Midwinter ceremonies mark the start of the Haudenosaunee new year

Midwinter ceremonies mark the start of the new year for Haudenosaunee (People of the Longhouse) this week.

When the Seven Dancers, or Pleiadesstar cluster, are mid-sky, the following new moon marks the time for Midwinterceremonies to begin, thoughsome say it wasn't always this way.

Tehota'ker:ton Green, who is Wolf clan, Kanien'keh:ka (Mohawk) from Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory, carries outceremonies in the Mohawk Longhouse in Six Nations, Ont.

He said there were three times these ceremonies could be held in winter.

"There was a Seneca chief namedSganyodaiyo' (Handsome Lake)," he said.

"He encouraged the people to not have their Midwinter ceremonies around the time that the Christians were celebrating their ceremonies because in certain ceremonies we want the Creator, Creation, Sky World to hear what it is that we're doing."

The Christmas and New Year's celebrations brought with them alcohol and parties thought to drown out the songs, the voicesand chants of Indigenouspeople, he said.

So rather than using the new moon that follows wahsontehsk:wa (winter solstice), the Haudenosaunee began to use the new moon thatoccurs after the new year or when the Seven Dancers are mid-sky.

Each of the Six Nations that make up theHaudenosaunee Confederacy (Kanien'keh:ka, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Seneca, Tuscarora)is distinct and has its own language and traditions. Midwinter ceremonies begin this week in some Longhouses and happen over four to five days, depending on the Longhouse.

Over thosedays, the speaker in the Longhouse will open with the Thanksgiving Address, there are songs and dancing meant to give thanks to the people and the natural world, ashes are turned over as a symbolic representation of replenishing the Earth and babies are given their traditional names. Traditional feasts occur on each day.

Cultural shifts

In the late 1700s, Handsome Lake saw the displacement of his people, theft of land and wars with colonists, disease and alcohol abuse. This prompted his message for the people, called the Karihw:io or "good word,"which combinedChristian ideology with traditional Haudenosaunee teachings.

His teachings were controversial and are not accepted amongall Haudenosaunee, but they impacted modern Longhouse practices.

Tehahenteh Miller, aKanien'keh:ka knowledge keeper from Six Nations, Ont.,said there were three main aspects of Haudenosaunee culture that were interrupted.

There was ashiftto single-dwelling homes, changing from a collective to one that prioritized individual interests;ashift to a societywhere men instead of women held thepower, which also changed how people sat in the Longhouse women on one side and men on the other, separated by clans; lastly,Haudenosaunee people had no prior concept of hellthe concept of repentancefor one's sins and the consequence of heaven or hell was foreign to thembeforecolonization.

"We don't have a heaven per se. We have the Milky Way where all our ancestors have gone, and that's where we say we are going," Millersaid.

The 1779 Sullivan Campaign ordered by George Washingtondestroyed around 40 Haudenosaunee villages in New York state, effectively disempowering the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.

According toAronhiaiesHernefromAkwesasne, a Mohawk territory that straddles the Canadian/American border and Ontario/Quebec boundaries,it was the "praying towns,"the Haudenosaunee communities that had accepted Christianity, that were saved during the Sullivan Campaign.

"It's interesting that Christianity was meant to destroy us, but it actually kept us alive through that time," said Herne.

During this time, ceremonies were forced underground.

He said he sees the residual effects of Christianitytoday.

There's a fear from the older onesto share traditional information and a determination to practice ceremonies exactly as their ancestors had done, he said.

"We should not be sacrificing respect and love and compassion for protocols or for what we believe," he said.

"What I believe should not allow me to hurt somebody else. We're all the same people. Most of us were raised the same way. Most of us went through the same struggles and the same trauma.We've gotten so good at divisions, right? And now like we're lacking in the unity part even in ceremony."

He said he has seen a recent uptick in Longhouse attendance since the discovery of unmarked burials at former residential school sitesin Canada.

"In our community we had a lot of people that were starting to find out that they don't want to be religious anymore, they don't want to be Catholic anymore," he said.

"So, they were trying to find a way to come back to Longhouse."

Green said for a culture to continue it must adapt.

"We're doing our best to go back on the path that they made for us, our grandparents of old times to do the best we can today to put these ceremonies through," he said.

"If we fall short somewhere, our words and what we're doing will be tied to the way they used to do things."