Mother Law & the Doctrine of Discovery

Michelle Schenandoah: (♪)We are living in a time of great change, and it's critical for us to come together as one human family, so that all of our grandchildren, many greats into the future, will be able to enjoy life here on Mother Earth. May rematriated voices create a space within your heart and mind to join with Indigenous thought leaders and allies. We've been brought together for a reason. It's up to all of us to figure out why. Welcome to Rematriated Voices. I'm your host Michelle Shenandoah Wolf Clan member of the Oneida Nation of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. (♪) On this episode of Rematriated Voices, Indigenous women are working alongside allies to educate the public about the Doctrine of Discovery, the political and legal justification for the colonization of Indigenous lands across the planet. I'm joined by Mohawk bear clan mother Louise McDonald Herne, better known as Mommabear, Mohawk attorney and educator Beverly Jacobs and Sarah Bradley and Brittany Koteles from Land Justice Futures. We recorded this episode on a beautiful autumn day by Blue Mountain Lake in the Adirondacks. So go Lisa, Greg. I'm so grateful we're here today. And this is rematriated voices, and today we're here to talk about Mother Law and the Doctrine of Discovery is. So what is the Doctrine of Discovery? Why do people not know about it? And why should they care? and complicit. No more. Today we will just delve into some very deep conversation about the Doctrine of Discovery, why people need to know about it, what can they do about it, and what are actions Indigenous women are taking to address the Doctrine of Discovery is. So what is the Doctrine of Discovery? Why do people not know about it? And why should they care? So with that, we have our Indigenous contingency here, and we also have our allies. And so Sarah and Brittany, you have founded an organization called Land Justice Futures. Would you tell us what is your organization's mission and how do you bring it to life? Brittany Koteles: Land justice futures is an organization that we've been running for about three years now, and we work with Catholic Sisters who are making decisions about their land, and we work to transform those discernments into a journey of land justice. So what that means is centering racial and ecological healing, expanding who governs and loves the land, to be the people who have been most impacted by colonization and to support sisters in pursuing futures of the lands that they love that really put that at the center. And I'll just say the one of the reasons why we do this is that the Catholic Church is the largest private landowner in the world, and was one of the main drivers of the project of colonization. And these sisters, many of these communities, are at a point where their numbers are growing smaller. They're growing older. The average age of a Catholic sister is 82 years old, and so they are at this moment of letting go of a lot of the life that they've known, and in particular, they're making decisions about land. And so we come in to say, what if this moment of letting go could also be a culturally powerful moment, teaching the world ,so much of the overculture, how to let go of a paradigm that hasn't served anyone. On the ground level, we work with communities who are making decisions about land, and we work to find Indigenous stewards who can come back into relationship with that land, and we support sisters to go about that looking at the link between colonization, The Church, climate change, etc. How to do that holistically? And I think on the air level or the higher level, the work is about culture change. It's about changing, changing the story, and empowering people inside an institution that's done so much harm to tell a different story of what's possible. Michelle Schenandoah: Yeah, the two of you do a considerable amount of work to educate folks on the Doctrine of Discovery, and yet a lot of people have no idea what the Doctrine of Discovery is. So what is the Doctrine of Discovery? Why do people not know about it? And why should they care? Sarah Bradley: Well, first it's it's intimidating to answer this question with the three of you, but I'll share what, you know, we have learned in this process, and what we really share with sisters in the in the communities that we work with. The Doctrine of Discovery is an active legal doctrine that is a foundation to US property law to this day, and US notions of sovereignty to this day that is rooted in extremely racist and Christian supremacist ideas that were promoted by the Pope in the 15th century. So the doctrine of discovery was really initiated by a set of Papal bulls or letters from the pope that really invited European nations at the time that were nascent in growing their own empires to go out and conquer, and to go out and conquer in the name of Christianity, and to do that based on the premise that European Christians were superior and were favored by God and therefore deserved and deserved the land, deserved to govern the land, to be in power. And it's these false notions that really have become embedded in our culture and even even in our in our worldview for many, many Americans today, the the notion of what it means to be an American is very much rooted in some of these ideas of conquest and expansion. You know, I think that a lot of people think of the idea of, you know, America and Manifest Destiny, and like, you know, this being God's country when the settlers came is something that people take to be inevitable, rather than created by people in a moment of time, rather than created by specific people with specific power at political power at that time, and when we recognize that, we recognize how constructed it is, and therefore it can be unconstructed. What, what's made by us can be unmade. And so I think it's, it's hidden in plain sight, you know, like this is, this is, you know, foundational to US property law lawyers learn about it in some of their first US property law classes. And yet it's not examined. It's not examined for Wait a minute, why are these letters from a pope the basis of land rights in the United States? Why are they the basis of why some people have power and some people don't. Why do we give them creedence? Why do they give give