In trying to learn about the Haudenosaunee people near me, I watched this documentary on youtube:
It focusses a lot on the very tense protests against housing developments on Haudenosaunee land in 2006, near Caledonia, Ontario and the leadership of the Clan Mothers in that protest.
My thinking this week has been shaped by Indigenous women leaders specifically. đ
Norman, A. (2015). âTrue to my own noble raceâ: Six Nations Women Teachers at Grand River in the early Twentieth Century. Ontario History, 107(1), 5â34. https://doi.org/10.7202/1050677ar
I found this fascinating article in my research for my final project, which is about Indigenous people – and specifically Haudenosaunee peoples – educate their own people, now and in the past. (Although it’s difficult to find a lot of specifics about pre-contact teaching and learning practices, beyond oral storytelling and learning by observation and then doing.)
This article is a history of three Indigenous women (out of many) who taught at residential day schools on the Six Nations reserve in Ontario (near where I live), during the 19th and 20th centuries.
The author writes:
“These three women negotiated multiple identities as Six Nations women, as Christians, as teachers in a Western school system, and as âgood women.â They took part in a process of cultural negotiation, exerting flexibility, creativity, and a willingness to look for opportunities to do the work they desired to do in and for their community.”
This paper â âA Haudenosaunee Model for Onkwehon:we (Indigenous) Educationâ â is like the holy grail for my research topic. Iâm interested in how Indigenous peoples educate their own people and how Indigenous values, including valuing the land, inform those education processes. (Onkwehon:we means Indigenous, or first people, in the Kahnyen’kehĂ ka or Mohawk language.)
This paper discusses the importance of Indigenous-led education that reclaims Indigenous ways of knowing, which value âexperiential learning, storytelling, and interacting with the landâ (Whitlow et al., 2019).
The authors detail how 22 children â half of whom are Indigenous and half are non-Indigenous â took part in three days of workshops on the Six Nations reserve, near Brantford Ontario (the largest reserve in Canada). âThe workshops were led and conducted by Haudenosaunee knowledge keepers who covered a range of topics: sovereignty, food, ceremonies, treaties, historical agreements between Six Nations and Brantford, colonization, decolonization, resistance, art, residential schools, cultural pride, language, and artistic practice.â (Whitlow et al., 2019).
The researchers then followed up with participants six months later. There are some very powerful quotes from the youth who participated in the workshops. The following is one such quote that underscores the importance of place-based learning:
â’Youâre just held accountable by your environment, being on Six Nations. Like youâre in their community⌠I think thatâs like really helpful whereas maybe if we had these workshops in Brantford and youâre talking about a community that youâre not actually in, itâs not holding you super accountable. Youâre in their house, so be respectful while you also inherently try to learn at the same time.’(Non-Onkwehon:we Youth)â (Whitlow et al., 2019).
Reference
Whitlow, K.B, Oliver, V., Anderson, K., Brozowski, K., Tschirhard, S. Charles, D., and Ransom, K. (2019). Yehyatonhserayenteri: A Haudenosaunee model for Onkwehon:we (Indigenous) education. Canadian Journal of Education 42(2).