Oren Lyons

It was 1992, at the United Nations General Assembly.

That day, the International Year of the World's Indigenous People was opening. At the podium stood a man from the Onondaga Nation.

His name was Oren Lyons. His Onondaga name is Jo-Ag-Quis-Ho.

He was born on March 5, 1930, in the Onondaga Nation, in New York State. He was the eldest of eight children. His mother was Seneca, of the Wolf Clan. His father was Onondaga.

As a child, he grew up between the two cultures, Seneca and Onondaga.

After Grade 8, he left school. He had to work, and hunt to feed the family. He also boxed as an amateur.

In 1950, he joined the United States Army. He was on the boxing team of the 82nd Airborne Division.

Then he won a scholarship to play lacrosse at Syracuse University. In his family, lacrosse ran deep. His grandfather had played alongside Jim Thorpe. His father was a goaltender, like him.

Oren became a star goaltender. In 1957, his team did not lose a single game. Twice, he was named among the best players in the country.

In 1958, he earned his degree in fine arts.

He moved to New York City. He became a commercial artist, then art director at a greeting card company. In 1960, he even appeared on television.

But in 1970, he went home, to Onondaga.

He became a Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan. Though he belonged to the Seneca Wolf Clan, he was invited to sit on the Onondaga Council of Chiefs, for the Turtle Clan. He served the Grand Council of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.

From then on, he carried the voice of his people.

In 1971, he opposed the widening of a highway through Onondaga territory. In 1972, he led a caravan to Washington, the Trail of Broken Treaties.

In 1977, he was part of the Haudenosaunee delegation to the first World Conference on Racism. In 1982, he helped create, at the United Nations, a working group on Indigenous populations.

In 1990, in Quebec, the Oka crisis, the Kanesatake resistance, lasted 78 days. Oren Lyons served as a facilitator and negotiator.

He also taught, for nearly forty years, at the University at Buffalo. And he co-founded a Haudenosaunee national lacrosse team, the Iroquois Nationals.

On April 17, 2008, at the University of Arizona, he told an ancient story.

Long ago, he said, the Peacemaker brought together five nations that were at war. At Onondaga Lake, he gave them a constitution based on peace.

And he gave the chiefs an instruction. Oren Lyons repeated it this way:

Think not of yourself, nor of your family, nor even of your generation, he went on.

He explained: seven generations ago, someone looked out for our ancestors. So we are responsible for those who will come.

The Peacemaker had also told the chiefs never to take hope from the people.

In 2023, he still spoke of lacrosse as "a medicine game," played by his people for over 1,600 years. That year, he entered Canada's Sports Hall of Fame.

In 2025, he agreed to entrust his papers to Syracuse University.

The Seven Generations principle belongs to the Haudenosaunee. It is not Ubuntu, but it echoes it: we are never alone, neither in space nor in time. Those who will come are already part of the "we."

What remains of him is the image of a goaltender who became a Faithkeeper. Still standing in front of the net, but this time guarding children not yet born.