture and guard that seed and we respect and love them for that. Just as we love I hi do’ hah, our Mother Earth, for the same spiritual work and mystery.
The Haudenosaunee [Iroquois] Confederacy, one of the worlds oldest democracies, is at least three centuries older than previous estimates, according to Bruce E. Johansen. Research by Barbara Mann and Jerry fields of Toledo University, Ohio has shown this to be the new estimate.
It is not unreasonable to guess that the Iroquois once numbered in the hundreds of thousands, according to Doug George-Kanentiio. According to census figures in both Canada and the U.S., in 1995 there were 74,518 Iroquois in North America, the majority of whom lived in Canada.
Bibliography:
Native American History, JUDITH NIES, Ballantine Books, New York First Edition: November 1996
A Basic Call to Consciousness, The Hou de no sau nee Address to the Western World, Geneva, Switzerland, Autumn 1977
Exemplar of Liberty, Native America and the Evolution of Democracy, complete 1990 book
Oren Lyons at the UN: Opening Speech for "The Year of the Indigenous peoples", 1993
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According to JUDITH NIES in NATIVE AMERICAN HISTORY, "About 800 A.D., a strong Mesoamerican influence appeared in the Mississippi Valley and spread throughout the Mississippi River system, including the cultivation of corn and the building of truncated pyramids or "platform mounds" in the Mexican style. The Natchez Indian tradition attributes this influence to the actual colonization from Mesoamerica.
In 1758, a Louisiana Frenchman published the traditional story of how the Natchez came to the lands the French called Louisiana, told to him by the priest of the Natchez temple:
Before we came into this land we lived yonder under the sun [pointing with his finger nearly southwest, by which I understood that he meant Mexico]; we lived in a fine country where the earth is always pleasant; there our suns had their abode, and our nation maintained itself for a long time against the ancients of the country, who conquered some of our villages in the plains but never could force us from the mountains. Our nation extended itself along the great water [the Gulf of Mexico] where the large river [the Mississippi] loses itself ; but as our enemies were become very numerous, and very wicked, our Suns sent some of their subjects who lived near this river, to examine whether we could retire into the country through which it flowed. The country on the east side of the river being found extremely pleasant, the Great Sun, upon the return of those who had examined it, ordered all his subjects who lived in the plains and who still defended themselves against the antients [sic] of the country, to remove into this land, here to build a temple, and to preserve the eternal fire.
The Natchez survived as one of the most powerful of the Mississippi nations until the 1720s when the French put down a rebellion by destroying all the Natchez villages and selling most of the Natchez people, including the great Sun, into slavery in the Caribbean."
"Far from settling a virgin continent, Europeans, from the very beginning, moved into preexisting Indian villages and followed Indian trade routes using Indian guides. Without Indian villages, it is entirely possible there could have been no successful European settlements. From the moment of contact, the appearance of white men raised complex choices for native leaders. What the natives did not realize until it was too late was that European Christianity made it impossible for the Europeans to view the Indians in a way that allowed a fair and equitable negotiation. They saw Indians as savages, as a people without a culture, valuable only as a source of slave labor."
