Self-governance Entry

okk so i’m in an online groupchat with a bunch of other Indigenous teenagers!! it’s a great way to connect with other cultures, and i’ve learned so much !! i have 2 best friends in that groupchat, Mikom and Talise. Mikom is Ojibwe, and Talise is Haudenosaunee!! anyways we were talking about self-governance n stuff and we were comparing !! apparently the Ojibwe have like different clans, and each clan has a different job. like 4 example, the Bullhead clan was in charge of healing and the Bear clan was in charge of defense. so anyways, each of these clans have their own chiefs, but the chiefs power is only limited to their clan. of course there were multiple chiefs, but when it came to the head chief of the clan it was usually an inherited position with like the help of councilors and other members. his position would be for life.. talk about sooo many responsibilities.. there were also secondary chiefs that got their position through how good they were at different things, like leadership, hunting , and general knowledge. they also had “tribal meetings” but he said those were rare cuz they were only called during war. i think that’s pretty neat because like you’d have to work for ur position and it sounds fair. ANYWAYS !! for the Haudenosaunee, there were different clans, just like the Ojibwe. so it was called the league, which was like the collective term for all of them combined. ok so the league was run by a council of 50 super high-up chiefs called sachems, and each sachem represented their clan. and guess what? the five original members of the confederacy had their own delegation of 8-14 people. each of these positions were passed down through the mom’s side of the family, and that’s called a matrilineal society!! i think its neat cuz if your mom was a big-shot you’d be a big shot too. ok and it didn’t stop there cuz every village had mini-councils too with their own sachems and chiefs too. PLUS !! they had clan mothers who were in charge of making sure that the chiefs were doing their job (women power!!!), and then when he died she would pick a new one. i also really like this system just because of the clan mothers hehe

hearing about so many similarities and differences between nations self-governing is actually really interesting. because a lot of them have their uniqueness and honestly, i think their way of self governance is better than our government right now LOL!! i like how it’s based on how capable they are, and like each member is always kept in check, so that nothing goes bad