This coming Wednesday is the lunar new year. Lunar calendars and new years mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. This year the meaning for me came while preparing this sermon. I was glancing at a 2025 Peace Calendar created by the Syracuse Cultural Workers that I had gotten from the “literature for sale” table, downstairs. Investigating the lunar new year entry taught me about playing a game to dispense the Creator’s healing medicine.
The calendar stuck out for me because I had attended Syracuse University, in upstate New York, which is located on the territory of the sovereign Onondaga Nation, a unique indigenous nation that has successfully maintained its traditional government through the centuries up to the present, according to the Onondaga Nation website.
While at Syracuse, I learned to play a game for dispensing the Creator’s healing medicine. I didn’t realize this at the time. It wasn’t until investigating the matter five decades later that I learned that my name for this game, lacrosse, had come from Jesuit missionaries in the 1600s. They saw sticks the game was played with and were reminded of the crosses in their bishop’s staffs. By that time, the game among the Onondaga people was some five centuries old.
According to the Onondaga Nation website:
The Creator gave us many things for us here on earth, one of them is this game which we call Deyhontsigwa’ehs. Deyhontsigwa’ehs is roughly translated to mean, “They bump hips.”…
It is a game that was given by the Creator, to be played for the Creator, and has been known to have healing power. Because of this, it is also known as the Medicine Game. The game in its original form is played between two groups, usually divided up between clans or young men versus old men. Since women are respected for providing life and are to protect this gift, they do not play lacrosse. [More on this later.]
Once sides are chosen, the two teams play. The men hold in their hands hand-made sticks made of hickory. The spirit of the tree connects the player to Mother Earth as they play for the Creator. The game is played on an open field with two pole at each end signifying goals which a ball made of leather must pass. The Creator is happy to see his game played. When a game like this is played on Mother Earth, it is said that a game is also being played with our ancestors in Creator’s land. There is a predetermined amount that the teams must reach before the game is considered won. Therefore the game is not timed.
Today we still play the game the way our ancestors played the game as shown above, but we also play modern lacrosse as well.
According to an article by Lesley Kennedy on the History website:
Onondaga Nation member Neal Powless, a former professional player for the Iroquois Nationals lacrosse team and a three-time collegiate All-American, says the sport is part of the Haudenosaunee creation story….
"Lacrosse is part of that story of our creation, of our identity, of who we are," Powless says.
…
Ceremonial medicine games are still played in Haudenosaunee communities to heal the sick, according to Powless. The Onodaga play an annual spring game with male participants of all ages.
“Players will show up with no pads, no equipment, just your wood stick,” he says, adding that teams are determined by clan, house or age. “And the ages are whoever can walk. You’re going to have 7-year-old kids running around with 80-year-old men on the same field.”
Each community has its own rules and variations, he adds, and games often are played without a timekeeper, penalties or referees.
“Lacrosse isn’t just a game, it’s a medicine, it heals,” Powless says. “You hear it time and time again how the spirit of the sport itself has healed people because they believe that it’s medicine that speaks to the spirit and the soul."
Numerous innovations in modern lacrosse make for a more spirted competition:
“Lacrosse was an integral part of Native Americans’ culture,” says Joe Finn [in the same article]. Finn is an archivist at the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame and Museum. “It was played to prepare them for war, and it was also a social event where tribes would get together for trade and sport. It was sometimes used to settle disputes.”
Finn says the development of mass-produced lighter and easier-to-handle plastic and metal sticks in the late 1960s and early 1970s made the game faster and increased scoring. … Contemporary lacrosse, dubbed “the fastest game on two feet” in 1921 by a Baltimore Sun sportswriter, takes place on a field with players using sticks with netting attached at one end to catch, carry, pass and shoot a small, rubber ball into the opposing team's goal.
But there is another goal as well said Powless.
“They will say we don’t play for the name on the back of our jersey or the name on the front," he says. "We play for Creator and that we will have a good game and the score will be whatever the score will be and we’re going to do our best.”
But it’s the spirit of the game that remains most important to Powless.
Powless use of the word spirit reminds me not so much of a competitive spirit as it does of the “soul” in a piece of music. It’s an embodiment of something that words cannot convey. But you know when you’re in the presence of it—like the Creator’s healing medicine.
[Ray Charles song here, when he sings this song, the soulfulness differentiates it.]
Charles was controversial, and is considered the originator of soul music because he applied the music of the Black church to secular songs. This is the essence of soul music. The Black church’s gospel. It is the creator’s healing medicine, just like a ceremonial lacrosse game. And here’s where we get real and talk about the stuff they needed to heal from—socially. The History website article also says
The first women's lacrosse game took place in Scotland in 1890, and the first American women’s team formed in 1926 at a Baltimore secondary school.
But such advances were made in patrilineal and patriarchal societies. Iroquois society was different.
The Onondaga Nation is a member of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. The Haudenosaunee is translated to the People of the Longhouse which is an alliance of native nations united for hundreds of years by law, traditions, beliefs, and cultural values. The Haudenosaunee is also referred to as the Iroquois or the Six Nation Confederacy. The Haudenosaunee consist of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora nations.
The Clan Mother holds much weight in the Haudenosaunee. The Clan Mother is a leader not only of her clan, but of the nation as well. The Clan Mother selects their spokesman (Hoyane or Chief) to represent them in council. If their Hoyane doesn’t represent their clan, the Clan Mother has the authority to remove their leader as well after warnings. The Hoyane and the Clan Mother work together to best represent the people of her clan.
