2024 Women's Wampum Belt
Indigenous Astronomy | Story [Re]telling | Wampum Belt Creation
The Trail • Gatherings
Indigenous Astronomy | Story [Re]telling | Wampum Belt Creation
Hundreds of Haudenosaunee women contributed to this monumental 2024 Kononkwe (Women's) Wampum Mat/Belt.
This project was fully funded by the Indigenous Arts Collective’s mandate to uplift and generate sisterhood among onkwehonwe women with the sole purpose of keeping the fire hot for the comfort, success and advancement of the next seven generations. In creating the 2024 Women's Wampum Mat, Samantha Doxtator, Dawn Iehstoseranon:nha and beading artist Kelly Back of Fire Loom Creations were united with the communities of Oshweken/Woodland Cultural Centre, Kahnawake, Kanesatake, Akwesasne, Rematriation Sisterhood Gathering at Ganondagan (Seneca nation and home to Jikonsaseh), Clan Mothers, Faithkeepers, Chiefs and Knowledge Keepers of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.
Samantha filled our spirits with stardust and astronomical knowledge. Dawn generated warmth of sisterhood and illuminated the significance surrounding the 2023 eclipse and the monumental roles of women in Haudenosaunee history and present day communities. Kelly contributed her loom beading and teaching skills and reintroduced women to this vital and traditional art form.
Together we explored real wampum and honoured Clan Mothers and Tsiokonsaseh with the creation of this community wampum belt. It was our intention to present ourselves as happy travellers in sisterhood revisiting celestial connections and cultural expression through community art.
The 2024 Women's Wampum Mat/Belt was completed on April 7th, 2024. She was presented to Clan Mothers and Faith Keepers and then Louise McDonald Herne (Condoled Bear Clan Mother) presented it to her Chief, Curtis Nelson to collaborate on uplifting the story of Tsiokonsaseh (Jikonsaseh) and to fill her position as Mother of Nations.
She was then presented on April 8th to Sun and Moon, during the solar eclipse, under the Great White Pine at the historical Haudenosaunee village of Ganondagan (now known as Victor, NY).
On April 8th she was presented to Sun and Moon under the full solar eclipse.
Woodland Cultural Centre
Kahnawa:ke
Kanesata:ke
Ganondagan, Seneca Nation
Tyendinaga | Kenhte:ke
Akwesasne
More about her
In staying with our stories at the time of Great Law of Peace, the Haudenosaunee made white bullrush mats and eventually wampum mats. The highly symbolic mats were pure white, honouring peace and were used by chiefs for sitting and sleeping. These mats soon became belts as settlers came with their tools. Into the belts our people weaved stories, agreements, laws and good intentions and to this day, the Haudenosaunee read and re-read the belts to keep their promises to themselves and the settlers that came from across the big waters.
This is the first women's belt to be made by the women from each nation in the confederacy and will serve to historically honour Jikonsaseh (Peace Mother and Mother of Nations), Clan Mothers, Faithkeepers, Grandmothers, Aunties, Mothers and children. Inspiring and reminding the matrilineal order of the Haudenosaunee of the connections between celestial beings, Grandmother Moon, the Waters and the Kononkwe.
Kahstoserakwathe (Paulette) created a very special podcast at the sisterhood gathering. Hear the voices of women who attended in this special podcast.
Hear the podcast on the Aunties Dandelion website: https://the-aunties-dandelion.simplecast.com/episodes/eclipse-2024-with-co-host-kaluhyanu-wes-michelle-schenandoah-rematriation-PIFU9tVK
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-aunties-dandelion/id1503856408?i=1000651775067
The Aunties Dandelion (TAD) is a media company informed by traditional Onkwehón:we (original peoples') teachings. They make films, a monthly podcast, and we educate through public presentations and consultation services. They're passionate about sharing stories and perspectives of Indigenous changemakers who connect us to our languages, places, and each other.
Website: https://www.theauntiesdandelion.com/
Samantha Doxtator, Oneida, Wolf Clan
Indigenous Astronomy: As told by the Haudenosaunee
Filling your Spirit with Stardust and Astronomical Knowledge
Samantha is a Personal Development Consultant who specializes in teaching life and employability skills that are grounded by traditional values. She has over 25 years of communications experience and uses this knowledge to help build bridges of new understandings.
The intention with her work is to enhance original ways of knowing, and to nurture; intergenerational gifts, creativity, and innovation. She is thankful for this journey of being a lifelong learner, researcher, teacher, and knowledge keeper.
Samantha has recently accepted the gift to continue the work and research on Indigenous Astronomy by her sister Sasha who passed away in July 2021. Sasha's passion for infusion of Indigenous Knowledge in education will continue to be remembered.
The intentions surrounding this presentation are to share how connected we are to the Cosmos, and to help to heal Indigenous oppression with Astronomical Knowledge and Ancestral Technology.
To book Samantha in your community, email: [email protected]
Other ways to hear Samantha and Sasha's teachings:
Iehstoseranon:nha (Dawn), Akwesasne, Bear Clan
Call to Peace Mother, Tsiokonsaseh
Community Wampum Belt
Iehstoseranon:nha Dawn is Akwesasronon, Wakhskaré:wake (Bear Clan), Feather Keeper/Protector and artist practicing and sharing bird medicines. She is the founder of the Indigenous Arts Collective of Canada and artist at Pass The Feather. Dawn is also a writer, graphic and web designer passionate about elevating Indigenous voices through social media, websites, branding and marketing.
