Oren Lyons

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Lyons in 1981

. Photographer Michael Bennetts]]

Oren Lyons (b.1930) Oren R. Lyons is a traditional Faithkeeper and chief of the Turtle Clan and a proud and accomplished Native American who works tirelessly towards the issues concerning Indigenous peoples in the United States and the world. He is a member of the Onondaga Nation Council of Chiefs of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, (Haudenosaunee) consisting of Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk and the Tuscarora Indian reservations in northern New York state. Among his accolades he has received 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.

He is deeply involved with national and international issues that affect native peoples and has represented them in many forums throughout the world, including several at the UN focusing on the rights and status of indigenous peoples, the environment and sustainable development.

Oren Lyons was born in 1930 and raised in the traditional culture and practices of the Iroquois on the Seneca and Onondaga reservations in northern New York State.

After serving in the Army, he graduated in 1958 from the Syracuse University College of Fine Arts. He then pursued a career in commercial art after he moved to New York City, becoming the art and planning director of Norcross Greeting Cards with 200 artists under his supervision. He has exhibited his own paintings widely and is well noted in certain circles as a talented American Indian artist. He has since been awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the Syracuse University.

Drawn by a yearning for his culture Lyons returned to Onondaga in 1970. He is recognized not only in the United States and Canada but internationally as an eloquent and respected spokesperson on behalf of Native peoples. He is a sought-after lecturer or participant in forums in a variety of areas, including not only American Indian traditions, but Indian law and history, human rights, environment and interfaith dialogue.

In 1981, at the invitation of the Nambassa Trust he traveled with Stephen Gaskin and Ina May Gaskin to New Zealand to attend the 5 day Nambassa music and alternatives festival where he delivered a number of resounding lectures and workshops. At Nambassa he coordinated with Indigenous Maori land rights activists on questions of indigenous people sharing his Native American native title experiences.

Chief Lyons was a featured speaker at the Global Forum of Spiritual Leaders for Human Survival held in Moscow. In 1992 he addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations where he opened the International Year of the World's Indigenous People at the United Nations Plaza in New York.

For over fourteen years he has taken part in the meetings in Geneva of Indigenous Peoples of the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations, and helped to establish the Working Group on Indigenous Populations in 1982. He serves on the Executive Committee of the Global Forum of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders on Human Survival, and is a principal figure in the Traditional Circle of Indian Elders, an annual council of traditional grassroots leadership of the major Indian nations of North America. He was a negotiator between the governments of Canada, Quebec, and New York State and the Mohawk Indians in the Oka crisis during the summer of 1990.

A lifelong lacrosse player, Oren Lyons was an All-American in this sport, and the Syracuse University team had an undefeated season during his graduating year. The sport was invented by Native North Americans. Its name was dehuntshigwa'es in Onondaga ("men hit a rounded object"), da-nah-wah'uwsdi in Eastern Cherokee ("little war"), Tewaarathon in Mohawk language ("little brother of war"), and baaga'adowe in Ojibwe ("bump hips"). He is currently Honorary Chairman of the Iroquois Nationals Lacrosse Team, which competed in the summer of 1990 at the World Games in Perth, Australia, against the national teams of the United States, Canada, Great Britain and Australia. In 1989 he was named Man of the Year in Lacrosse by the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

[edit] Media and Publications

Regarded as an expert on issues related to Native Americans and the American system of laws, he has authored numerous books including Exiled in the Land of the Free; Democracy, Indian Nations, and the U.S. Constitution; as well as Voice of Indigenous Peoples (1992), and Native People Address the United Nations (1994), both by Clear Light Publishers, Santa Fe, NM. Chief Lyons was the subject of a one-hour television documentary produced and hosted by Bill Moyers, which was broadcast on PBS on July 3, 1991.