BY: PHIL PRESTON

INDIAN TIME - VOLUME 22 - NUMBER 20 - MAY 20, 2004 EDITION

All of our stories and traditions including the Creation Story, Kaienerasera'kowa (Great Law), and more, teach us about who we are and how our minds, bodies, and spirits, and the natural world function. One important lesson is that when we do something, that experience will be part of us forever, whether it is viewed as a positive or negative experience. If we can accept this truth, we can function better in this world as human beings and be more harmonious in our natural world not trying to change the world to suit our desires.

In the Creation Story, there was a time when Teharoniawakon (Shonkwaiatison, our Creator) was preparing corn for a meal. His grandmother was far too impatient to wait for the meal to be finished being overcome by the incredibly pleasing aroma. In her haste, she became angry and knocked wood ashes from the fire into the boiling corn. Teharoniawakon sorrowfully told his grandmother of the wrong she had done. He told her that from now on because of what she had done, human beings would always have to boil corn with wood ash in order to enjoy the corn as a meal. Still today this is part of us as we can see in the way we must prepare white and other flint corns. As for the Grandmother, she showed us that if we succumb to our selfish desires for things that feel good, taste good, smell good, etc. trouble will always follow. The exact nature of consequences is not always known. A wrongful act that one person commits due to their own impulses, addictions, and obsessions, will always affect the people around them, that persons future, and the community or world at large.

A more positive feeling story is of Tsikonsase, (first person to accept the Peacemaker's message). Tsikonsase was a woman that lived alone along the main trail running through the Confederacy lands. During her time the original Five Nations that became the Rotinonshonni (Iroquois), were at constant war with each other. Tsikonsase would prepare meals for travelling men. She would use the food and medicines to encourage and perpetuate their warring ways so that fighting would continue. Through talking and working with the Peacemaker she accepted his message of Sken:nen, Ka'senstensera, and Ka'nikonriio. Being the first to accept these principles and putting the negative behaviors behind her, she became known as the Mother of the Confederacy and set the example for the power and authority that all Iroquois women would have in our culture. Her power in her old life was transformed and replaced with a more positive focus. The old life would always be part of her, but no longer active. This led to the establishment of Clan Mothers having authority to stand up Chiefs and to de-Horn them if necessary. From then on, women would always have this extra authority and equal Rights with men. Coincidentally, it was a woman that was the first Being of the Sky World to arrive here on Earth. Sky Woman (later becoming Grandmother Moon) gave birth to a daughter that later became known to us as Mother Earth, again a woman.

These and many endless other examples show us that what we do, or what happens to us in life will always be with us, always are a part of us. However, we do not need to let it rule us. Like in the examples, it always takes another more enlightened human being to talk with us and help us to recognize and accept the negative parts of our past and even the present day. With this help we can change. As part of our nature, in order to change an old behavior we must recognize it in its full truth. If something has happened to us in our recent or old past, we can work to accept its reality and how it affects us in our present daily lives. Left not dealt with, those old negative experiences will haunt us and even cause us to become confused possibly reenacting them on others. Our traditions and stories show us that every part of our being, every part of our past affects every part of our daily lives and relationships with others.