TUSCARORA ENVIRONMENT

 TEN Final Thoughts

(Spring 2006)

I would urge the whole concept of nature be rethought. Nature, the land, must not mean money; it must designate life. Nature is the storehouse of potential life of future generations and is sacred. Human societies already possess the technologies necessary to provide food, clothing and shelter for everyone. The organization of distribution of wealth needs to be repaired, for that imbalance destroys both contemporary and future human life and nature. Western society needs to prioritize life-supporting systems and to question its commitment to materialism. Spirituality should be our foundation . . .

- Addressed at the Global forum on Environment and Development for Survival, held in Moscow, Russia in January 1990, by Onondaga Clan Mother Audrey Shenandoah as delivered between addresses by Soviety President Gorbachev and United Nations Secretary General Perez de Cuellar.

TEN Final Thoughts

(Summer 2006)

We need the courage to change our value for the regeneration of our families, the life that surrounds us. Given this opportunity, we can raise ourselves. We must join hands with the rest of creation and speak of common sense, responsibility, brotherhood and peace.

-Part of the Native Peoples Address to the United Nations on December 10, 1992 by Oren Lyons, Faith Keeper of the Onondaga Nation. This U.N. General Assembly declared 1993 the International Year of the World's Indigenous People, with twenty indigenous leaders addressing the Assembly for the first time in the history of the United Nations.

 TEN Final Thoughts

(Fall 2006)

What Indians are about, I think, first of all is community. They're about mutual support. They're about sharing. They're about understanding what's common land, common air, common water, common and for all. They're about freedom [and responsibility].

- Oren Lyons to Bill Moyers in a Public Affairs Television interview, about the responsibilities of being Haudenosaunee.

TEN Final Thoughts

(Winter 2006)

Our wise forefathers established Union and Amity . . . This made us formidable . . . We are a power confederacy, and if you observe the same methods . . . you will acquire fresh Strength and Power.

- An Onondaga Chief advising Benjamin Franklin and other colonial representatives over 200 years ago, about a unified government and the concept of checks and balances of power.