What does it mean to be a “steward of the land,” and how does New York state’s past affect its current environmental situation?
Those are some of the questions Dr. Robert Spiegelman will explore in his lecture “Cooling Mother Earth: New York’s Footprint in Nature, Then and Now” Feb. 12 at the Skä·noñh-Great Law of Peace Center in Liverpool, formerly known as Sainte Marie among the Iroquois.
Spiegelman’s lecture is in keeping with the Skä·noñh Center’s new mission of Haudenosaunee-focused history and heritage. In 2013, the Onondaga Historical Association took over the center and teamed up with the Onondaga Nation, one of the six constituent peoples of the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois, Confederacy.
While the Skä·noñh Center isn’t yet open to the public, it has already sponsored numerous local events focusing on Native American history and culture in Central New York, including the 2013 Wooden Stick Lacrosse Expo, and hosted speakers such as Seneca Faithkeeper Oren Lyons and Onondaga Beaver Clan Chief Irving Powless Jr. at local colleges and universities.
Dr. Phil Arnold, director of the Skä·noñh Center’s planning committee, said Spiegelman’s lecture touches on the very meaning of the center’s name: “Skä·noñh” means “peace and wellness” in Onondaga.
“‘Wellness’ [is] in the sense of human beings in balance with the natural world,” Arnold explained. “When human beings are in correct balance with the natural world, that can lend itself to peace.”
According to the New York Council for the Humanities, the organization through which the Skä·noñh Center arranged Spiegelman’s lecture, “Cooling Mother Earth” will tell the story of the first contact between Native Americans and European settlers, the settlers’ “dream of development” and how that dream affected the natural environment of the Empire State, including the pollution of Onondaga Lake, which is sacred to the Haudenosaunee.
“The Onondaga people continue to defend the toxic sacred lake that bears their name,” the description reads.
The second part of Spiegelman’s talk introduces the audience to the first American environmentalists and their core beliefs that people should be the stewards of nature.
Spiegelman, who is a sociologist and multimedia artist, will blend words and images in the final part of his presentation, which shows how the “synergy of the Naturalist tradition and today’s Iroquois environmental activities can be both practical and empowering.”
“Cooling Mother Earth” takes place at 5 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 12, at Skä·noñh-Great Law of Peace Center, located at 6680 Onondaga Lake Parkway in Liverpool. This lecture is free and open to the public. To learn more, call the Onondaga Historical Association at 428-1864 or visit skanonhcenter.org.
Before his talk at the Skä-noñh Center, Dr. Robert Spiegelman will present “New York’s Missing Link: The Sullivan-Clinton Campaign, Then and Now” at Syracuse University.
Spiegelman will illustrate his lecture with animated maps to tell the story of the largest military campaign mounted against Native Americans.
In 1779, General George Washington directed Major General John Sullivan and Brigadier General James Clinton to conduct a “scorched earth” campaign against American Loyalists (“Tories”) and Native American nations who took the side of the British in the American Revolution.
The campaign destroyed 1,200 Haudenosaunee homes and as many as 1 million bushels of corn.
“The fall of Iroquoia is forever entwined with the birth of the American republic,” reads Spiegelman’s website, sullivanclinton.com.
Spiegelman will present “New York’s Missing Link” from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 11, at the Graham Scholarly Commons in the Bird Library at SU, 222 Waverly Ave., Syracuse. For more information, call Dr. Phil Arnold at 443-3861.