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Speakers
Sacred Circle Presenters for 2008
Jake Tekaronianeken
Swamp, Wolf Clan, Akwesasne Mohawk Nation
Jake resides in Akwesasne with his wife Judy, has seven children and twenty two grandchildren
and 8 great grandchildren. He is presently employed with the Men for Change Program in Akwesasne, which is a program
through the Iethi'nisten:ha Family Violence Shelter. Jake works with men using the Haudenosaunee culture as a basis
for positive change within themselves as well as within their families. For over
thirty years, Jake was a Mohawk Sub-Chief and representative on the Grand Council of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy
and has offered a wide range of experience in Indigenous, environmental and social issues both locally and nationally and
internationally. Jake has held the position as a leader of the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation with responsibilities such
as presiding over thanksgiving ceremonies, birth and marriage ceremonies, counseling, funeral rites, and the politics
of the nation and confederacy. Jake has inspired a new generation of Mohawk leaders and teachers who are now taking the place
of Elders in the communities of the Iroquois and was directly involved in the creation of the Akwesasne Freedom School - a
Mohawk language immersion school of critical acclaim that has been an inspiration to many First Nation peoples in the United
States and Canada. Jake has inspired hundreds of people of many races and cultures through working with a number of influential
organizations. As result of his thirty years experience as a sub-chief of the Mohawk
Nation and international ambassador, Jake has been traveling around the world, planting "Trees of Peace" in diverse
places such as Israel, Australia, South America, United Nations, Morroco, Japan, Thailand, St. Johns' Cathedral in New
York City and over twenty colleges and universities in the United States and Canada. Through his tree planting efforts, Jake
has inspired the planting of over 200 million trees. Jake continues to inspire many college students of all races and backgrounds
through his extensive lecturing schedule which takes him to over 10 universities and other speaking engagements a year. Jake
has appeared on the television program Five Hundred Nations, which has become educational software; Ancient Prophecies which
aired in 1994 on NBC, Finite Oceans which aired on the Discovery channel in 1994; and educational display videos for the Carnegie
Museum in Chicago. Jake is the author of the children's book Giving Thanks, A Native American Good Morning Message (Lee
& Low Books), which has been translated into five languages and was featured on the PBS television show Reading Rainbow.
Jake also authored The Peacemaker's Journey audiocassette produced by Parabola Magazine (1996).
For over thirty years
Jake Swamp has worked tirelessly for the communities of the Iroquois people and bridging cultural difference - in the spirit
of respectful dialogue and collective action - in addressing environmental and social problems.
Dan Longboat, Ph.D., Turtle Clan, Mohawk Nation, Ohswe:ken,
ON
Dan Longboat “Roronhiake:wen...He
Clears the Sky”, Turtle Clan of the Mohawk Nation, a Citizen of the Haudenosaunee; The Six Nations Confederacy from
Ohswe:ken, at the Grand River Territory. Longboat earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Native Studies,
with an interest in Psychology from Trent University. He received with distinction,
a Masters Degree in Environmental Studies from York University, he recently completed
his Ph.D. in Environmental Studies, through the Faculty of Graduate Studies at York University, in Toronto. Longboat’s strong
commitment to Indigenous communities is evident in his involvement as a Director for the Rotinonhson:ni Language Development
Centre, Director of The Indigenous Nation’s Sanctioned Research Program for Graduate Studies, Consultant to The Ontario
First Nations Technical Services Corporation on First Nations Solid Waste Management and as Project Evaluator for the Akwesasne
Task Force on the Environment for the US Environmental Protection Agency and is on the Advisory Board for the Environmental
Commissioner of Ontario and the Science Advisory for the International Joint Commission for the Great Lakes Watershed. As a life long learner,
Longboat strongly encourages study with Elders and Traditional People. He recognizes the critical importance of language learning
and support for culturally based programs. He encourages youth to participate in the Longhouse and in their Nation and Confederacy
governments, to support and assist the Hereditary Leaders and Traditional Peoples in the Communities. He believes direct involvement
and active participation through working together and using a “Good Mind”, to be a major part of our responsibilities
as Haudenosaunee.
Dr. Longboat is currently
Director of the Indigenous Environmental Studies Department at Trent University
and a faculty member with First Nations Technical Institute “Indigenous Community Health Approaches” program.
Rick Hill Sr., Beaver Clan, Tuscarora Nation, Ohsweken, ON.
Richard W. Hill Sr. is an artist, writer, educator and museum consultant. He is a Tuscarora of the Beaver Clan and
resides in Ohsweken, Ontario. Recently, he has taught at McMaster
University, Mohawk College and Six Nations Polytechnic.
He was also involved in developing culturally-based curriculum and training for Seneca Language teachers for the Seneca Nation
of Indians.
Formerly,
he was an Assistant Professor in Native American Studies at SUNY Buffalo and served as Assistant Director for Public Programs
at the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution.
He is currently the chairperson of the Haudenosaunee
Standing Committee on Burial Rules and Regulations and is involved in the repatriation of human remains, burial objects and
sacred objects and objects of national cultural patrimony. Along with Ray Skye, he has deveopled the Six Nations Virtual
Archive of information on Haudenosaunee history.
