Sovereignty with Oren Lyons Pt. 1

To celebrate Native American Heritage Month we turn to the wisdom of Oren Lyons. Watch, share and check out the second part of this series.

About: The history of the nations indigenous to North America and the burgeoning United States is one that is widely unknown. In order to uncover the entangled roots of the colonial settlers and the First Peoples of this land, Children of the Setting Sun convened indigenous knowledge keepers to speak on the subject.

The stories that emerged reveal indigenous values, beliefs and lifeways as they were pre-contact and as they are today. We begin with Oren Lyons, a Faithkeeper for the Onondaga Nation of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy located in modern day upstate New York.

Assigned by his elders to go out into the world to fight for the rights of his people, Oren has taken his teachings all the way to the United Nations, where he was pivotal in the creation of the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People’s (UNDRIP).

In revealing the traditions of his people, Oren emphasizes the need to know the history in order to understand the current terms of a nation-to nation relationship as described by their treaty with the US government.

Filmed in the Council Chambers of the Lummi Nation.

Featuring original music by the Antone George Family and the Blackhawk Singers.