them power? Because we're doing that with our consent and with the consent of those who are still in power today and govern the United States. Michelle Schenandoah: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for that. Brittany Koteles: Just to drill a little deeper into what we're talking about when we say these, these papal bulls, sort of made the call to go...the literal wording is calling on Christian leaders to "vanquish, conquer, capture and subdue non Christian people" Sarah Bradley: And to reduce them to perpetual slavery. Brittany Koteles: And to reduce them to perpetual slavery. So they say "Pagans and Saracens", but they're saying "non- Christian people". And they use this term "terra nullius", which means "empty land". So they say, go any any land that doesn't have a Christian flag planted on it is empty and open to discovery. And why that's so important, when Sarah is saying, this is what law students learning how to become lawyers in their first property law class, one of the first cases, as you know, as a lawyer, that everyone studying to be a lawyer in this country learns is 1823 Johnson versus McIntosh, which is a is a is the first property dispute to be heard by the Supreme Court, and literally it says "discovery by the European nation overlooks all proprietary rights in the natives." And that is citing - the US Supreme Court judges were looking for legal precedent to justify land theft, and what they cited was the papal bulls, and I know we'll probably get into how that's happened even more recently, by even people we love. It's so blatantly cited - this totally fabricated logic is cited in plain sight and forms the foundation of us, property law today. Michelle Schenandoah: Yeah, thank you, yeah, Mommabear, What was your reaction when you first learned about the Doctrine of Discovery, and what did you do about it? What was your response. Mommabear: The first time I heard it was probably back in 2003 when I heard Oren Lyons bring that to light at a at a youth and elders gathering. And it, it followed me home, and I could not believe that that kind of poisonous thinking exists in the world. And so for me, I had to sit back and wonder, once you discover something, how can you undiscover it? Is that possible? And, you know, I might want to add to what these beautiful young ladies said, you know, that's powered by patriarchy. It's powered by some really ill-minded male thinking. And it's not to put all the men in one group, because they're not all the same, but there was some really psychotic thinking, I think, back then, to deem themselves superior, over over something, and that has to be rooted even in a in a deeper sense of power over right? And to me, the reason that they can exist is because there's no mother there to correct them. There's no love of Mother, there's no reverence for Mother, and that the Mother is missing from the equation, or she's not in the house, and that it's just predominantly, you know, male driven, male dominance, male power, male strength. And to me, that's patriarchy, and the father can't stand alone. There's always got to be the balance, and Indigenous thinking knows that and believes that and lives that, that there's always a balance, you know, that haunted me, and I couldn't sleep. And so I'm like, "well, how can I flip the table on this thing called Manifest Destiny and Doctrine of Discovery?" And I went into this place of going within and understanding how the Haudenosaunee matrilineage works, the maternal order, the Mother line and I just start writing away and I came up with this Mother Law. Because the first Europeans didn't realize that they were stepping onto a hemisphere of women, of Mother, and to me, Mother is vital, necessary, and the world can't exist without her. The Doctrine of Discovery is out of order, and it has no standing and everything that comes from human thinking is null and void, because the Indigenous perspective comes from a place of natural order. The Mother is natural from the sunrise the moonrise to the moonset and the sunset to the river flowing, to the grass growing, all of it is natural order, and that is law. And that is first law. From the first environment of the womb of the mother to the natural flow of the rivers, you can't supersede that. And so anything imagined, written or thought of by man is null and void. And so for me, when that's totally out of alignment into the natural order of things, and you can't exclude the mother and think that you can be healthy, the mother is here to nourish, nurture, to bring balance and to give life, and to me, that is the tallest order in any society, but these man made laws have done everything to oppress her, and I think now we're stepping into this moment where the mother has to bring honor back to our men and not be afraid to correct them. And this Doctrine of Discovery has got to go, and it's been very detrimental, especially with the 250th birthday coming up for the United States. It's still perpetuating itself on a lie. It's a lie. People been living a lie, and it has to come to the forefront. So basically, you know, my reaction to the Doctrine of Discovery is I was pissed. I'm still pissed, from the position of a clan mother within our nation, and to think of all the women that were part of the destruction, you know, and how their voices got diminished, and they're, you know, relegated to the shadows. No more, no more. We're gonna venerate her back to her rightful place. Michelle Schenandoah: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, thank you. It's like confirmation with this beautiful breeze that's coming through, and just the sounds of nature is just responding, and, you know, supporting, supporting this message that's coming through. And I know, for me, the first time that I heard about the Doctrine of Discovery was when it was cited against my nation. But the first time I actually spent some time to study it was when I was in law school, and every single law student in the United States has to take a real property class, and that's the very first case that every single law student in the United States reads and they learn about the Doctrine of Discovery. And I can imagine that a lot of conversation in the classrooms was no different than mine, which was it boiled down to a conversation by 140 non-Indigenous