Not only is the Clan Mother working with the chiefs in making decisions for the people, they also have the duty to ensure that our way of life continues. The Clan Mothers gather and sit to decide when the ceremonies will begin. Then the Clan Mothers supervise the procedures of the ceremony, the food, and soups that are needed. The Clan Mothers are so integral, that the ceremonies cannot begin without the Clan Mothers present.
Children are the future of any community and the Clan Mothers are important in raising the children. When a new baby is born, it is the Clan Mother who provides the name of the baby of her clan. It is said that the Clan Mother has a bag of names at the ready. When a person passes away from her clan, she takes back that name to be used again for future member of the clan.
The Clan Mothers also make sure that the children are raised in the ways and customs of the Longhouse. They are often teaching the young and old of the ways of the Haudenosaunee. Often when people have questions or there is a dispute among families, often it is the Clan Mother who is sought after for guidance. Their words hold great weight in the community. The Clan Mother holds an important role in both the political and social world of the Onondaga.
Long Ago, Onondagas as well as the Mohawks, Oneidas, Cayugas, and Senecas dwelt in large bark homes called Ganoñhsésgeh, or longhouse. … Inside the longhouse, the Ganoñhsésgeh was equipped with bunk beds on either side of a communal fire which allowed for sleeping and storage for families. Each Ganoñhsésgeh was home to a family belonging to a specific clan. Newly married husbands would leave their clan house and move into his wife’s clan family longhouse to raise their family. Within a village, there could be many many longhouses which were surrounded by a tall wooden fence called a palisade for safety.
The Ganoñhsésgeh or longhouse is also an important symbol to the identity of the 5 nations. The union of 5 nations is seen as a longhouse stretching across present day New York State. The word Haudenosaunee actually means – People of the Longhouse.
Some scholars even argue that the ideals of freedom and democratic government were foreign to Europeans and were actually inspired by the governments of native peoples, such as the Iroquois. This is difficult to ascertain however. Even though the Iroquois people considered themselves neutral during the Revolutionary War, their longhouse settlements were destroyed.
We tell our children that George Washington was the father of our country who would never tell a lie. The fact is, however, that even though Washington only had a beef with one Iroquois people, he took it out on everybody. According to the Onondaga Nation website:
With the Haudenosaunee standing in the way of westward expansion of the new Republic and with General George Washington seeking revenge against the raids of colonial homes, he ordered the termination of the Haudenosaunee and sent these orders to General Sullivan, known today as the Sullivan Campaign.
“The Expedition you are appointed to command is to be directed against the hostile tribes of the Six Nations of Indians, with their associates and adherents. The immediate objects are the total destruction and devastation of their settlements, and the capture of as many prisoners of every age and sex as possible. It will be essential to ruin their crops now in the ground and prevent their planting more.”
“I would recommend, that some post in the center of the Indian Country, should be occupied with all expedition, with a sufficient quantity of provisions whence parties should be detached to lay waste all the settlements around, with instructions to do it in the most effectual manner, that the country may not be merely overrun, but destroyed.”
In April 1779, the colonial army attacked the capital of the Haudenosaunee, the Onondaga Nation. The Onondagas, who were honoring the neutrality agreement, were not prepared for the attack. For over 8 miles south of Onondaga Lake, the colonial army followed the orders of General Washington killing and burning.
The surviving Onondaga were homeless; some began to rebuild; some headed west to find shelter with their brother nations the Cayuga and Seneca. In August and September, the Sullivan campaign resumed with multiple attacks against the Cayuga and Seneca Nations with the army again killing Haudenosaunee people and destroying their villages. Often it took the army days to completely destroy all of the longhouses, fields, orchards and food stores. The homeless traveled to Fort Niagara for safety and shelter but found none with the British there. Many Haudenosaunee froze or starved to death that winter. The spring of 1780 saw the surviving Haudenosaunee forced to rebuild their lives with broken families and destroyed villages.
The Haudenosaunee took notice of General George Washington’s actions. Years later when George Washington was elected President of the newly formed United States, Seneca Chief Corn Planter addressed President Washington in 1790.
“When your army entered the country of the Six Nations, we called you Hanadagá•yas (Town Destroyer): and to this day when that name is heard our women look behind them and turn pale, and our children cling close to the necks of their mothers. Our counsellors and warriors are men, and cannot be afraid; but their hearts are grieved with the fears of our women and children, and desire that it may be buried so deep as to be heard no more.”
Since that day, the Haudenosaunee have referred to all of the Presidents of the United States as Hanadagá•yas – The Town Destroyer.
Based on Washington’s orders, the Onondagas refer to US Presidents as Town Destroyers. This discrepancy is not healed by either ceremonial lacrosse or soul music. The Creator’s healing medicine needs to be applied not just to individual maladies, but to death-dealing social pogroms as well. Otherwise the Creator is just healing individuals to continue to do the bidding of and even aspire to become madcap leaders.
A history that tells the truth to everybody about what Washington and other world leaders did poorly as well as what they did well would begin to change the world for the better, because it would not indoctrinate whole generations of children to grow up wanting to do the same old, dumb, racist stuff. Instead of white-supremacist adults taunting indigenous lacrosse players because they have long hair—even in the 21st century—such people’s friends might bluntly suggest that they spend their ticket money on counseling services instead of lacrosse games.
This is not a step away from relying on the Creator’s healing medicine, but recognizing that in some traditions, the Creator’s divine names include the Truth. And the Truth is that whatever you allow your leaders to get used to doing to others is likely to eventually befall you too.
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