Native Resistance Network is a proud sponsor of the Two Row Wampum Renewal Campaign, a partnership between the Onondaga Nation and Neighbors of the Onondaga Nation (NOON). They are developing a broad alliance between the Haudenosaunee and their allies in New York and throughout the world. Their statewide advocacy and educational campaign seeks to achieve justice by “polishing” the chain of friendship established in the first treaty between the Haudenosaunee and Dutch immigrants. Environmental cleanup and preservation is a core component of their campaign.
The Two Row Treaty (pictured above) is a belt of wampum beads. The two parallel rows of purple beads represent the courses of the Native canoe and the non-Native sailing ship. The treaty depicted an agreement that both peoples would travel together in their respective vessels as brothers in the river of friendship. We’d remain on parallel courses, meaning that neither group would attempt to steer the other’s vessel, or to make laws or set policies that would affect the lives of the other. We’d live side by side in the woodlands, without taking more than we needed. The treaty was made in 1613. It is a solemn agreement and the supreme law of the land.
2013 will mark the 400th Anniversary of this treaty. To honor this anniversary, we are being called upon to “polish the chain” of friendship and to stem the tide of damage being done to Mother Earth.
In Summer 2013, NOON and the Onondaga Nation will be staging a Symbolic Enactment of the Two Row Treaty, in which Haudenosaunee canoes and non-Native sailing ships will travel together down the Hudson River, ultimately arriving in New York City on August 9th, which is the UN’s Day of the World’s Indigenous People. In late July/early August, members of NOON and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy did a trial run of the Symbolic Enactment. Members of the Native Resistance Network, along with other Hudson Valley environmental activists, met the boats, canoes and kayaks at Kingston and Poughkeepsie, welcoming them with a pot luck supper.
We encourage you to visit the web sites of NOON and the Onondaga Nation, and to view the video “Brighten the Chain” (12 minutes) which the Onondaga put together to share information about their Land Rights Action. You can follow NOON on Twitter and like them on Facebook to receive future updates.
All photos of the Symbolic Enactment shown here are by Jeremy Schaller. See additional photos by Andrew Courtney here.