students talking about who taught who how to scalp. There was no real meaningful dialog that happened at all. It was really sad, and so that's what the attorneys learned. There's so many who are practicing now. Every single attorney has encountered this Doctrine of Discovery, but may not realize what it really truly meant, like you're saying is hidden in plain sight. So with that, Beverley, you are a Haudenosaunee lawyer, and you're also a practicing lawyer in Canada, and the doctor of discovery has had impacts worldwide. Can you talk a little bit about the impacts on Indigenous peoples in Canada and even worldwide? Beverley Jacobs: It isn't any different in Canada in teaching about law and property law, and that the Doctrine of Discovery and the first case, a Macintosh case, is also one of the first cases that's taught in property law in Canada too. It's still the underlying basis of property law. It's the underlying basis of how law has been imposed in both Canada and the US. So whether it's constitutional law, property law, criminal law, everything underlying it is the Doctrine of Discovery, because it was about the control over land and it was control over people, and especially Indigenous people, that was the whole intention was to to try to erase us as a people, because we are so connected to the land, and there was no recognition of who we are as a people, that we have our own ways of being, that we have our own legal orders, that we have our own ways, you know, of of how we live, with ceremony, with language. There was that whole superior inferior infused into everything. And so the impacts, impacts are huge in the sense of even how we think about who we are and where we come from, and how far away we are from practicing our own laws, and even our own people's belief that colonial law is is the answer to to everything and so, so now it's like, it's like we're in this space of understanding it, understanding and what we're trying to educate in the public about how it has had such a huge impact on everyone. So I would say on on men, on our women, on our knowledge holders, on our children, on our youth, like just just our whole our roles and responsibilities as Indigenous people, as Haudenosaunee people, was part of our living together, our, you know, just our collective how we think of things in more of a collective way of thinking, whereas in this whole Doctrine, it was about commodity, it was about resources, individual thinking, individual ways of being, and based on patriarchy and the way the laws that were also imposed on Indigenous people is also to say that we have, we have nothing like that. Terra Nullius meant that we were nothing. We were not human. We were not connected to the land. We had no no understanding like we thinking that we were we. Really stupid people, and from my understanding and growing up, we're pretty brilliant people. And maintain, not only over the years and how we've been able to maintain who we are, our language is still intact. It may be impacted, our laws are impacted, but it still exists. And to me, that's what's important, but the struggle is still the systemic struggle, because systemically colonial law still has control over the land. Their laws still control many of us, whether in the US or in Canada. So part of understanding the huge impacts, and generationally, you know how they've impacted over generations, and I'm a great grandma now, and I think of how, how much those impacts still have on our future until we shift it, which is what we're doing now and when we're shifting it, it's going to make sure that those kinds of ways of thinking have to stop. Those ways of thinking of superiority, or even superiority over the land, over creation, has to stop. And in order to do that, we educate, to me that's that's like the biggest solution, and also understanding the impacts, because even some of our own people don't understand the impacts, even just of the Doctrine of Discovery and the control over land, and even the way we think about land, like even, even at home, we have these certificates of possession right or meet, these kind of deeds that we have over our land. And that's not how we ever thought about our land. Actually, I wrote about it in my Master's in Law thesis called Eurocentric Diffusionism. It's where we've thought about these impacts of Eurocentric law and control so much and ways of being that we forgot about our own and so, so now it's returning, and now, now it's time. It's time to understand the impacts that it has had on our men, the impacts that it's had on our women, on our children, right on, on the youth, on the on the elders, and just the responsibilities that we have in our relationships, like, to me, that's the most important. And how even, even the disconnect to the land, like that's that's been a huge impact in our relationship to our Mother, like, what Mommabear is, as you know, implemented. When I first heard about Mother Law, it's like, yeah, that's, that's the answer. Because Mother we, we're connected to her. That's Mother Law. Our mother is, is our responsibility as as human beings. So that's there's a lot and just so much trauma, also, like the traumatic experiences, historical trauma, all of the systemic, all of the ways that the US and Canada have used their laws to try to erase us as a people just learning that and how it has had an impact on me specifically, I had to do that. I had to understand how that's happened to me personally, so that I could help my my kids and and my family to also understand why things are the way they are today. Michelle Schenandoah: Yeah, yeah. It's a process of unlearning, right? Learning to unlearn, right? Yeah, this is a question out to anyone. So in 1823 as we've noted here, the US Supreme Court invoked the Doctrine of Discovery in the Johnson V McIntosh case, the Doctrine of Discovery is still valid law to this day in the United States, in Canada, and it's made its way in other places around the world. In 1823, why did the court invoke the Doctrine of Discovery, and what has been its effect? Sarah Bradley: Well, I think one of the one of the answers to that question is that the, you know, nascent United States wanted more land. It wanted to expand westward, and it concocted this case, knowing that the way that they set it up, it was a setup