Two hundred years is a long time to be separated from your grandparents, aunties, cousins, extended family, and friends. Two hundred years is a long time to be severed from your ancestral homelands.
This past week, in Clinton, New York, a collective of traditional Oneida women from New York, Wisconsin, and Oneida, Ontario, gathered on a plot of newly reclaimed land, returning to their homelands, to celebrate the receipt of land gifted to them.
Divided by centuries of the U.S. government’s removal and impacts of colonization, a younger generation of Oneida women accepted a gift of nearly 30 acres from a Quaker woman, who had lived on the land for 43 years.
For many Native people the land is part and parcel of Native identity; it is more than a connection, it is part of who they are. So the return of land, and the ability for these Oneida women to have a place to call their own, within their homelands, is monumental.
At this week’s formal announcement of the news of the gifted land, tears of stunned amazement and joy flowed. “Since the 1800s when our people were forced to leave our lands, it has been a dream of our ancestors, a dream of my grandmother’s, and a dream of our women today that we would once again have a place to come together as one,” said Schenandoah. “Now, we can celebrate and practice our culture on our own lands together, thanks to the gift of a generous soul, Liseli Haines.”
Liseli Haines, the donor, said she felt that giving the land back to the Oneida women was the right thing to do. “I feel honored to give back the land. The Oneida people have suffered for generations,” she said. She too was moved by the Oneidas reconnection with each other and the land. Speaking haltingly with a crack in her voice, she said, “I know that land, I’ve walked it. I love this land and I could not imagine anyone being told to leave, leave your beautiful homelands. It rips your heart out.”
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