Welcome to the NOON e-newsletter for December 2024. Enjoy, and please share widely!
Return Land on Onondaga Lake to the Onondaga Nation
What a delight to read Steve Featherstone’s feature article about the long overdue return of 1,000 acres in the Tully Valley to the Onondaga Nation. Hearing several of our Onondaga neighbors share what the historic land return means for them and their community was deeply moving. All of Central New York should celebrate this small step toward justice and healing. We urge readers who haven’t done so to read the article or watch the powerful 3 minute video (Onondaga Nation plans a wild future for 1,000 acres of reclaimed land).
The land return in Tully is an important step, which should spur our county leadership to fulfill the commitment they made in 2011 to return land to the Onondaga on the shore of the lake which bears their name. Onondaga Lake holds deep spiritual significance to the Onondaga people as the site where the Haudenosaunee Confederacy was founded over 1,000 years ago. This is also true of Onondaga Creek, which has its headwaters in the lands recently returned to Onondaga, and which flows through their territory.
Discussions over a decade ago fizzled out because the County wanted to return the highly polluted area known as Murphy’s Island, a prospect which was unacceptable to the Onondaga Nation. In recent years, the Onondaga have suggested that Maple Bay, on the northwest corner of the lake, would be a more suitable area to be returned to them. It is long past time for this process to move forward to completion.
Nearly everyone in our community, and across the US, has a general understanding that European settlers terribly mistreated the Indigenous Peoples of this land. That mistreatment included the theft of nearly all land and a concerted effort, over several centuries, to destroy Indigenous cultures and ways of life. Fortunately for all of us, while those efforts devastated Indigenous nations, they were unsuccessful in their ultimate goal.
The Onondaga people have continued to live on their small remaining sovereign territory (less than half a percent of their original 4,000 square mile homeland) as good neighbors, despite the injustices they have experienced. In 2005, when the Onondaga Nation filed their historic land rights action, they built on efforts of well over two centuries to reclaim and restore land which had been taken illegally from them. Sadly, in a series of unjust decisions, the federal court system again proved to be a place with no justice for Indigenous Peoples.
The federal courts consistently ruled that the Onondaga and their fellow Haudenosaunee nations were correct that their land had been taken in violation of federal law and the US Constitution. However, they dismissed the cases anyway.
As a grassroots educational and advocacy organization, we call on our fellow Central New Yorkers to encourage County Executive Ryan McMahon and their county legislators to take action on this important issue.
We urge the county executive to re-engage in negotiations with the Onondaga Nation to return Maple Bay to their jurisdiction. This will be a simple act of justice and one which will enhance our community by re-enabling Onondaga stewardship over part of the lake. Despite significant efforts to clean up what was once the most polluted lake in the country, Onondaga Lake remains significantly impaired.
We look forward to building on the return of land in the Tully Valley by celebrating the return of Maple Bay to the Onondaga Nation in 2025.
Andy Mager, Carol Baum, Casey Cleary-Hammarstedt, Cindy Squillace, Hilary-Anne Coppola, Jack Manno and Sarah Howard
for Neighbors of the Onondaga Nation
Ongoing Action
Return Maple Bay to the Onondaga Nation
The Onondaga Nation has pushed for the return of land along sacred Onondaga Lake for many decades. The American Indian Law Alliance recently initiated a campaign to restart advocacy to correct some measure of this historic injustice.
Please take a few minutes to send a postcard to
Onondaga County Executive, J. Ryan McMahon
Postcard Sample Language (Feel free to adapt)
Dear County Executive McMahon:
I urge you to deliver on Onondaga County’s 2011 commitment to return land on the shore of Onondaga Lake to the Onondaga Nation. The lake needs serious attention and care, and the Onondaga Nation has a rightful role in caring for this land that has been their ancestral home for thousands of years.
Please do the right thing, by the lake, and by the people, and return Maple Bay.
Respectfully,
Your name
Address to: County Executive J. Ryan McMahon, II
421 Montgomery St 14th Fl.
Syracuse, NY 13202
If you’re unable to send a postcard, you can send an online message here.
Upcoming Events:
News Year’s Eve Peace Vigil
Tuesday, December 31 at 5 pm
Clinton Square, downtown Syracuse, along Salina St.
This annual event, organized by the Syracuse Peace Council, will focus a good deal this year, as it did last year, on the genocide underway in Gaza and the dire need to stop it, along with a general call for peace across the globe!
