Click below for the Overview to this series of articles.
Preface
A look at the lives and stories of the "People of the First Nations."
Tonya writes, "I grew up on a farm situated along the Wyalusing Path in the Muncy Creek Watershed. I could follow the path from my home to the site of my great-great-grandfather's farm, 15 miles north, just outside the village of Nordmont, in Sullivan County. Some of my earliest ancestors were Quakers and, like many other immigrants, were of English, Irish, Scottish, German, French and Scandinavian decent. In some branches of the family it is also said, Native American. It has been told that members of my family came to Turtle Island (the original name native peoples gave to North America), many years ago and remained for at least 10 (going on 11) generations, in what is now Pennsylvania, New York and Connecticut. We came into this land when the "frontier" was just west of the Susquehanna River. From the beginning, it was Indian people who taught my European ancestors how to live here. They invited them to their sugar camps and taught them the art of "sugaring." They schooled them in herbal medicines and taught them to view the wild lands and the other species of animals that lived here with an accepting eye. There were many such friendships between Indian people and European immigrants in those early days, friendships that later immigrants would never have the privilege of knowing. The influence of Indian attitudes and abilities survived in my family through the generations, although I was not always aware of it. It wasn't until I was grown and in college that I was given the opportunity to learn directly from the descendants of people who helped sustain my European ancestors. Through their instruction, I was able to put some pieces of the puzzle together, to gain more knowledge and understanding of their cultures and consequently of my own---and now to share information that has been given to me as a result of this later contact."
Four parts of this series follow. They are:
The
Haudenosaunee People, Part I
Lifeways
of the Haudenosaunee, Part II
Indian Democracy and the American Government, Part III. (Under development)
Women's Rights and the Indian People, Part IV (Under development)
Click below for
This is the first in a series of "abbreviated" articles taking a closer look at the lives and stories of "People of the First Nations." Tonya begins with part one of a four-part series on the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois or Five Nations). She wrote these words with deep respect, honor and thankfulness for the sharing of their knowledge and friendship today and in times past.
Click below for
Before European immigration to "The New World," some scholars speculate over a million people lived here. These inhabitants had been here for thousands of years and had evolved varied and highly sophisticated societies from which early colonists learned much. As years went by and relations grew tense between European immigrants and Indian Nations like the Haudenosaunee, a good portion of that knowledge was lost. In learning about intact Haudenosaunee lifeways as they existed before European encroachment and as early Europeans encountered them, we can get a better picture of the true nature of their society and their culture as they constructed it, as they carried it forward and as they shared it with many of our European forbearers.
Local writer Tonya Boston Sagar provides a fascinating history of
the lifeway (the way people live) of the Haudenosaunee.
Indian Democracy and the American Government, Part III.