Greetings to the Natural World – Ohén:ton Karihwatéhkwen (Words before All Else)
Spoken as a spiritual address to the powers of the natural world, these words are used to open gatherings in order to bring the minds of the people together as one and align the gathered minds with Nature. The roots of these words reach back thousands of years to the very origins of the Haudenosaunee as a people.
This list is a short form version of the address, for the long and longer versions click here.
This website was created for community development of the Kanienkeha online language resources. With help from you and our elders we can create a digital inventory of the language and discuss the cultural significance behind each word. If we can build the dictionary to about 10,000 words this program will expand to a next phase and development will start on a google style translator with audio to help with pronunciation.