Hi Friend,

I write this email as I travel out of a gathering on indigenous peacemaking in Vancouver Island, Canada.  Many beautiful teachings were shared. I was honored to be asked by one of the indigenous organizers to share some of the ways to be a good ally/co-conspirator.   

Shortly before I spoke, Great Owl Lightning, a member of the Raven Clan of the Anishinabek Nation (he has a very cool educational space for young people: Guardian Saga), brought a bundle to the center of our circle. He said he had been uncertain about bringing the bundle into space because it has been misunderstood for such a long time. But then a spider (literally) dangled in front of him. He felt encouraged by Spider to do so.  As he carefully unfolded the bundle, another elder walked around and offered a plant with cleansing power to everyone, to help us better see what was being unfolded. The gathered circle drew quiet. I felt a slight tingle in the back of my head. An awareness of Spirit. I closed my eyes and prayed that I, too, could see what was before me.  I suspected my ancestors had been amongst those who had not understood what they saw.

He took out a wampum belt. I smiled. 

I have seen many Wampum belts.  Each one is exquisite. I think of them as similar, though not the same as, sacred texts. There are messages and prayers inscribed in them, though not through letters and sentences. People hold them with care and tenderness. When they explain what the messages mean, they look at the belt with consideration, the way one might a sacred book, as if the object they are holding is talking to them, saying something a bit different than it has in the past, even though, to the casual observer, it has not changed at all. That’s because the object is not just an object. 

My ancestors who came to what is now the United States in the 1600s also would have known wampum belts. Lots of them. They were, as some scholars have said, the common language of diplomacy when the Dutch and the English arrived on the eastern seaboard of what is now the united states. It would have been hard to do much without encountering wampum or wampum belts.  They certainly would have been familiar with how they functioned, although I am sure there were some gaps in understanding and communication… some of which were most likely purposeful. 

The young man speaking before me said that this belt was for the children. Everything we do, he reminded us, is for the children.

When it was my turn to speak, I talked about how my ancestors knew of these belts. How Oliver Wolcott, who signed the Declaration of Independence,  traveled up to Albany, not far from where I now live, to meet with members of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, and to give thanks to them for supporting the U.S. governance in forming.  For giving them key aspects of what becomes the US. Constitution; for inspiring them to know that independence is possible. To see ways and structures of coming together that respected differences. 

We know the group who went up to Albany  spent months preparing for that meeting: learning protocols and customs and language, considering politics and histories. It was an important gathering. Once there, they passed a wampum belt over the fire, fully participating in the indigenous protocols of the land in which they were newcomers and guests.

It is a gathering, and a longer history, that has been almost completely dis-membered from celebrations of Independence Day/ Fourth of July.  After the gathering, Oliver Wolcott joined the first Indian Affairs Committee for the US Government. He was partly responsible for a lot of the subsequent policies and actions that broke a multitude of promises.   Including the continued and continuing forms of violence and forgetting the people who taught so much about what “freedom” and “happiness” can mean. 

Oh, Grandfather…. What did you do??!!

But the stories are not actually forgotten. The Peoples remembered. 

How fortunate are we to live in a time where memories are re-surfacing and coming together again; conversations halted and ignored and ridiculed and dismissed are beginning to surface again. There is a movement, and people from different nations and places are listening to one another. 

And so I’m particularly delighted to share with you my first offering explicitly focusing on these histories of Independence Day/ Fourth of July and to take another step towards offering a correction in the grand sweep of historical narration and re-membering. It is the first of what I hope will be many public conversations over the next few years. 

Please join myself, Kristine Hill, and Dr. Montgomery Hill for this unique webinar on Deepening into the Roots of Democracy on Independence Day. For those of you who have joined Krissy and I for other events, you probably have heard Dr. Hill’s recitation of the Words Before All Else in Tuscarora; we frequently use his recording. And you have probably heard Krissy’s story of this magnificent work of recovering/remembering the Tuscarora language, which has been a core part of Dr. Hill’s own Ph.D. and continuing work as a language keeper.  We all share a keen interest in governance, peacekeeping, and storytelling, especially about this shared history between our peoples, and I’m delighted we can include you in these conversations.