[nativestudies-l] Oren Lyons to Speak at Brown, exhibition lacrosse game with Iroquois Nationals team

[Hoover, Elizabeth]

On February 17 at 4pm Oren Lyons will be speaking in the auditorium of the
Granoff Center for Creative Arts (on Angell St between Thayer and Brown) at
Brown University in Providence RI. A synopsis of his talk is included
below. At noon the following day, the Iroquois Nationals lacrosse team will
be playing an exhibition match against the Brown lacrosse team

"The Little Brother of War: Lacrosse, the Doctrine of Discovery, and
American Indian Tribal Sovereignty"



Although physically situated within the territorial limits of the United
States and Canada today, Native nations like the Onondaga Nation and other
members of the Haudenosaunee (also known as Six Nations or Iroquois)
Confederacy retain their status as sovereign nations. Each Native nation
reserves the right to choose its leadership, determine its citizenship,
approve land use, and to regulate trade and commerce. The Haudenosaunee
Confederacy issues its own passports, which have been used for
international travel since 1923 when Deskaheh traveled to Geneva to
formally apply for his people to become members of the League of Nations.  The
Confederacy also developed its own internationally recognized lacrosse
team, the Iroquois Nationals Lacrosse Club, to compete in a sport invented
by the Haudenosaunee thousands of years ago.  Despite initial opposition
from the U.S., the International Lacrosse Federation granted the team
membership as a nation in 1990, and they have been competing in world
championships, traveling on their Haudenosaunee Confederacy passports, ever
since.  In 2010, the Iroquois Nationals lacrosse team found their right to
travel on Haudenosaunee passports challenged when Britain denied them visas
to attend the world championships in Manchester, after the US state
department refused to confirm that they would be permitted to reenter the
US.  What ensued was an international debate about indigenous sovereignty
and rights, and the continuing role of the “doctrine of discovery” in
relations between Native nations and the settler governments who now occupy
their territory.



On February 17th, we are pleased to host Oren Lyons, National Lacrosse Hall
of Fame player, Onondaga Turtle Clan Faithkeeper, and University of Buffalo
faculty member to speak about the cultural and spiritual role of lacrosse,
“the little brother of war,” as a way of maintaining international tribal
relations, and in contemporary times the role this game has played in the
debates around tribal communities as sovereign nations within the borders
of the US and Canada. Lyons is an award winning internationally renowned
speaker who is a founding member of the Indigenous Peoples Conference of
the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights; a member of the board
of the Harvard Project on American Economic Development; and recipient of
the Ellis Island Congressional Medal of Honor, the National Audubon Award,
the First Annual Earth Day International Award of the United Nations, and
the Elder and Wiser Award of the Rosa Parks Institute for Human Rights

-- 
************************
Elizabeth Hoover, PhD
Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies and American Studies
Brown University, Providence RI
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