Family Heirlooms Exhibit Opening
Friday, January 10, 8 AM – 5 PM https://www.senecamuseum.org/event/family-heirlooms-exhibit-opening/
Onöhsagwë:de’ Cultural Center / Seneca Iroquois National Museum, 82 W Hetzel St, Salamanca, New York 14779
New exhibit celebrating Onöndowa’ga resiliency, loved ones and ancestors through display of family keepsakes collected from the community. Accompanied with a virtual catalog.
Listen to the Elders Speaker Series
Thursday, February 6, 5:30 – 8:30 PM https://calendar.syracuse.edu/events/2025-feb-06/listen-to-the-elders-speaker-series-138826/
Bird Library, Peter Graham Scholarly Commons (Room 114), 222 Waverly Ave, Syracuse, NY 13210
Sponsored by the on-campus collective Not in the Books, the Listen to the Elders Speaker Series showcases Indigenous knowledge keepers presenting history that is not traditionally found in textbooks.
Hodinöšyö:nih Continuity | Innovation | Resilience
Rochester Museum and Science Center, 657 East Ave, Rochester NY 14607
This new permanent exhibit was curated by Jamie Jacobs (Tonawanda Seneca, Turtle Clan) and includes seven Haudenosaunee artists: Kyle Dowdy Jr. (Tuscarora, Bear Clan), Katsitsionni Fox (Akwesasne Mohawk, Bear Clan), Hayden Haynes (Seneca Nation, Deer Clan), Kenith “Nek” Jonathan (Tonawanda Seneca, Wolf Clan), Tonia Loran- Galban (Akwesasne Mohawk, Bear Clan), Natasha Smoke Santiago (Akwesasne Mohawk, Turtle Clan), and Coreen Thompson (Tonawanda Seneca, Bear Clan). “Hodinöšyö:nih Continuity | Innovation | Resilience was a years-long collaboration aimed at supporting the rights of people to tell their own stories (narrative sovereignty), sharing Hodinöšyö:nih perspectives, and creating a space that helps Hodinöšyö:nih people reconnect with traditional material culture and knowledge (rematriation).”
Carson Waterman: Art Saved My Life
Burchfield Penny Art Center, 1300 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, New York 14222
This new permanent exhibit on Seneca artist Carson Waterman features vibrant and thought-provoking works that explore themes of identity, culture, and heritage. View Waterman’s remarkable series of large-scale paintings honoring eight Haudenosaunee Clan Mothers of the Seneca Nation, on loan from the Seneca-Iroquois National Museum, alongside works that highlight the breadth of the artist’s career.
Monthly Events:
NOON Steering Committee Open Meeting. Please contact Lee Cridland, Peace Council Staff, for more info.
Indigenous News and Culture:
Clean energy or green colonialism? Tribes want President Biden to save the Owyhee Canyonlands
Original Peoples Podcast Ongwehonwe by Ansley Jemison
Building a model for gender-affirming care at Cowlitz Indian Tribe
How did Native people vote this election cycle?
Legal weed entrepreneurs promised a windfall from tribal lands. Then it fell apart.
Places to Visit:
Skä•noñh – Great Law of Peace Center, 6680 Onondaga Lake Pkwy. Liverpool, NY 13088. Skä•noñh is a Haudenosaunee Cultural Center focused on telling the story of the native peoples of central New York. Now open from 10am-4pm Wednesday-Friday, and 11am-4pm on Saturday.
Kanatsiohareke Mohawk Community, 4934 State Highway 5. Fonda, NY.
Ganondagan State Historic Site, 7000 County Road 41 (Boughton Hill Road) Victor, NY 14564. Bark Longhouse open May-October.
Seneca Iroquois National Museum, 82 W Hetzel St. Salamanca, NY 14779.
Iroquois Museum, 324 Caverns Road. Howes Cave, NY 12092.
About Us:
Neighbors of the Onondaga Nation (NOON) is a grassroots organization of Central New Yorkers which recognizes and supports the sovereignty of the traditional government of the Onondaga Nation. A program of the Syracuse Peace Council, NOON supports the right of Indigenous Peoples to reclaim land, and advocates for fair settlement of any claims which are filed. We are always looking for more folks to join our work in Central New York. Learn more here.
NOON works on the territory of the Onondaga Nation,
Firekeepers of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.
We express our deep gratitude to the Onondaga Nation for caring for these lands, waters, and all our fellow beings since time immemorial.
We offer heartfelt apologies for the terrible violence that colonizers have carried out against the Onondaga People and Nation, including theft of land and attempted genocide. We are thankful for their perseverance and survival. We commit ourselves to working in solidarity with the Onondaga Nation to protect their sovereignty and create a shared, sustainable future for all life.
