Syracuse, NY -- Since 1977, members of the Iroquois nation have traveled on Iroquois Nation passports. It has been a way of underscoring the sovereignty the nation claims is proven by the fact that there are treaties between the United States and the Iroquois, who are also known as the Haudenosaunee. “You don’t make treaties with you own citizens,” said...
Syracuse, NY -- Since 1977, members of the Iroquois nation have traveled on Iroquois Nation passports.
It has been a way of underscoring the sovereignty the nation claims is proven by the fact that there are treaties between the United States and the Iroquois, who are also known as the Haudenosaunee.
“You don’t make treaties with you own citizens,” said Joe Heath, attorney for the Onondaga Nation.
The standoff at Kennedy Airport, which has so far left the Iroquois Nation’s lacrosse team unable to fly to England to play in the 2010 World Lacrosse Championships, would also rob the event of the team representing the culture that has played the game the longest. The Iroquois consider lacrosse, “the Creator’s game,” Heath said.
Further, he said, team members at the world tournament will need to show their passports as proof they are eligible to play for the nation whose jersey they wear. “They are on a separate national team,” he said of the Iroquois Nation squad. There are teams representing the United States, Canada and more than two dozen other nations.
Heath said Haudenosaunee passports were honored as recently as this spring when Onondaga Nation Faithkeeper Oren Lyons and others visited Sweden on their Haudenosaunee passports. They met with the U.S. ambassador to Sweden Matthew W. Barzun. Barzun recounted the event in his online blog.
A Mohawk, Kenneth Deer, is in Switzerland with the United Nations right now on a Haudenosaunee passport, Heath said.
Heath declined to say if team members, or any other Iroquois national, could carry both a Haudenosaunee passport and a U.S. passport.
Haudenosaunee passports are “part of an expression of sovereignty,” Heath said. “It matters a great deal.”
With hours left before it would be too late for the team to make it for game time, Heath said he hoped officials could “just find a diplomatic way to do the right thing.”
Contact Charles McChesney at cmcchesney@syracuse.com.