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7 St. Thomas L. Rev. 441 (1994-1995)
A Brief View of Onkwehonwe Culture and Spirituality from the Beginning

handle is hein.journals/stlr7 and id is 461 raw text is: A BRIEF VIEW OF ONKWEHONWE CULTURE AND SPIRITUALITY FROM THE BEGINNING BRIAN PATTERSON* I am pleased to be here and to speak on culture and spirituality. In this day, you hear so much about religious freedom, while in our way of life, we do not have a religion, what we have is a way of life. To provide some understanding of that, I feel I must go back to the beginning. It was in the beginning that the Creator had created everything that was in the environment. He felt that the environment, the animals and such, were lonely and so he came back and created four beings from the earth.' When He did this, two of the beings soon engaged in a fight; they were fighting over an object. A third being joined in, while the fourth being sat back and observed all that was going on. The Creator came back and gave instructions to these four beings that they now must be separated; they could no longer live in peace and harmony with one another. The being that did not involve himself with this disturbance, this raucous that was going on, was told by the Cre- ator that he would be the Original Being, and that he would stay on this Great Turtle Island. So that is how we refer to ourselves as Onkwehonwe people, as The Original Real People. During this time, as our people started growing in numbers, it became a very bad time. We had no way to live our lives, we had no rules or laws to govern ourselves, we had no tradition on how to treat each other. There was much warfare, there were murders, rape, canni- balism, you name it - it was a very bad time. I am from the Oneida Indian Nation, and I am a member of the Bear Clan. The Oneida Nation sits in a confederacy commonly known as the Iroquois Confederacy, which is compromised of five original na- tions.2 Today however, we are known as the Six Nation Iroquois Con- * Member of the Bear Clan and enrolled member of the Oneida Indian Nation; chosen by his people to represent them on the Nation's Men's Council; employed by the Nation in the Executive Office as part of a three-person Member Services Unit. I. The number four has great significance for the Onkwehonwe people. We have four protectors-four beings, and we have four major ceremonies each year. 2. PETER FARB, MAN'S RISE TO CIVILIZATION As SHOWN BY THE INDIANS OF NORTH AMERICA FROM PRIMEVAL TIMES To THE COMING OF THE INDUSTRIAL STATE 97 (1968). The name Iroquois usually refers to the five (later six) tribes that united in the Confederacy. Id.

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