would invalidate, in their colonial legal system, the sovereignty of the land vested in Indigenous nations, and that it would consolidate the power to annex that land into the US government. It essentially said, "people can't, you know, trade and negotiate within Indigenous communities land, you have to go through us". And so I think it was a consolidation of power move and an attempt to try to open up within their own colonial legal framework, the idea that they were the arbiters of of who owned land. Michelle Schenandoah: right, absolutely. And from the US government perspective, they are the trustees of all Indigenous land, in their mind, the way that they see it. But according to us and our people, it's not that way, but that's the way that the law behaves, right? Mommabear: It's an illegitimate assumption of superiority. It's false. It can't be further from the truth. But when you talk about deed to the land, and in Haudenosaunee philosophy, we talk about the Seventh Generation, so to me, the deed lies in the mothers of our nations, and the clear title to the land rests in the ovaries of our young mothers. And to me, that's undeniable. It's not concocted. It's not made up. It's the biological essence in their connection to the earth. And if you're an Indigenous woman and you've got active ovaries and you're in a state of fertility, you're the title holder of the land, and that's clear, and we understand that. So decisions about the land are not made unless the mother is involved in that decision, and it cannot be ceded or sold unless she signs it away. And never in the history of this hemisphere have mothers or women signed that away. So to me, it's just a perpetuation of a continued lie that positions this illegitimacy of power over and it needs to be corrected. Brittany Koteles: The best way I've heard a native person, a Haudenosaunee woman, put this is, yeah, they got the land because they had God. They got they the settlers got the land because they asserted that God said so. And it was this, like closed loop thing, which was made up. And yeah, it was a power move. It was a power move. It's a fabricated power move. Mommabear: But even in their own philosophy, even God has a mother, and even in our stories, our Creator has a mother, and he's accountable to her, and but they leave that out, right? So I don't know. There's a lot to be said here. I think it's really important that this be challenged, be challenged straight out. And I think the pushback is, and has to be, from the mothers of the land, because the women are so connected, and they cycle with the land, the Earth, the magnetic poles, the water, the oceans, the Moon. To me, that's her authority, and that's what she's connected to. So for eons, men has tried to overpower that. So these made up laws, and they're made up. It's a concoction of their own thinking that that needs to be corrected, and Mommabear is here to say, it's time. The Mother's back in the house. Beverley Jacobs: I just want to, just want to add, because my my Eurocentric legal brain and my Mommabear Mohawk Bear Clan connection. When we talk about colonial law in these cases that are the Doctrine of Discovery, I know we're going to talk about how it was applied currently in Oneida Nation, it's the players in that system that still allow it to continue, because it's a systemic, colonial, legal, Euro centric system that had control, not only systemically legally, and have established these laws that we know is not right. We know is not legal. They're not legal according to our laws. So then we have a conflict of laws. We have a conflict right. So in order for conflict to to be resolved, there has to be commonalities. So let's say, when we have a conflict and we have a mediator, somebody that comes in to try to to resolve it, there has to be an under that common understanding about the. A mother there has to be a common understanding about Mother Law. There has to be a common standing about understanding about Mother Earth and what they were trying to do according to the doctrine of discovery and what their intentions were. Again, it was all about greed. It was all about erasure. It was all about inhumanity. They killed our people. That was the whole intention, the genocide. It was a genocide, and it's been documented enough. We shouldn't have to go back to do that, because it's already been done. It's what. Well, what are we going to do about it now? And so then, you know, if we're going to talk about this conflict that is systemic, they need to listen. They need to listen to what we're saying, because it's about our future, all of us as humans, well. Michelle Schenandoah: You know, speaking of mother, speaking of women, speaking of Mother Earth, and speaking of the land, right? You know, we see the Doctrine of Discovery is formed out of these papal bulls in the late 1400s and then you see it being put into this case law in the early 1800s and then in 2005 we see it again. So Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who is known to be this groundbreaking feminist right, and a lot of women look to her because she was a leader for women's rights, but in 2005 she cited the Doctrine of Discovery in the Cheryl V Oneida Nation case. And so this case had a great impact upon the Haudenosaunee. So all of our territories were taken illegally. We are right now in the lands of the goniaga, haga, the Mohawk Nation, your nation, and yet somebody else holds a deed to this property, and just thinking of it as property. Look at this beautiful environment that we're in. This is the lands of the Mohawk Nation, the people and that thinking created a break. It severed the relationship of your nation to this place right here, of Indigenous women to the land. And so what were the impacts on Indigenous women and the connection to the land, our connection to the land because of this doctrine. Mommabear: Well, I think it destroyed their agriculture, because right in our creation story, right from the get go, where a culture of procreators and cultivators, and so the women made the decision where the most fertile ground is based on the clay and how they can make pottery and and they never stayed in one place because they didn't want to over harvest. So they had a real connection, a real relationship, where land was bountiful and they would they