Not Another Post About The "Real" Meaning Of Thanksgiving

This is the time of the year when a litany of opinions, lectures and down right scoldings will be offered up about "Thanksgiving". If the Western civilization had to appropriate one of our festivals and rewrite history to kick off their holiday shopping season so be it. I am more concerned about what we do. I am not talking about turkey or spending a quarter of our salary the day after gorging ourselves. I am thinking more about our direction and commitment to securing our cultural and political distinction.

The last time our people came together after a period of conflict between us was when five regions of our people brought their 49 families together committing their titles with that of Tadadaho to create the Kaianerehkowa. The great peace enjoyed by the Great Path of Goodness was to be recited every year to all of our people in all our territories and would be recited at a great convention for all of our people every five years. We need to once again come to a unified understanding of what bound us together before the clash of the European culture would disrupt our people so. Religion, disease, war and the growth of the capitalist empire have left many of our people struggling with their sense of identity. Even "Indian" religions have clouded the waters to such an extent that we only look back to what a handful of generations have offered up as a definition of what it means to be Ohnkwe Ohnwe or Haudenosaunee.

It is time to look at the path worn by the millions of feet that walked this land before us. The Kaianerehkowa has not been properly examined or certainly followed in over 200 years. Generations of egotistical men, many of them carrying some of those 50 titles, have moved so far off that path that the generations that followed lost their way back. I have no use for examining the paths followed by generations of oppressed people, a path of survival. I would rather return to the path that advanced our people rather than the one used to desperately hang on to shadows of who we were. We need to relearn the Kainerehkowa and let it be a priority.

If our people can brandish the Hiawentha Belt on everything from flags to body art, if we can treat our Longhouses like churches, if we can gather to celebrate "treaty commemorations", if we can wear our "Indianess" on our sleeves; then why can't we learn the one thing that separated us and distinguished us from all other men. The Kaianerehkowa is not a gift from the "Creator". It is the path that honors Creation. It is not "like" anything that man has created. It is not a supernatural phenomenon but rather a natural one. In a world where power, authority and wealth was wrestled from the weak or ignorant to be placed with the privileged few, the Kaianerehkowa was the only model that proved liberty was not chaos and that authority and dominion over others was not required for order and peace. If we can adopt all of these false "traditions" that we claim to be a part of our "culture" then how about reclaiming the lost tradition of a yearly recital. Perhaps then the festivals our people celebrated will begin to have real meaning and a genuine return to a higher quality of life can begin.