film: The Iroquois are speaking out for Mother Earth
Mike Carr, The Peak

In a quietly powerful new film, four Elders of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Six Nations) Confederacy speak in clear, frank and rational language. They talk about the global environmental crisis and what is needed to seriously begin to deal with the crisis, is by learning to see our planet as our relative, as our mother, as many earth based cultures do. Such a shift can motivate behaviour change, these elders tell us, and so we would begin to heal the rift in western civilisation between human and nature.

This film, the fourth for Mohawk film maker Danny Beaton, makes its world premiere on Vision TV's Outlook Canada documentary series on March 30. Beaton's deliberately simple and unadorned filming style matches the simple, straightforward speaking approach of the elders. He lets the elders unfold their stories carefully, focusing on their faces so that we see for ourselves their calm, centred, informed and deeply human concern about civilisations' global assault on the earth. The first speaker, Clayton Logan from the Wolf Clan of the Seneca Nation, is a Ceremonial Leader of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. He speaks about the difference between the way his ancestors lived and how people live now. He laments the great pollution of the Earth Mother and the pollution of many people (native and non-native) by money. The waters have suffered terribly and there is no longer any place in their traditional territory where they can find good water. Logan refers to a prediction that when the fish are gone, man will go shortly thereafter. For now, a smaller number of people still continue to live in the Haudenosaunee way. For them, "Mother Earth is our relative, the sun our elder brother, the moon our grandmother".

The next speaker, Audrey Shenandoah, is a Clan Mother of the Eel Clan, Onondaga Nation. Her message is that it is up to the people how long we will live on this planet. She gives thanks for the sun, the moon, thanks for the wind and the rain. For we elders, she affirms, "The Earth is sacred, and every spot is sacred, not just sacred sites because 'something happened' there, but every place is sacred because 'something happened' everywhere." This clan mother reminds us all that it is from all of creation that we can maintain our lives and that we do this for the generations yet unborn. The message she passes on to us from the elders is that, "we are all guardians of the earth all our lives for the generations of people that are coming, for the faces of people yet unborn."

Chief Oren Lyons is Faithkeeper of the Onondaga Nation, Wolf Clan. It was Lyons who brought Beaton into the Traditional Circle of Elders and Youth, a coalition of grassroots Native American Spiritual Elders who gather to maintain traditional ceremonies and council. He begins by speaking of the dysfunctional nation and the dysfunctional world we now live in. Lyons' message is that we humans need balance, and common sense, and leaders with courage and conviction. Common sense, for Lyons, is recognising that there is a natural law that we need to obey. If not, "the Natural world will take care of things, and, if that happens, then we will be suffering out loud." The advice of the elders Lyons passes on to us is to share. Simply that, to share. For the rich, Lyons advises divestment. All the people with money should divest, divest all major corporations, and do some good in the world instead.

John Mohawk is an Elder of the Turtle Clan, from the Pinewood Community in Cattaraugus Territory. Mohawk, who is Seneca, has also taught American Indian Studies at the State University of New York. He argues that Western Culture has sought to impose its will upon the natural world. As a direct result of the fossil fuel burning industrial revolution, Western civilisation (and all those across the planet ,who live by Western ways and means) has, in a sense, reversed the process of evolution, by releasing the fossil fuels it took millions of years to form back into the atmosphere in just 200 years. Mohawk speaks of "the life force of earth rising into the sky" causing global warming. This is an unprecedented transformation that will affect every square mile on the surface of the planet. Mohawk warns that a post-fossil fuel society would be characterised by some shifts toward a more earth based society. Indigenous cultures, Mohawk points out, have some key things to contribute to Western understanding. Nature, Mohawk offers, is the power of the universe manifested to humans. Nature is powerful. In the end, we are its subjects, not its masters. We need to find a way to become "citizens of the natural world" once again. Traditional earthbased cultures have a key contribution to make toward this goal.

Long ago, the constitution of the United States of America was inspired and influenced by the wisdom of the Iroquois Great Law of Peace, with its system of checks and balances. Now it is time once again to listen to the wisdom of these contemporary elders of the Iroquois Confederacy.

Dr. Mike Carr is a Sessional Instructor of Sociology and Anthropology.

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