Sovereignty with Oren Lyons Pt. 2

[Music] oh story of colonization was a universal story before it was a local story every tribal nation confronted the same challenges to their sovereignty from the haudenosaunee on the east coast to the tribes and nations in washington state to be native american and alive today is to have survived attempted genocide warren lyons faith keeper of the onondaga nation speaks to the strength of his people and the government of the haudenos confederacy he attests to the endurance and power of his people's sovereignty and does so without ever mentioning the word sovereignty is the state of existence as a self-governing entity like the individual states of the united states each member of the hodanoshone retains the authority to govern its own internal affairs within the framework of the great law and its own specific laws each individual nation reserves the right to adjudicate internal disputes pass laws for the welfare of their own community assess fees regulate trade and commerce control immigration and citizenship oversee public works approve land use and appoint officials to act on its behalf every member of the haudenosaunee has the authority to defend its citizens against internal and external dangers and to advocate for the peaceful resolution of conflict and the equitable distribution of collective resources [Music] hello [Music] [Music] [Music] today's times i've watched this change over a period of time my elder brother here we've seen a lot of changes you know i grew up early on at onondaga when there was just one car there the rest was all horse and wagon i grew up in that horse and wagon i could harness a horse i could uh i could set up a wagon i knew how to do that because you had to that's what it was and we raised all our own food everything we grew everything basically i grew up in a country this in new york central new york yeah and i think i was four years old the first time i saw a white man there was four of us we were playing along the road in the bushes and here comes a ragman he's got a wagon on a horse and he's a white man selling wrecks and who he's scary to us we're hiding in the bushes and we watch him go by you know but he was an old man and he had a white beard and he had a black hat and a black coat and we watched him he didn't see us you got to go by [Music] and we learned that our mothers would bargain with him for whatever it was you know so after a while we got to know who he was but that was the first time because we were growing up in onondaga we never never went anywhere but running around in the woods there and we never we never played or on the road we were always in the woods that's where we were we were swimming we were out all day we could feed ourselves out there we knew what we could eat we didn't have to go for lunch or nothing we feed ourselves the age groups run together you know we're out there fishing swimming running playing that was really nice i didn't realize how how lucky we were to be able to have that kind of a life i didn't know that now we didn't have much you know people were hungry a lot all the time but you could go next door and you could get a carrot or a cup of potatoes or something kids run next door you call potato yeah you know they're gonna make some kind of food somewhere you know so everybody share everything and so you had a community you could go in and out of anybody's house and to take care of you you know what's your mother's name how is she doing you know that everyone knew everybody so we had this big kind of a family run it's nice it's not like that now things have changed [Music] so when i was asked to take a council position i was already working in new york city as a commercial artist i had established a business i knew advertising and i was asked to come back and [Music] take leadership helped that's pretty hard actually it was probably why our marriage didn't last to that decision to go home and i did so like i said i've been learning the first thing i had to do was pay attention before that security there the underdog was always there the chiefs were there the clan others everybody was so you didn't worry about it because it was just there but then when you began to take on that responsibility then you go whoa this is a lot of work it's a total commitment and the traditional system was you don't receive any pay there was no such thing 1500 years ago you had a duty and you had work and that was what you did and since we've kept that system that's the way it is yet today there's no payroll for our leaders they take care of us they do us best we can because the things are different but fundamentally the rules the laws are the same and i think from what i understand that six nations is the last standing traditional government still in charge of land in north america now every other government whether in canada or the united states has an elective system not where i come from and we have the first treaty with the blossoming united states 1775 when the continental congress requested a meeting with us in the new headquarters called albany new york that's where mohawk fire was at one time that camp there and of course we know their father so they were going to be ready for a big fight but we saw the fight we've been working with them for 400 years and uh they asked us to join and i'm going to make a point here but it takes a little longer so i have to bear with me and so at this time they're getting ready to fight and the continental congress 62 members of the continental congress asked the six nation confederacy to come and sit with them and we did it's a long story to that i won't go through that but we had a meeting and at that meeting they told us about the problems they were facing and we knew about that because we knew the leaders were in constant discussion with them whether it was in maryland or whether it was in maine whether it was in georgia our leaders were there so we knew we knew what was happening well aware and there was a split in the the christian doctrine the catholics and then you had the [Music] the uh church of england which was not catholic they had split and that split carried over into the colonies so we were aware of that as well and it was coming to a head it was 1775 so they asked us to join them and our leaders said we know your father we've been dealing with your father for a long time we know you and we think we think that this coming fight which we know is coming because our minds are split like yours we have people thinking this way that way we're making preparations so it's well known that probably one of the worst thing you can do is step in between a family fight everybody know you don't get your nose in there otherwise they both turn on you we say this is a family fight you and your father i don't think it's a good idea and we had this discussion with your father just three months ago in oswego same thing and they said good because that was our second request if you're not going to fight with us don't fight against us and we said we will take that position as we said to your father we stand back in a neutral position you settle this between your south but you're in our land there's no way that so at some point you're going to see are men in the field on both sides but when you see them there remember that they're there as an individual they're not representing their nation nor are they representing the confederacy we're free people and we can't tell people what to do but you will see and that's the way it [Music] was [Music] i move up to 1983. uh you had a president at that time he was a hollywood actor i remember him and he was re-energizing the draft you remember the draft and so and that's what he did you know so all of a sudden our young men were getting letters in the mail saying you know report to your draft i said we're going to do this we said well bring them to us don't ignore it bring me here we'll fill it out and we'll send it down to them and say you can't draft our men and so this went on for a while and then we got a call from the united states selective service system saying can we have a meeting with you guys and we said yes of course uh what's the subject this is your men are refusing our draft we said oh good we'll have that discussions please come up so we set the time we met with them