would move there. They would create whole societies, huge metropolises of societies where planting was good, where the water was good, where the clay was good, and that created well organized societies based on what the women decided. And I think it's so vital for a lot of young women to recognize the power that they hold, especially our young women, because, you know, they have to inherit this mess, and we're still trying to clean up our own genocide, based upon Ginsberg. And I think she gave up the moment she cited Doctrine of Discovery. She gave up her own feminism. She surrendered herself to the patriarchal mind, and it's poison. At the end of the day, it's just absolute poison to continue to perpetuate such an untruth that was made up and to put God's name in the front of that is God and greed. God and greed are together. So I demand we fire god, because, to me, a real God would not do what has been done. And even God, I'm sure, is a concoction of the patriarchal mind, because they don't bring life women do until you return that balance, then balance can return to the earth. But we are on absolute train wreck, and I feel sorry for the generation that's growing up, because what are they going to inherit? What are we leaving behind for them? And as a mother of. Five children, myself and a grandmother of 13 grandchildren. You know, you're kind of the referee with disputes, but you always look for that peaceful resolve. And you know, in our own stories, we talk about the peace mother, and it was because of her and her ability and her brilliance to negotiate women's position that the women are the foundation to our Confederacy. Michelle Schenandoah: Would you talk about how is the Doctrine of Discovery directly related to missing and murdered indigenous women and peoples? Beverley Jacobs: Yeah, that's a the whole Doctrine of Discovery is about violence against Indigenous people. That was the whole intention and violence against the land. And so there's been missing Indigenous women since, since colonization, women have been disappearing just, just the whole idea of, you know, women as leaders, women, as decision makers. That was a whole intention was to erase the women first, to get them out of the way so that we don't have any more babies. We won't have any more future. You get rid of the women, you don't have any more any more conflict. It's so unbelievably sad, just thinking about the numbers of Indigenous women who are not only murdered for who they are as Indigenous women, but also those who go missing and and we also know that, you know, they get thrown into, back into Mother Earth. They got thrown into the waters. It's like there's no words to explain how, how devastating that is when you think about the relationship of our women to our families, to our communities, and the erasure that that does to generations. Michelle Schenandoah: Yeah, and the law has upheld a lot of these actions or inactions to investigate, to look into this, and so much of it is rooted in the fact that especially among the Haudenosaunee women, are the ones to make the decision regarding the land and so in the way of expansion and settling in the country, you know, by the colonists and settlers who came here, who's in the way Indigenous women, I know that you've been very involved with issues regarding, you know, your land, for your nation, and even going back to the Oneida case, right, that case that Ruth Bader Ginsburg cited the Doctrine of Discovery in 2005 that shut the the door for Land Claims for all Haudenosaunee and my great grandmother, she was one of those early mothers to the land back movement, if you will, right who wrote to the government. She spent that 2005 case closed the door on that. That was the first year I started law school. I was following in my grandmother's footsteps and to work on our land claims. I didn't know what to do. I stayed in law school, and through, you know, some really wonderful folks. I met a Quaker woman at one of the speeches that I gave, and I was telling her about how our Oneida people we were, we were forcibly broken apart and relocated. So some of us are still in the homelands, some are in Canada, some are in Wisconsin, and we've been disconnected from each other, Mommabear: that's right. And the Oneidas were probably the most patriotic to the United States, and they helped geographically shape what is the United States and Canada. But the United States betrayed you's, yeah, they betrayed you's, yeah. They promised work in its superiority, right? So, man, Oneida, Oneida, you know, it's like, where is the story that tells how you's helped the United States win that war. Yeah, yeah. It's invisible. Michelle Schenandoah: It is invisible. And you know, the Oneidas we were promised that our lands would be forever protected by George Washington himself, that's right, right, who also, at the same time, turned around and burned all the fields of food, you know, of so many of our Haudenosaunee nations. And so there's always just been this inherent same time, and yet, mentioned in in the texts that students learn about the history of the US or Canada or global history, right? There has been a groundswell of Indigenous scholars and traditional practitioners who are really just making great strides in bringing Indigenous thinking into law and into scholarship. And so I would just like to ask, what are some of those changes, some of those Indigenous centered policy and scholarship changes that you see happening here in Turtle Island, right or around the world? Beverley Jacobs: in the academic institutions, there's a lot of work with Indigenous scholarship, Indigenous scholars who are hired in the institutions and really trying to make Aashift even in the education system. But now we're having to educate the institutions. It's kind of like government, where there, you know, you have a hierarchy, you conflict, right? You know, where the US or the colonists would have a systemic colonial institution with a bureaucracy. So it's like you have to educate everybody all the way up, all the way up the hierarchy. It's the same thing, because there's still very racist people throughout the institution making decisions that cause barriers to our people. But then I see with all that education that's happening, that there's little shifts that are being made with