Walking alongside the teachings of Wakerahkáhtste Louise McDonald Herne, Dawn will begin a conversation of revisiting Tsiokonsaseh's story through the voices of women.
We will discuss the alignment of the eclipse event at this time of great war in 2024, to the eclipse that happened about 1000 years ago when we united under the Great White Pine for Kaianere'ko:wa. Our goal is to revisit a sense of peace and unity in this difficult time.
Samantha and Dawn will walk through 5 Kanienke'ha:ka communities and kononkwe will collectively create a Wampum Belt to honour Clan Mothers and Tsiokonsaseh as Peace Mother / Mother Of Nations. Women from each community will have a chance to sit together and learn how to make a belt on a loom and together we may have a finished belt that will be presented to Sun, Moon and Sky World during the eclipse on April 8th.
Iehstoseranon:nha is founder and president of the Indigenous Arts Collective of Canada and artist at Pass The Feather.
Contact: [email protected]
Kelly Back • Fire Loom Creations
Loom Beading with Wampum
Community Wampum Belt
Kelly Back is Turtle Clan and a member of the Mohawks of Akwesasne. Fire Loom Creations is located in Akwesasne and specializes in creating custom loom beaded belts, purse straps, and beaded turtle shell pouches all made on real hide leather. Their creations are unique, high-quality and designed to your individual ideas. Alongside her husband, Tyson, they've made over 150 custom belts for community members to wear for ceremony, weddings, graduations and every day fashion.
Kelly and Tyson also offer workshops in their own studio and recently were awarded with the 'Young Professional Award' by the Cornwall Chamber of Commerce.
Tyson has hand crafted a special large loom for this Eclipse/Peace Mother project and Kelly has recently been mentoring Dawn Iehstoseranon:nha on the beading of these belts. The two have explored working on real wampum together and are excited to share the techniques with women from across Haudenosaunee territories.
https://akwesasne.travel/fire-loom/
https://www.facebook.com/fireloomcreations/
https://indigenousartscollective.org/kelly-back-fire-loom-creations/
https://museumcrush.org/the-native-american-wampum-belt-telling-another-story-of-the-mayflower/
The wampum belt activity is firstly to introduce loom beading - a skill that many of us have lost. It will also reconnect everyone to our relationship with our relatives the quahog who fed us and gave us tools and very important wampum beads. Their teachings are vital to the understanding of the importance of unity, peaceful communities, reciprocation and agreements.
The belt itself is simple and is meant to commemorate and celebrate the importance of the eclipse. The path of the full solar eclipse has never been directly over each one of our Haudenosaunee nations; this alignment marks a very important celestial event that Samantha will visit in her presentation.
The activity also serves to elevate and stand up women again inside the great law of peace. The design will remind us of the importance of Tsiokonsaseh’s (Jekonsaseh’s) role and her natural ability to calm others through maternal, motherly love.
It is a belt of empowerment for the women in confederacy to remember our stories and 2024 is a monumental time to call for peace across our families, communities, nations and the world as people are living in war, fear and unrest.
In the end, it’s a gesture to bring us together. Creation is bound by reciprocal relationships and we are instructed to have healthy relationships and peace of mind.
We are revisiting our communities as village minded and a collectively thinking people. Seeing each other’s contributions as assets.
This is not a comprehensive list of images, language or research. Nor are the stories or descriptions written by scholars (with the exception of cited research links). This site is meant to be general information and condensed stories for those who are interested in beginning their learning journey and/or seek a better understanding of the 2024 eclipse and the matrilineal ways of the Haudenosaunee. You may also find spelling and language discrepancies, please encounter them with an open mind to the fluidity and complex nature of our dialects and language.
At the time that we joined together to ratify the Kayanare(n)kówa (Great Peace), some say that a total eclipse darkened the skies so deeply that the nocturnal animals woke to encircle and witness the calm of the people who unified under the Great White Pine. As our brother the Sun re-emerged from behind the kindness of Grandmother Moon, all Onkwehonwe were awakened with a new sense of balance and unity and we intend to walk in unity until the end of time.
Some kononkwe (women) are weaving the significance of the eclipse at the time of Kayanarekówa into the one that happened in 2024. In this world of war, we are reminded of the monumental role that Peace Mother, Tsiokonsaseh played in establishing unity, equality and peace among the nations.
We are calling in peace now and we are elevating Peace Mother and our voices to call for reunification.
Foundational to Haudenosaunee identity is the transmission of feminine knowledge, social structures and diplomacy and we have found a time and place to recapture that way of understanding; under the sky, hand in hand, in song and in a display of effeminate matrilineal power.
"Woman is the first environment. In pregnancy, our bodies sustain life. At the Breast of women, the generations are nourished. From the bodies of women flows the relationship of those generations both to society and the natural world. In this way the earth is our mother, the old people said. In this way, we as women are earth"
Katsi Cook, Mohawk Midwife, Akwesasne
