A Visit from the Landlords
by Anne Pyburn Craig
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In a restorative justice coup unlike any ever seen before, the Two Row
Paddlers and the Unity Riders visited the Hudson Valley last month, blending a
magically good time with a deeply serious purpose, invoking the age-old
principle that it is never too late for neighbors to reason together.
The Onondaga and the Lakota came the old way, on horses and in small
craft. They camped and sang and talked and danced in many towns; the Unity
Riders stopped to visit inland spots like Woodstock and Rosendale, joining up
with the Two Row Paddlers in the great ports like Albany, Kingston and Beacon.
The people of the Hudson Valley organized celebrations and meals and campsites.
Countless bonds were forged between hosts and visitors. Or, as one person put
it on Facebook after the Beacon event on August 3, “WHAT A ROCKIN’ WEEKEND!”
When the Dutch arrived in New York, they found a society that had been
practicing participatory democracy under the Great Law of Peace for about 600
years. The Haudenosaunee, in an attempt to establish a working relationship
with the newcomers, laid out how things could work with a Covenant Chain of
peace, respect and friendship between two very different societies, and the Two
Row Wampum agreement of 1613—respect and noninterference and mutual aid “as
long as the sun rises, the rivers flow, and the grass grows.”
In 2005, a court opted to side with the Doctrine of Discovery, dreamed
up by a 15th-century pope and stating that European agents had a right and duty
to go “civilize” whoever the hell they wanted and automatically owned all of
it.
The Doctrine of Discovery was adopted into United States law in an 1832
Supreme Court case and has never been overturned. It’s considered “settled”.
The Unity Riders from Manitoba and the Onondaga from Syracuse made their trek
through our neighborhood to remind people that there was settled law in place long
before—the Two Row Treaty of 1613—and that taking good care of this place we
share was and is a condition of that deal.
Noninterference was part of the pact, a mutual recognition that each
culture had its own ways. Still, when the framers of New York’s constitution
worked out their plan, they did a good bit of borrowing from the People
Building a Long House.
Parts the newcomers should have borrowed and somehow missed include the
protection of the planet seven generations into the future, the importance of
the Clan Mothers, and the simple fact that we can’t eat money. The riders and
the paddlers journeyed to the UN to discuss all this with sheer mind-blowing
good humor and generosity. Paddling a canoe down the Hudson is no small thing.
Before anybody ever heard of Pope Nicholas and the Doctrine of
Discovery, the people already living here had established a system based on mutual
respect. We are still invited to join them. You can learn a lot more about all
this at honorthetworow.org and unityride.com; or on the Facebook pages they’ve
set up. They’re offering a foundation—it’s up to us to help build it.
photo by Rod Bicknell
photo by Rod Bicknell
Posted by Chris Hewitt
on 1:53 PM.
Filed under
Environment,
Feature,
Local Economy
.
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Thank you for your knowledgeable and detailed explanation of the Two Row. Thorough and descriptive just perfectly!
Thank you, I am so glad someone thought so! I feel humbled by writing about it