Indigenous people being part of the institution. So being a law professor, being a lawyer, being an advisor to the president of the University of Windsor. You know, it's been a lot of battles. I'm going to call them battles, because it's a fight. It's a continuous fight, not only to educate, but to get them to understand about just basic Native studies, 101 like, who we are as a people, like, like, just basic stuff. And it's frustrating every day. So I see it happening, like, really slowly with the younger generation, and I can see it. That's where I see the shift happening with because, like, they're in their 20s, when I look at the comparison between what's happening in our communities and our young people are learning and revitalizing and reclaiming, and then with the non-Indigenous, they're also learning and becoming educated and so then, then it'll be easy for us, who have been trying to fight this for such a long time and trying to bring this awareness for such a long time that I'm hoping that it'll be easy for them to understand and make those changes and shifts that need to happen in what we're talking about, in their relationship to the land and relationship to each other, and to me, I'd always go, I always think about Kaswenta and the Two Row, and think that that is going to be real, because that relationship was about love and kindness and compassion and truth and trust and that we're going to live together and thinking about things in the future. And so to me, that's always what I think about. Michelle Schenandoah: Would you explain the Guswenta? Beverley Jacobs: So Kaswenta, it's a Two Row wampum belt that was made between our ancestors, Haudenosaunee, between them and...us and the early colonizers, with the Dutch, the French, the British and the US and the intentions of that. So it's a two lines on the belt and Kaswenta literally translates into "river of life", so that in their ship, colonial ship, our canoe, are supposed to live together, not interfering in each other's ways of life with three basic principles, peace, trust and friendship. And so if we are to live with those principles, then, like, perpetually, like, that's what I'm thinking that if we're living with those principles in mind and our relationships, it's a healthy relationship. That's what the whole intention of that is, Kaswenta was to have healthy relationships, and that we would live together in the future without interfering in each other's ways of being, and that we would maintain our our sovereignty, our self determination, whatever English term we want to call it, but it's our ways of being, right? Michelle Schenandoah: Yeah, and Mommabear, you talk about the Guswenta, the Two Row, and what holds, what holds both of those vessels? Mommabear: Well, you can't have a vessel, a floating vessel, without water to float in. And in our way, the water is feminine. The water is feminine. It's got female qualities. So to me, again, that is Mother Law in its application in that first original treaty between the first Europeans and the Indigenous people upon this land. So to me, that's the bond, or the element of connectivity. She's the glue. But you know, European patriarchal law made a woman of possession. That's why you take your father's last name or your husband's last name, and that's the mistake, that's the mistake that women fell into that but until we begin to take back our names, take back our land, take back our children, take back our bodies. We're always going to be somebody's possession. Michelle Schenandoah: So this leads me to to ask you a question. Beverley, thinking about as Haudenosaunee people, we center our way of life around what we call the Great Law of Peace, and in Western law, it's very much centered around rights. Under the Great Law of Peace, we have responsibilities, and under the law, people have rights. So from these two different perspectives, can you discuss and describe the distinction between rights and responsibilities? Beverley Jacobs: I grew up understanding the Great Law, understanding about the Confederacy, the governance was enacted under the Great Law, and how the Confederacy works, the relationships amongst nations, the role of of our clan mothers, and the relationship with with her male leadership. It was always about balance and so and everybody has a responsibility, whether it's to our families, to our nations, to our clans. Everybody has a responsibility. It's all it's all part of the establishment of of the Confederacy and so clan and nation...so when you're born into a clan, you know what your responsibilities are, to your family, to your clan, to your nation and to the Confederacy, we all have a huge responsibility. In law school, we learn about this liberal understanding about law and that everything is based on this individual aspect, which is what rights comes from. And so rights became part of the language even our own people started to use: "I have a right to hunt. I have a right to fish. I have a right to my language. I have a right to to where I live. I have, I have a human right to have a, you know...", all these rights standards that came, but they came under colonial law. So that's why I say rights came with their ship. Responsibilities came with our laws. And so if you're looking at the Two Row and you're looking at how they were supposed to work together, the rights and responsibilities are also supposed to be balanced and working together. So then, if I have a right to fish, I not only have a responsibility to the water, I have a responsibility to the fish. So it's not just I have the right to hunt also, you know, I have a right to those animals, I have a responsibility. Yeah, it's a whole different way of understanding our relationship, also to not only the responsibilities, but to to the rights, whatever we're talking about. Michelle Schenandoah: Yeah, thank you. Mommabear, let's talk about 2022. March. 