SPEECH GIVEN TO POPE FRANCIS
Three Indigenous delegations: Metis, Inuit, and First Nations, met with Pope Francis in private audiences at the Vatican during the week of March 28 to March 31, 2022 leading up to his apology. The First Nations delegation of 15 included chiefs, elders, spiritual advisors, and youth delegates who all spoke their truths of our Indigenous peoples to Pope Francis.
Kaluhyanu:wes Michelle Schenandoah (Onʌyota’:aka, Wolf Clan) served as a female spiritual advisor to the Delegation along with Katsitsionni Fox (Kanien’kehá:ka, Bear Clan) throughout the week. During this private audience, Schenandoah spoke the closing statement below to the Pope, that she wrote as a reflection of the truths, prayers and intentions of Haudenosaunee and Indigenous peoples across Mother Earth.
“You have heard the voices of our people this week. We are living peoples, human beings with souls. We come in the footsteps of our ancestors, elders and leaders, and many who still request an audience from you. All those you have heard this week represent only the smallest numbers of Indigenous peoples impacted by the Papal Bulls that make up the Doctrine of Discovery, which has given settler nation states an illegitimate assumption of authority over our people and land for over 500 hundreds years.
The Doctrine of Discovery led to the continual taking of our babies to this day, the disappearance of thousands of our women who have gone missing or murdered. Women who would have been mothers, sisters, aunties, grandmothers, community members, the backbone of our nations. It allows the settler colonial states to take our babies and leave them vulnerable to societal ills that create broken families. It has led to the displacement of our men into broken states and prison states, separated from the ability to be fathers and healthy individuals. And it has led to the dispossession of our lands. It has deprived us of our dignity, our freedom and led to the exploitation of our Mother Earth, from which she now pushes back against humanity to listen, while she cleanses herself from the harms we humans have done to her. These Papal Bulls that make up the Doctrine of Discovery also opened the door to slavery in the western world, and stole the lives and dignity of our African brothers and sisters. It has given the right for all peoples of the world to view Indigenous peoples as dispensable, while violently taking our Mother Earth for personal and institutional riches, for which our precious metals (from the Americas) adorn these halls. The Doctrine of Discovery has enslaved the entire world since 1493 to today,
to view us
to treat us
to take from us
to murder and rape us and to destroy our culture
to decimate and invisibilize us
It’s been a long genocide across all of Turtle Island that has been legalized under these Papal Bulls. Laws held up by the Doctrine of Discovery that are discriminatory, and exploitative acts that destroy people, families, children and Mother Earth are deemed legal to this day. Laws create policies, policies shape education and education shapes behavior, and how people around the world have come to treat us and see us. Among my generation, I was born in a year when it was illegal to practice our spiritual and traditional way of life. In my generation, I was born when the United Nations only referred to my people as flora and fauna. Our Indigenous peoples according to the Doctrine of Discovery are without souls.
The world has responded and acted accordingly to the precepts that Indigenous peoples, as non-Christians, do not have souls and therefore have no right to our bodies, our children, ur lands, our governments or our futures.
As people, under our own ways of life, governance and existence, do have souls, and together we are all human beings. You have the responsibility to forever turn the hand of fate toward peace. Toward a future all families around the world dream about for their children, for each other, and for the world they live in. This, here, is called a cradleboard and it used to carry our children in. We can even hang the board on a high place so our children are eye level with us and feel equal and included. I am leaving this board with you overnight. This is a symbol of every Indigenous child who went to a residential boarding school across Turtle Island. Those who survived and those who did not. In our way, when making decisions, we often sleep on the issue at hand. How you treat this cradleboard tonight will be how you come to treat our people in the future. When the sun rises, I ask for their spirits to be rematriated, restored to a high place of sacredness, because you will have decided to make things right. I am sent to you by one of our traditional Clan Mothers of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, where laws of peace have prevailed for over 1,000 years, where our democracy was given to the world, and where our rights of women were also given to the world. As Indigenous peoples, we have gifts to offer the world once again, to bring balance in living with Mother Earth, and peacemaking processes and to live with each other as human kind. You only need only to open the door and your heart for all of the world to hear us, by revoking the Papal Bulls that contain the Doctrine of Discovery. Today, we come to you to implore you to release the world from its place of enslavement that consciously and unconsciously grips every soul on this planet by these insidious Papal Bulls.
This cradleboard is the symbol of our collective future. We ask that you make it right, so the world may truly move forward in peace and make it right with Indigenous peoples and restore dignity toward our peoples, so that all our souls may be at peace with each other.
Tomorrow we will reconvene one more time. I will retrieve this cradleboard to bring home to Turtle Island, symbolic of bringing our children back home to us. Yaw^ko, a grand thank you for hearing our words today. We have come a long way carrying many prayers. I ask for all of Creation and the maker of our beings, who we call the Great Creator to be with us. Let us sleep on these matters, and make them right. We give great thanks for each other, for all of life and for this time together.
Dane’to”
Kaluhyanu:wes Michelle Schenandoah (Onʌyota’:aka, Wolf Clan)
Note: Pope Francis will visit Canada in July to apologize to Indigenous peoples for residential schools.