mother's day 1983 and they said you set the time on mother's day we said every day is mother's day every day so we had the meeting and they said we know what your position here is not new we know that but we don't know where where's where is it where does it start and we were ready but our men lined up we had the wampum belts laid out and we went back 1744. we told him we talked about discussion in 1744 when six nations was providing and presiding over a meeting in lancaster pennsylvania about land as usual you know colonies and six nations was presiding because all the land was indian land and we were trying to protect the interest of our people nations the land so they were squabbling between themselves the colonism and one of the onondaga chiefs stood up and he said to them you know you people never going to amount to anything until you learn how to work together why don't you make a union like ours the principle of peace that's the principle of our peace equity to be fair to everybody and to be united we're the first united nations iraq way back based on the women's side the women are in charge of the clans we have five leaders clan mother principal chief deputy faith keeper man faith keeper female that's our in every clan they have duties her duty is to find those leaders choose those leaders so it's a grandmother that chooses the leader but it has to be ratified by consensus by the clan and then ratified by consensus by the council of chiefs and then finally ratified by consensus by the six nation confederacy so you just don't walk in there and if you get chosen to be sitting there you better think about your history because they're going to know everything you ever did and i didn't realize that as i got caught oh my gosh but the nations cut you a lot of slack anyway 1744 sunday chief said that you know you're just not going to you got to work together and in 1775 then when we met the speaker for the continental congress said to us at that time in 1744 in lancaster you advised us to make a union like yours we are now taking your advice that's where your united states started from you don't know that you haven't been told that it's not in your history books but it's in the history it's in the congressional records of the united states it's not figment it's written down word for word what they said we're going to make a union like yours based on peace equity union and so i said i was going to make a point and i come all the way around to that but you have to know the history in order to understand the point and so you'll find that most indian nations and speakers have this way of doing things they have to take you from the beginning so that you can understand you can't just tell somebody you have to show the process and it was a great experiment i would say you know you know what the first flag was for the continental congress anybody here know the first flag it's a pine tree as a pie tree and what is what is the symbol for the huri noshoni it's a great white pine peace and when they called us 1775 they said we want to rekindle our relationship under your great tree of peace you don't know that i'm telling you that's your history and we have treaties after the revolutionary war and i won't go through that one very hard fight the first treaty that the new united states made was made in france 18 1783 and that was the peace between england and the colonies now now the united states the second treaty that the new united states made was with the houdinoshoni 1784 because they had to we were a force we were a power 1784 and we said i said a lot of bad things happen but let's forget that and now we'll have a union so we began that treaty another one 1787 another one 1789 1790 1794 treaties between nation they stand every year delivered to our nations the sixth nation from the united states treaty cloth every year they know they hold that treaty and in 2016 they invited us to the white house and to the renew the 17 94 treaty peace and friendship so treaties are real you have a very powerful treaty here and all the work that this man has done that's enormous work that's your history and where he started something you know 1823 going back there's more history but anyway there it is and that brings us up to the contemporary times so the discussion about peace and friendship going back to those treaties that we have foundational to what we face in the future because this discussion what we're looking out there now and what you're having the discussion is nature nature we have affected the process of life in the world we've affected it and we don't have a wrench big enough to fix that ice is melting the ice is melting fast faster and faster and so i would say that we have to put aside and i'm talking now about the human family can't be indians or black people or yellow people or white people it's our family they're human beings we're a family we come in all colors we come in all sizes but we're still one family and if we're going to survive as a species that's the way you have to think all aside all of that society we now have to work together for oh that little little guy that was dancing so hard that's a responsibility look after him and that's you know the meeting that a friend over there put together that's the discussion that's been going on for a long time this has been going on but now they say it's time to fish or cut bait that's it you know no second chances on this one no second chances we're in it now we're in it we're in climate change it's going to go on and it's going to get worse and the only way we're going to survive as a species is to work together common cause and remember the two laws respect and share if we follow those two laws we got a chance we have a chance but it's got to be that way 1950 i was 20 years old and there were three or 2.5 billion people in the world all told the whole world 2.5 billion people and here we are like 68 years later 7.6 billion people in the world within this last 68 years almost triple the population soon to be eight where's the water where's the food where's the land where's our relationship we have responsibility to those people in africa we have responsibility to all those people if you help them where they are then they're not going to be moving but water is the issue and water is not adjudicated evenly around the world so if you don't have water you're going to go look for it you know we're pretty strong we can go 70 80 days without eating we can starve a long time try to go 10 days without water try to go four days you're going to go you're going to go look for water that's what you're looking at right now today you mentioned the river jordan the river jordan is down to one-third of what it was before it's mud today right now no water there you have to have a bigger vision you have to think global because this is a global problem a global problem requires a global solution you can't fix one side and not the other because that's not the way nature works get all of us [Music] so it's for our common good as a human species to try to survive this crisis that we we brought on you can't go and you can't blame the trees you can't blame the salmon they didn't do that sauce you know there was uh guys you know about pogo and a pogo pretty smart he said one thing and i always remember what he said let's read it he says i have seen the enemy and it is us vocal true words can be said so my message stand here is so thankful to see your dancers and your songs oh it's a credit that's a credit to your nation because that's where it is that's the spiritual strength that you need there that's where we have to go this is a spiritual crisis and it can only be a spiritual solution so that's up to all of us here now tom and i have been in this a long time but we're not sure i don't know it's true the last time i spoke to the u.n i went like this i said don't let this fool you no fight is on hard one but we can do it we can do it for this guy here you can do it you just gotta share and you just gotta have respect those two can save the world donate to [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] you

Channel: ChildrenSSP

Views: 5,176

Rating: 4.9069767 out of 5

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Id: 3AMCX1RJno8

Length: 32min 15sec (1935 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 02 2020