Dale Bellisfield, RN, CH, AHG Fairlawn, New Jersey
Dale is a holistic
practitioner, approaching her patients as both a Clinical Herbalist and Registered Nurse. She is currently the herbalist at
the Saint Barnabas Health Care System's Siegler Center for Integrative Medicine in Livingston, New Jersey. She has over 10 years education and experience using herbal medicines and is
trained in European, Native American and Chinese traditions of healing. She is a professional member of the American Herbalist
Guild, the only peer-reviewed credentializing organization in the U.S. for medical herbalists.
Additionally, she integrates her herbal skills with physicians at the Kessler Institute for
Rehabilitation and has mentored medical residents from New Jersey's Mountainside and Overlook Hospitals. She is
a speaker for medical students at UMDNJ, where she also participates in their Institute for Complementary & Alternative
Medicine as a lecturer, panelist and instructor for their Mini-Med School.
Dale teachers and lectures widely on the use of herbs and therapeutic foods to both health care health
care practitioners and the general public in the New York/New Jersey area. She contributed to the award winning author Rozanne
Gold's Healthy 1-2-3 cookbook. This book also won the coveted Julia Child Award and was nominated
for the James Beard Award.
She has been working
for the past eight years with Jake Swamp, Nancy Slowick and Jeff Lambe to create a herbarium of the traditional local plants
in northern New York State, which will be translated into Mohawk. This will help preserve the language, culture and
traditional medicinal herbal knowledge.
Nancy Slowick, Director, Greenbrook Sanctuary Palisades, New Jersey
Nancy received her BA in
Biology from Oswego State, SUNY and her MA in Environmental Science from Richmond College, CUNY. She is presently
the Director/Naturalist of Greenbrook Sanctuary and has been since 1989. The Greenbrook Sanctuary is a 165 acre preserve
on the New Jersey Palisades. She has been leading nature walks for over 25 years.
Nancy was also the Co-Founder and Co-Director
of the Greenbelt Native Plant Center on Staten Island, created in 1986. The Greenbelt Native Plant Center grew native plants
for New York City Parks.
She has two published works. The first, Ferns of Greenbrook Sanctuary, 1991 and A
Naturalist Guide to the Southern Palisades, 2006.
Katsi’tsiarihshion Suzanne Brant,
I.M.C, P.H.C.P, MES, Mohawk Nation, Tyendinaga, ON
Katsi’siarihshion is a Mohawk, from the Tyendinaga
Mohawk Territory situated on the Bay of
Quinte. She has completed her Masters in Environmental
studies at York University. She graduated from the Institute of Integrated Medicine as an Integrated Medical Clinician. She is certified as a Preventative Health
Care Practitioner in the sciences of functional medicine practicing in the modalities of phytomedicine, iridology, nutrition,
aromatherapy, meridian therapy and homeopathy.
Her focus over the past 20 years has been around the acknowledgement
and preservation of Indigenous knowledge including traditional plant medicines and the natural environment. Katsi’tsiarihshion
is currently working with the First Nations Technical Institute as the manager of the Health and Environment Department.
She is also on the Board of Governors for St. Lawrence College and Prevent Cancer Now.
Bob Stevenson, Cree Nation residing in Akwesasne
Bob Stevenson is a Metis born to Theresa Cardinal-Stevenson,
a Cree Native and his Irish father Fred Stevenson of Fort Fitzgerald, Alberta near the border of North West Territories. His home was by the Slave River which empties into the Great Slave Lake in Northern Canada. Bob maintains strongly that he was the lucky one because while his three sisters and one brother
were all placed in the Grouard Catholic Residential School, he was placed with and raised by
his Cree-only speaking great grandmother. They lived off the land, mostly hunting and trapping, fishing, farming and gathering
to sustain themselves. Jobs and money were literally nonexistent in those days and made very little money from fur pelt sales
to the Hudson's Bay Company. In 1982, Bob moved
from Yellowknife to the Ottawa and Akwesasne Area where he now lives with his wife Marie and two sons.
As a result of working together with the Assembly of First Nations, the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the Metis National Council
and the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, the Aboriginal Trappers Federation of Canada was formed on behalf of Indian, Inuit
and Metis trapper harvesters. Bob worked as their Executive Director from 1982 when it started until 1991 when it's
doors closed due to lack of support from the fur industry and the Government of Canada. He keeps the trapper harvester
name open to this day because of unfinshed business, due to industry and goverments broken promises. He continues to
share life skills on the land teachings to students and teachers in schools everywhere he can go in the US and Canada and the world.
Bob now works through the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne Environmental Department
teaching "Life Skills on the Land", a public education program which takes students and teachers on the land within
their own environment. It is a travelling road show display unit which teaches outdoor education, Native awareness,
survival in the woods, living in the best of both (Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal) worlds and sharing jokes and stories. Working
with youth and elders is heavily emphasized by relaying oral teachings of the past and sharing the experiences of the contributions
to society by all Indian, Inuit and Metis Aboriginal people.
Bob now serves on the Assembly of First Nations
Harvesters Committee for the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne. He assists the Metis National Council on wildlife issues
such as trapping, hunting, fishing, the fur trade, gun control and endangered wild-life species legislation. He co-chairs
the Species At Risk Act Aboriginal Working Group for Canada, which is made up of six Aboriginal Government Organizations as well as some regional representatives from Aboriginal
Communities.
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