Native American Heritage Month

STEWARDS OF OUR EARTH

All of God’s Creation

Social Justice Committee, Holy Cross Parish, Mt. Airy, November 16, 2025

Native American Heritage month honors the histories, cultures, and contributions of Indigenous people and their ancestors who lived, and continue to live, on the land which is now known as North America. Although there have been proclamations to honor the contributions of Native Americans since 1916, “in 1990 Congress passed and President George H. W. Bush signed into law a joint resolution designating the month of November as the first National American Indian Heritage Month” (United States Senate). 

Locally, at Friends of the Wissahickon, “we commemorate the original stewards of the land we now call Wissahickon Valley Park: the Lenni-Lenape People. Did you know, the word Wissahickon is believed to be derived from the Lenape’s term, Wisameckhan, meaning ‘catfish stream’?  

The Lenape were not exclusive to Philadelphia, of course, or even Pennsylvania; they also lived across present-day New Jersey, New York, and Delaware, their ancestral homeland, Lenapehoking. Their cultures and traditions are carried on today by their ancestors across the United States and Canada.

Philadelphia, now a sprawling metropolis, was once a vast green land with rolling hills and meadows, dotted with wetlands and dense forests. Though the landscape has been transformed, the Lenape’s prominence in the area and centuries of stewardship shouldn’t, and won’t, be forgotten. 

Before European settlement in the 17th and 18th centuries, the Lenape lived along creeks and rivers, in temporary settlements…. we know that the Lenape were here, along the Schuylkill River and its many tributaries like the Wissahickon Creek.” (Friends of the Wissahickon,11/6/25)

Our Indigenous ancestors loved this land long before it was called the United States. They lived on this land for thousands of years before the first Europeans arrived, and they continue to fight for its protection. In Indigenous lands, 80% of biodiversity is intact. “For all of us, becoming Indigenous to a place means living as if your children’s future mattered, to take care of the land as if our lives, both material and spiritual, depended on it.” (Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 2013)

With the current government shutdown, Indigenous communities are under threat. “The U.S. government has a legally binding trust responsibility to Native Americans through more than 300 treaties. In exchange for their land, the government promised food, healthcare, education, and regular payments. These are not optional promises – they are the supreme law of the land.” (Native Voters Alliance Nevada, 11/8/25) 

At the Navajo Nation Museum in Arizona, there is a mantra painted on white walls: T’ahdii kqq” honiidlg’. T’ahdii kqq” honiidlg’. T’ahdii kqq” honiidlg’.  “We are still here. We are still here. We are still here.” (Eileen Flanagan, Common Ground, 2025) We owe a debt to our Native American ancestors, not just in November, but in meaningful actions each day to respect, restore, and protect our people and our earth. 

Comments on this column may be directed to the Social Justice Committee at socialjustice@holycrossphl.org. Click here for column archive.