NOON acknowledges that we are on the territory of the Onondaga Nation, council fire of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.
We are thankful for their stewardship of our environment.
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EVENTS:
Cobleskill-Richmondville Student Art Exhibit. June 1 – June 13, Iroquois Indian Museum, 324 Caverns Road, Howes Cave, NY 12092. Selected works by 1st and 4th graders created under the instruction of art teacher Lori Mollitor will be on exhibit in the Children’s Museum. Features 2 and 3-dimensional works inspired by the student’s study of Native cultures.
Raritan Native American Celebration – June 18-19, 2022, Middlesex County Fairgrounds, 655 Cranbury Rd, East Brunswick, NJ, 08816
Echoes of Tradition: Social Dancers – HAUDENOSAUNEE SINGERS AND DANCERS, Saturday, July 2, Iroquois Indian Museum, 324 Caverns Road, Howes Cave, NY 12092. The Haudenosaunee Singers & Dancers perform Iroquois social dances as practiced in their small traditional community near Syracuse. Elegant and knowledgeable, leader Sherri Waterman-Hopper has traveled internationally as an artist and cultural speaker. The Dancers feature a core group of seasoned singer/musicians and talented and dedicated young adults. Pride in the culture and adherence to the traditions are the hallmarks of this disciplined troupe. Hopper is also a respected designer and seamstress who incorporates her knowledge of the construction and significance of traditional outfits into her presentations.
Mohawk Cultural Tours – Immersive, Indigenous Cultural Tours Hosted by Experts
Virtual Programming- Ten Minute Teachings – Ganondagan
Virtual Tours – Iroquois Indian Museum
Virtual Tours and Educational videos – Seneca Iroquois National Museum
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MONTHLY:
NOON Steering Committee Open Meeting, Next meeting June 21st, 7-8:30 PM, virtual. Since new people often have a lot of questions and you will need contact info for the virtual meeting, we recommend contacting Carol Baum , Syracuse Peace Council Staff, or Sue Eiholzer, NOON Volunteer, before the meeting.
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FYI:
To aid you in focusing, articles are arranged by topic and coded for length (S – short, M – Medium, L – Long) with a designation for Video and/or Audio.
Local
Introduction to the Haudenosaunee Confederacy by Jake Edwards – 16 min YouTube video
Experts say new eagle nest on Onondaga Lake shore may be 1st since 1800 – M
Interlaken Village Board urges Halftown removal as Cayuga leader – S
Don’t expect Halftown, Cayuga Nation spokesperson to address Seneca supervisors
LETTER: Shocked by how little spokesperson knows about Gayogoho:no – S
Nation is Going To Open Casino In Seneca Falls – S
Culture
Her tribal regalia was banned at graduation. So she worked to change the law. – M
Navajo & Hopi Families COVID-19 Relief Fund Update – video and M
History
Coming Home to the Cove – link to a series on Indigenous stories
Environment
With A little Human Help, This Butterfly is Back – At Least this Year – M, primarily pictures
Government
Charles Graham wins Democratic nomination, North Carolina could have its first Indigenous person elected to Congress in November – L
Onondaga Nation Newsletter
Anyone interested in subscribing to the Onondaga Nation’s monthly e-newsletter can email nonewsletter@gmail.com with your first and last name. One request per email address please.
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NOON RESOURCES:
Because the Syracuse Peace Council office is closed during the pandemic, contact carol@peacecouncil.net so we can arrange to get them to you.
The Doctrine of Discovery: Unmasking the Domination Code film is premised on Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery, a book based on two decades of research by Shawnee, Lenape scholar Steven T. Newcomb. Available to borrow. Contact Carol Baum via email or phone 315-472-5478
Standing on Sacred Ground Videos. Each of the 4 episodes is 60 min. Pilgrims and Tourists, Profit and Loss, Fire and Ice and Islands of Sanctuary. If you have a group of friends or know an organization that would like to view any of these films, please contact Carol Baum via email or phone 315-472-5478.
In addition NOON has organized dozens of educational programs over the past 20 years which are available on line at SPC’s You Tube Channel. Fifteen years ago we coordinated the historic series Onondaga Land Rights and Our Common Future. Check out the videos here.
WITNESS TO INJUSTICE: UNRAVELING HISTORIC NATIVE & U.S. RELATIONS. This inter-active group exercise is a 2 hour teaching tool that uses participatory education to raise awareness of the history of the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in the part of the world now known as the United States. Through the use of meaningful quotes, and blankets that represent part of Turtle Island (the Western Hemisphere), we explore this shared history that most people rarely learn in traditional settings. We engage in a conversation about the European colonization of Turtle Island in order to deepen our understanding of the denial of Indigenous peoples’ nationhood throughout U.S. History. NOON is offering this exercise to groups, organizations, schools and churches. A good will offering to support NOON’s work is appreciated. If you would like additional information or to schedule a time for a presentation, contact Cindy Squillace
Save the Date:
Indigenous Music & Arts Festival, Saturday & Sunday, July 23 & 24, Ganondagan | 7000 County Road 41, Victor, NY 14564
Iroquois Indian Museum Events, July through October.
Red Hawk Native American Arts Events:
Indigenous Peoples Day – October 9-10, 2022
