Kay Olan, a member of the Mohawk Nation, storyteller, and retired teacher, spent summers growing up on a Mohawk reservation near the NY/Canada border. She is on the Ndakinna Board of Directors which among other things, organizes the Saratoga Native American Festival. Kay has presented programs in libraries, schools, museums and for the Peace Alliance. To complement Saratoga Reads! book The Round House, Kay will show the 30-min. documentary, Guswenta: Renewing the Two Row Wampum, followed by a talk on themes mentioned in the film including: a 401 year old treaty made between the Dutch and the Iroquois, the 28-day long paddling journey in 2013, and a sample replica of a Two Row Wampum belt representing the Treaty, Our Responsibility to Our Environment. Guswenta: Renewing the Two Row Wampum, by Gwendolen Cates This 33-minute film features stunning footage of the 28 day paddling journey from the Onondaga Nation to the United Nations in New York City during the summer of 2013. It inspires people, indigenous and non-native, to consider our collective responsibility 400 years after the Two Row Wampum Treaty was created. “We have a responsibility to heal our relationships with one another and with the Earth.”
Sunday, March 22, 2015
2:00 – 5:00 p.m.
H. Dutcher Community Room
The Saratoga Springs Public Library