2022 You sent me a text message that says, "Would you like to go to Rome to meet the Pope?" You know, I think "Rome, New York? What is she talking about?" Yeah, so...you, you sent me to the Vatican along with one of our sisters, and I was asked to address the Pope, along with an Indigenous delegation who we traveled with to talk about the abuses that happened at Indian residential schools that was directly under the hand of the Church. And in addition to that, to also ask him to rescind the Doctrine of Discovery. And so we know that that didn't happen. It still hasn't happened. And the Pope came to Canada to formally apologize to the Indigenous peoples, and we still stayed connected, you know, to this whole entire process. And when the Pope came to Canada and came to Quebec City, we had a Haudenosaunee delegation that you and I were a part of, and we were told that we would have time with the Pope, and that, as the Indigenous leaders yourself and the other leaders who are with us, would have time while he is on our land, right? But that didn't happen. The pope met with all the Canadian officials that were present at this event we went to, and all the Indigenous leaders that were there was completely ignored. That's right, yeah. So, you know, I have a question for you, which is, what would have happened if the Church had kept its word and met with our Haudenosaunee people, and what would have been the protocols that the Pope would have experienced Mommabear: He would have experienced coming into the territory of the Haudenosaunee. And that's debatable if Quebec City is Haudenosaunee or not, but you know, we pretty much controlled the whole St Lawrence River Corridor, right from the mouth of the St Lawrence all the way down into the Great Lakes. He would have had an Edge of the Woods ceremony, and they would have done an unburdening of his travels, and they would have permeated his consciousness with peace and good will. But that didn't happen. And I know that we were on the agenda in the morning of because I had a whole speech prepared, you know, an hour before I was told I got removed from the agenda, that our leaders got removed from the agenda. And so, you know, it was, you know, we were just the window dressing to this visit that he did in Canada. And I know that you were also window dressing to the Vatican. So to me, it's a river of denial that the Pope showed us that day. And it showed to me that really, he's just a man controlled by all the bishops and cardinals. And I know we had dinner with them, and you know, they continue to feed off this illegitimate assumption of superiority and that God is great. To me, it was just the Pope and his entire monstrosity of a parade that was going on was to just show the world again that he can exert power over Indigenous people and to me, but that was upsetting. But a debt needs to be paid. A debt needs to be paid because there's been a theft, there's been a theft of humanity, and that debt needs to be paid. And so the Church is going to pay for that, and I was sitting like from me to you front of the Pope, but I didn't exist. He didn't see me. He didn't see me. I might as well have been invisible. And you know when you talk about how things are shifting, I think perhaps one of the biggest shifts that I felt is these ladies over here. They get it, and they want to own it, yeah, and they're...they are owning it, you know what I mean? And to me, that speaks to the integrity of our allies, that there still really is good-thinking, good-hearted, good you know, just good people. You're returning honor to your people, you know, and to me, that's beautiful because it shows me that there is humanity in the inhumane. Yeah, so I thank you for that. It's beautiful. Michelle Schenandoah: Yeah, it was really beautiful. Back in December 2023 the five of us, along with other Mommabear: You dragged me to that. Michelle Schenandoah: And aren't you so happy because you met these two? Mommabear: Right? Yeah, yes, come on, we're gonna go spend a week with some nuns? I said, "Nuns! Why would I want to go so with some nuns?" But yeah, you know, when you get beyond your own wall of conflict, you see something beautiful on the other side of fear, something really beautiful. And I had to get beyond that. So I thank you, young ladies for showing up. Yeah. Michelle Schenandoah: So right here, with this group, along with some other Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars, activists, traditional practitioners, we met in Oneida lands in Haudenosaunee, territories where the Doctrine of Discovery was cited against my people, right? And there we brought our minds together, and from here, have launched Mother Law and Complicit No Nore as a campaign with the two of you who are leading this now as a course of study and action that people can engage with, can you talk a little bit about what is this campaign, and how can people become involved? Sarah Bradley: in order to make things right, we have to realize when they're wrong that they're wrong. And I think one of the main things that is stopping us from being able to have the kind of togetherness and seeing what needs to happen for us that have a livable future for us to honor the mother again, is this denial that the way things are isn't working and is inhumane and is destroying the planet and so Complicit No More, is really a campaign to support People in recognizing the Doctrine of Discovery all around us, and the impacts that it has on our families, on where we live, on our family histories, on the wealth distribution in this country, on the distribution of power and the way things work. You know, it's really in the fabric of our society, so deep, and in order to remove our consent from these domination codes, we first have to see it, and we have to feel it. We have to we have to grieve it. And in that space can be opened for actually making a very different choice. And it's a choice that has to, has to really go deep into, like, our own sense of who we are. And I think that is your invitation to Mother Law. Mommabear: Yeah, absolutely, Sarah Bradley: We need to reanimate the Mother Law traditions that we carry in ourselves, in our own lineages, and we need to stand in power together. I do think this is, this is work that we're doing, primarily with white women right now, in terms of the people that we're working with, because there's a particular responsibility as people who have benefited in many, many ways from this colonial setup from the Doctrine of Discovery, we actually need to remove the poison from ourselves first, in order to be good allies, in order to be good accomplices and in solidarity with this other path forward. Michelle Schenandoah: As we're bringing this to a close, you