Seeding Resilience: Haudenosaunee Corn & History” by Dr. Rebecca M. Webster

 

With a focus on the Oneida people of Wisconsin, corn has played an integral role in both their daily and ceremonial lives throughout their often-turbulent history. Their relationship with corn has changed throughout time, but the spirit of corn has remained by their side, helping them heal along the way. Learn about current efforts to grow and celebrate corn on the Oneida Reservation.

 

About the Speaker: Dr. Rebecca Webster is an enrolled citizen of the Oneida Nation and Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of American Indian at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. Her research focuses on Tribal governance and food sovereignty. Her philosophy is that every time an Indigenous person plants a seed, it is an act of resistance, an assertion of sovereignty, and a reclamation of identity. An Oneida faithkeeper named her family’s 10-acre homestead Ukwakhwa: Tsinu Niyukwayayʌthoslu (“Our foods: Where we plant things”). They also started a YouTube Channel called “Ukwakhwa” (“Our Foods”), which shares planting, growing, harvesting, seed-keeping, food preparation, food storage as well as traditional tool and craft knowledge. In 2021, Rebecca’s family formed a nonprofit organization, Ukwakhwa, Inc., to advance their goals of helping share knowledge. Rebecca is also a founding member of Ohe∙láku (“among the cornstalks”), a co-op of Oneida families that grow several acres of corn together, and a founding member of Yukwasaheʔtahshyus (“we are selecting beans”), an informal co-op of Oneida community members growing and sharing heirloom varieties of Haudenosaunee beans.