Onkwehonwe Economics – A Fireside chat about money, banks, and the ecology of everyday life

Sitting around a fire on an unseasonably warm November evening, Kanenhariyo and Tom discuss some principles of Onkwehon:we economics as it relates to an anti-colonial divestment plan that some Toronto activists are working on.

Beginning with discussing how these activists seek to take money out financial institutions actively involved with perpetuating colonialism, this episode goes on to address such issues as capitalist and indigenous forms of economy, how the Zapatistas use seeds as a currency, how Onkwehonwe trade and exchange worked back in the day, why and how Onkwehon:we people moved their village sites every 20 years, and how the Onkwehon:we “banked” their profits back into the natural systems that provided for them.

Kanenhariyo also gives his theory of how it was that the sophisticated ecological practices of the Onkwehon:we allowed them to develop such a complex and sophisticated form of political self organization as the Kanyenerekowa.