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Freida Jacques’s grandfather grew distant from Haudenosaunee beliefs and values when he attended Carlisle Indian Industrial School, she said.

Jacques, the Onondaga Turtle Clan Mother, said her grandfather was one of over 60,000 Indigenous people in the U.S. who were forcibly distanced from their culture in the late 19th century.

Jacques spoke to members of the Syracuse University community at the Skä•noñh – Great Law of Peace Center Monday evening as a forum to educate students and faculty about the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Diane Schenandoah, a Honwadiyenawa’sek — meaning One Who Helps Them — partnered with SU faculty members to organize the event.

“You’re not going to hear things that are in the history books,” Schenandoah said before introducing Jacques. “Part of our effort is to bring forth Haudenosaunee history.”

In traditional Haudenosaunee culture, Jacques said, women pick the leaders of the clan. Haudenosaunee men marry into a woman’s clan instead of the converse, and once married, couples move into a traditional longhouse where all female members of that particular clan reside, she said. But, Jacques said, her grandfather was disappointed he didn’t have multiple sons.

“One of the things that really affected a whole generation that went to boarding school was they were never shown affection,” Jacques said. “They weren’t parented. So they didn’t know how to parent when they got back.”

Starting in the late nineteenth century, large numbers of Indigenous children in the U.S. were forced to attend boarding schools operated by the government or a church, according to the National Museum of the American Indian.

The last of these schools closed in 1996, Jacques said, pointing to how affected Indigenous people and communities have been and continue to be by the boarding schools and the values they forced.

Jacques’ grandmother attended the same boarding school as her grandfather, Jacques said. She emphasized how the schools drove traditional Western gender roles, and confined women to roles they wouldn’t assume in their own cultures.

“You were taught how to clean a house and take care of a house, and you would be a housemaid, if you’re a woman. You were taught how to be a farmer and do farmer things if you’re a man,” Jacques said.

One custom in Haudenosaunee communities, Jacques said, entails that because of the living arrangement of a longhouse, orphaned children always had someone from their clan to take care of them.

Amid Supreme Court hearings over the case Bracken v. Haaland, this system is now coming back into question.

The case would overturn the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, which makes it unconstitutional for Indigenous children to be adopted by non-Indigenous families over a blood relative or any citizen of an Indigenous tribe.

Jacques also spoke about and gave her own version of the traditional Thanksgiving Address, emphasizing the impact of colonialism on her clan. Haundenosaunee leaders begin each gathering with a Thanksgiving Address, Jacques said, and The Great Law of Peace Center has an interactive portrait with tablets to promote education on the tradition. Visitors can push a button and begin to gain an understanding of how addresses were delivered, but Jacques said that doesn’t adequately communicate the spirit of the Address.

“[The tablet] doesn’t portray what a Thanksgiving Address really does to you,” Jacques said. “Because you’re affected by Thanksgiving, and with this you just push four buttons over there and then move on.”

The point is to address creation — with the speaker moving their way from animals to the sky and people expressing their thankfulness for their existence — and for listeners to acknowledge what the address-giver is saying with a call-and-response, Jacques said.

With waning opportunities for genuine education on Indigenous traditions and communities, and the Indian Child Welfare Act in the balance of the Supreme Court, Jacques emphasized the importance of educating non-Indigenous people about Indigenous issues.

“We teach because we see people who actually hear us, we see people who say ‘Oh, I know this happened to you. I know it should not have happened’,” Jacques said. “And that is one step towards recovery.”

Jacques said she considers her discussion as part of the process of forgiveness after the treatment her people have endured.

“When we teach like this, it’s a step in our journey,” Jacques said.

Published on February 7, 2023 at 1:41 am