Indigenous Studies Working Group
This group formed initially in 2023 as a loose network of people interested in learning about the past and present of Indigenous peoples, particularly in Indiana, and exploring how we can work toward relationships that restore justice.
Today, there are three ways to be involved with the Indigenous Studies Working Group (ISWG):
- Join our Reading Group: We meet on the 2nd Monday of each month at 4pm to share what we are learning. So far, we follow our own paths, which might include reading books, watching documentaries or other films, attending events, and more. As our group grows, we may decide to become more structured, but for now, we prioritize inclusion and the recognition that people's capacity for study and research varies, sometimes month to month.
- Join our Planning Group: This group is focused on planning activities for ourselves and the congregation: field trips, film viewings, invited speakers, and more. All are welcome, but please be aware that this is a task-oriented group and participants should come ready to volunteer to help get things done as needed! Meetings are on the 4th Mondays at 4pm.
- Join our Mailing List: The events and activities we plan are listed in the church calendar and in the Friday Update; we also send information directly to those who are interested via our Mailing List.
Call to Action
The following message is from Ryan Conway:
Aho! Howesi waapani caaki wiyeefa — Hello and good day to you all!
I am writing to invite you and your congregations and your allies to join the Tenskwatawa Flint Corn Alliance. Please send this invitation to your congregation members and allies through your mailing list, if you feel inspired to support the effort!
Our first planting day of the season is THIS Saturday, April 18th, from 9am Central (Evansville time) until Done or Dusk! Please feel free to come if you have time and please feel free to invite your students to join us. We can help to organize carpooling from Bloomington's IU campus on Saturday morning.
This is a sacred-seed oriented reconstitution of the Tecumseh/Tenskwatawa Northwestern Indian Confederacy, a way in which we can renew our old relationships both with our sister tribes and with our sacred seeds.
We call on our White Brothers & Sisters, the spiritual descendants of Stephen "Sinnantha" Ruddell, the white brother of Tecumseh, and Simon "Katepacomen" Girty, an adopted Seneca and fierce ally of the Shawnee, to join with us once again, in shared love and solidarity!
We call on these Unitarian Universalist congregations to work together and with us in common cause, to magnify our effects and strengthen our kinship!
Tenskwatawa Flint is the corn born of The Prophet's movement: many nations of Native peoples came to Prophetstown for spiritual and cultural renewal, and they did what Indians do: they brought their corn to eat, to share and to plant. They know their Corn Mother well and chose to plant these corns together and birth a new symbol of their unity, a new symbol of their strength.
When Prophetstown was razed by William Henry Harrison, Ho-Chunk families spirited-away the Tenskwatawa Flint Corn up to Canada, and later down into Wisconsin, where she was preserved for generations before being given to the care of a Native seed sanctuary organized by Carl Barnes. Carl is the progenitor of Rainbow Flint Corn and Painted Mountain Corn, which were projects intended for breeding corn lines that could preserve the many corns of a people within a single genetic code. Tenskwatawa Flint is a living example of this but thankfully she was never stolen and sold, whereas we know of Rainbow Flint and Painted Mountain, today, because Carl's business partner thieved the corn and sold it on the open market, under his own trade names. Carl died a hero defending Native corns, anyway.
Tenskwatawa Flint was rematriated to my chief, Chief Benjamin Barnes of the Shawnee Tribe, on March 17th of 2025, and as I am the cornkeeper of White Oak ceremonial grounds, I was chosen to help restore this seed from its near-extinct, critical condition. The Shawnee are a people of alliances and the Tenskwatawa Flint is a corn created specifically to renew and to grow our alliances. She is here for one and all, here for all those who carry the fire of the ancestors on these lands.
We are honored to have the alliance of Braiding the Sacred, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, and the Three Fires Confederacy at our aid, with members of each joining us in common cause: we seek to renew the old alliances, oriented around the sources of our spiritual and material strength, contained in the wisdom and memory of our sacred seeds. We aim to share material resources, best practices, seeds, and supply chains. We aim to re-grow the solidarity that once defined us.
As Tenskwatawa's movement for a return to the sacred evolved into a campaign of civil defense for the integrity of Indian territories, so too may this movement evolve from a seed preservation alliance into a civil campaign in defense of Tribal Sovereignty, as our forefathers have done before.
Tayeeciwi caakiwiyeefa howaakotaana, it is impossible for anyone to know.
What I know is that Angela Ferguson is leading Braiding The Sacred to organize the largest Native seed gathering that has ever been celebrated, set to be at Cahokia Mounds sometime before the end of 2028, and that re-constituting the old alliances through smaller, regional gatherings is a starting-point towards mobilizing the full convergence.
What I also know is that Universities and Tribal Nations are being targeted, our programs are being defunded, and our people are being abducted again.
What I also know is that Project 2025 takes issue with Tribal Sovereignty and we have recently seen a raft of policies weakening Tribal Sovereignty and defunding our efforts at undoing the effects of cultural genocide through removal and boarding schools.
These are hard times to make bold statements and bold movements but the spirits of our ancestors and the spirit of our Mothers, Corn Woman and Earth Woman, call us to listen to the fire within and listen to the voices of our elders. If we wait, they will starve us out without even having to legally abolish our sovereignty. The time to call our kin and grow strong together is now.
Our young ones need to be strengthened: they need to be tangibly reminded of their spiritual relationships with the land, the plants, the animals, and All Our Relations. They need to be shown that lovers of the Earth are still strong and still dignified, we keep the faith and we keep our plant and animal relatives safe.
And so we move and build in the service of Life, in partnership with the Creator, with gratitude to our ancestors, with gratitude for our Mother Corn and all those grandfathers who maintain and feed us, bless us and heal us. This is a movement not for war but for peace, for healing, for growth. It is a song celebrating Life!
Please let your people know, please call or message us to build kinship, and please join us as you can. We are the answered prayer of our ancestors!
We are summoning our white brothers and sisters among the Unitarian Universalists and Native cultural enthusiasts and we have Indians coming from Kansas and Michigan to help in our planting, so we are off to a good start with a broad coalition we would love for you to join!
Here is some coverage from where we began at Angel Mounds, last year. Onward to Prophetstown! Sapkahi!
https://news.wnin.org/2025-06-05/cutting-edge-tech-brings-native-food-ways-to-life
https://www.yahoo.com/news/shawnee-farmers-plant-historic-corn-221321726.html
https://shawnee-nsn.gov/chiefs-messages-may-2025/
Caaki wiyehi niikaani wehowesa,
Everything ahead will be good,
Ryan (Pakawi)
(812) 650-2799
Ryan T. Conway [LinkedIn]
Research Associate - IU Institute for Indigenous Knowledge
Intermediate Instructor - Shawnee Language Immersion Program
Executive Director - Shawnee Seed Sanctuary
