Women at the Center: A Call to Interdependence
Women are central to the Great Law of Peace and Governance within the Six Nations, whose federalist structure valuing peace, justice and collective wellbeing inspired democracy in the United States. A timely new book, American Indigenous Democracy: A Call to Interdependence, focuses on the teachings of Haudenosaunee traditional thinking, its influence at the foundation of the American republic, and its continuing power and relevance. This session will highlight women’s leadership and governance rooted in peace and matrilineal values by featuring revered contemporary leaders, author-activists, elders and clan mothers who are also key contributors to the text. They will speak to the themes of women’s leadership, governance rooted in peace and matrilineal values and wisdom from their own life’s work and activism. Moderated by Jose Barreiro (Taíno), editor of the book. With contributing authors: Katsi Cook (Mohawk); Beverly Cook (Saint Regis Mohawk); Michelle Shenandoah (Oneida); and Louise Herne McDonald (Mohawk).
March 28th | 3:00 pm to 4:15 pm
Panelists
Katsi Cook
Executive Director
Spirit Aligned Leadership Program
Tekatsi:tsia’kwa Katsi Cook (Wolf Clan member of the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation), an Onkwehonweh traditional midwife, lifelong advocate of Indigenous midwifery and Native women’s health throughout the life-cycle (drawing from the longhouse traditionalist teaching that “woman Is the first environment”), is Executive Director of the Spirit Aligned Leadership Program. Her work over many decades has spanned a range of worlds and disciplines at the intersections of environmental reproductive health and justice, research, and policy. Katsi’s groundbreaking environmental research of Mohawk mother’s milk revealed the intergenerational impact of industrial chemicals on the health of her community, and she is a major figure in a movement of matrilineal awareness and “rematriation” in Native life.
Jose Barreiro
Author and Activist
Jose Barreiro (Hatuey), an author and activist, is a Taino elder and a journalist who has covered Indian Country issues and themes for four decades. Among many other achievements, Barreiro directed several major multi-year exhibitions at the Smithsonian-National Museum of the American Indian between 2006 and 2017, including: "Taino: Native Heritage and Identity in the Caribbean," and “The Great Inka Road: Engineering an Empire." A resident of Akwesasne Mohawk Nation, Barreiro retired from the Smithsonian Institution, as a Scholar Emeritus, in 2017, but serves as an advisor to several Indigenous community projects in Guatemala, Cuba and Peru.
Beverly Cook
Michelle Shenandoah
Louise Herne McDonald
