Women's Suffrage and Native American Women
EC visual arts major Tsiehente Herne'19 sent us a link to this Washington Post article. Her mother, Wakerakatste Louise McDonald Herne, the bear-clan mother of the Mohawk Nation, compared the experience of Native American women to early female settlers. She said her community has a “whole different memory and experience from those of white women.”
The article continues:
As clan mother, Herne is charged with appointing leaders, naming members and working for the general welfare of her people. She said that despite the residual effects of colonialism, there is a huge reservoir of indigenous research, and indigenous scholars are beginning to craft their own narratives, including those of their ancestors.
“It was our grandmothers who showed white women what freedom and liberty really looked like,” Herne said. “They began to witness for themselves a freedom that they had never seen before.”
