Mohican activist Kahentinetha Horn talks about warrior instinct, or Sa-o-ie-ra, and explains what has happened to all the warriors.
Sa-o-ie-ra means it's a natural instinct instilled in us by creation. Every creature on earth has this natural instinct to protect itself, its species, its territories and everything that sustains its life. We do what we must do to survive. A warrior doesn't have to ponder whether he should protect himself, his people, his clan, his land, water and everything that helps to sustain his people. These are our sources of life. Our full understanding of the natural world is how we will survive. When we are attacked, our instincts tell us that we have to defend ourselves as fully and completely as possible. That's how Creation made us.
All Indigenous nations have warriors.
The colonists are alarmed that our People are picking up this warrior image no matter what Indigenous nation we come from. Why? They thought they had destroyed us through colonization, genocide, fear and all the strategies that have been applied elsewhere in the world. Our will comes from nature. Even the non-natives depend on that too. To destroy us they destroy themselves.
A lot of time and effort is spent trying to dissolve this positive image of the warrior. At Six Nations ... we have no choice but to live according to the men's duties as outlined in our constitution, the Kaiannereh'ko:wa/Great Law of Peace.
What took us off the path? It was the genocide we went through.
These invaders immediately tried to take over Turtle Island. One of the first strategies was to use us for commerce and military allies. In the meantime they worked to kill us off. After a while they successfully killed off 99% of us throughout the Western Hemisphere. 115 million of our people died off. We are the descendants of those few whose ancestors survived the biggest holocaust in all mankind...
Non-Indigenous society must learn too.