know, we've formed a friendship. We've formed an alliance and a campaign to make real change, right? So what do you all believe is like the most important lesson people can learn about creating meaningful relationships with Indigenous peoples and creating alliances. Mommabear: I think the world in this moment rests in how we propel ourselves forward. But you know, in the Haudenosaunee way, knowledge ain't yours until you share it, and we have a huge responsibility to the next generation, because I don't want to leave them the mess. I want them to have something to look forward to, and I want them to appreciate life as it should be. But we have to get rid of this domination code and this war-mongering mindset that continues to cloud our happiness. Michelle Schenandoah: It's a great place to end, but I think you have something go for it. What's the most important lesson in building these relationships. Brittany Koteles: It's moving the power back to balance, back to the mother, back to Indigenous life ways. And it's also a reclaiming of a wholeness for all of us, and until we understand that if, if I think a lot of times what gets people in the. Or of this work is the the sort of shock of the the injustice, and it's it's through doing that work of removing our complicity and doing that work of repair, moving power where it belongs, that we're not just going to get to equilibrium. We're going to live in the world that humans were designed to live in. Sarah Bradley: We have to do this work, not only because it's the right thing to do, not only because of healing and wholeness that's possible, but also because this feels existential, like if we if we aren't able to do this life as we know it will will no longer be possible. And life's for so many life forms will no longer be possible, like we gotta get this, is kind of how I feel about it, which is really intense, I recognize. But, you know, I've really It feels so imperative, because we're living in a polycrisis, whether you're looking at environmental destruction or housing, or you're looking at political violence, or, you know, domestic violence, or any, any of these things, it feels so connected to this Gordian knot of the original sins of this nation, if we'll call it, that, of the Doctrine of Discovery. And it's not just for, you know Indigenous people or you know the descendants of settlers. It's - this is important for everyone. This is important for everyone. This is, this is all of our lives. And you know, the Doctrine of Discovery enabled Indigenous land theft, the transatlantic slave trade, the colonization of 84% of the land on this planet. Brittany Koteles: Like, what a beautiful opportunity, what a beautiful story that we have the chance to live out together, if, if we do the work of removing the poison, and that story of return and rematriation and re enchantment and healing like that's not the hero's journey conquers all story that's a woman's story, that's a mother's story. And what a beautiful story that we have the chance to try to tell. Michelle Schenandoah: Yeah, thank you. Bev, do you have anything you'd like to say in Beverley Jacobs: I always go just right back to responsibility, our responsibilities in this lifetime, and thinking about our future generations and acting on it, like, like, I like the campaign Complicit No More. Like, it's...we can't just sit back and do nothing anymore. And I try to tell my kids that because they're complicit, because, you know, we pamper them so much, I think sometimes that we we forget that they too, need to start acting and start doing. You know, start planting, start learning, learning the language, learning the respect of the mother, because that's been lost too, and the impacts of the violence in our own communities, every kind of violence you can think of, violence in in the world, racism, racism is violent, right? And just that whole understanding of the relationship to the natural world, just abiding by and living with the Thanksgiving Address like it's just so simple. My uncle would say that he would say, like, different words, different different responses to questions that I would have, and there were just very basic, simple responses, like, be ready. Would be one of his...one of his sayings, or one of the things that he would say, and that, just when you think about that, like, that's the so much in that to be ready well, be ready for what? Be ready for the changes that are coming. Be ready for the shifts in the world. Be ready for your own shifts in your relationships, like there's just so much in that to be ready and everybody's responsible, Michelle Schenandoah: Yeah. Michelle Schenandoah: Yeah, wow. So grateful to each of you for our time together, and we have to take action. Right? If there's anything for people to take away from this is to take action right, to not be complicit anymore. More, it's time to take action so that all of our great, great grandchildren into the future, collectively as one humankind can enjoy the beauty of this earth and life on earth. You (♪)Rematriated Voices was recorded on Mohawk Land at Minnowbrook Conference Center overlooking Blue Mountain Lake in the Adirondack Mountains. It's a collaboration between Rematriation and Access Audio from the Special Collections Research Center at Syracuse University Libraries. It was produced by me, Michelle Shenandoah and Jim O'Connor. Audio recording and mixing by Brett Barry at Silver Hollow Audio on Lenape Land in the Catskills. Executive Production Assistant: Catherine Faurot. Production Assistants: Jalyn Jimerson, Pamela Pembleton and Caryn Miller. Sound assistants: Griffin O'Neill and Olivia Peters. Cultural and Storytelling Consultants: Rachel Porter, Katsitsionni Fox and Neal Powless. Research Assistant: Nada Merghani. Energy healer: Christina Porter. Theme song: Healing Song by Bear Fox and Teioswathe. Yaw^ko (a big thank you) to Chancellor Kent Syverud, Candace Campbell Jackson and Patricia Dellonte from the Office of the Chancellor at Syracuse University. Similar thanks to Nicolette Dobrowolski and Courtney Hicks of the Special Collections Research Center and Aileen Gallagher and Jon Glass of the SI Newhouse School of Public Communications, and a special thanks to Linda Parris of the Open Societies Foundations. Vocal Coaching by Joanne Yarrow of Distinctive Voices.(♪)