On October 11, 2004, 13 Indigenous Grandmothers from all over the world—the Alaskan Tundra, North, South and Central America, Africa, and Asia—arrived at Tibet House’s Menla Mountain Retreat amidst 340 acres of forests, fields and streams in upstate New York. Within a few days of convening, the grandmothers agreed to form a global alliance; to work together to serve both their common goals and their specific local concerns.

The first council gathering was a time of hope and inspiration. The grandmothers are both women of prayer and women of action. Their traditional ways link them with the forces of the earth. Their solidarity with one another creates a web to rebalance the injustices wrought from an imbalanced world; a world disconnected from the fundamental laws of nature and the original teachings based on a respect for all of life.

Aama Bombo – Tamang – Nepal
Margaret Behan – Arapaho/Cheyenne – Montana, USA
Rita Pitka Blumenstein – Yup’ik – Alaskan Tundra, USA
Julieta Casimiro – Mazatec – Huautla de Jimenez, Mexico
Maria Alice Campos Freire – Amazonian Rainforest, Brazil
Flordemayo – Mayan – Highlands of Central America/ New Mexico
Tsering Dolma Gyaltong – Tibetan
Clara Shinobu Iura – Amazonian Rainforest, Brazil
Beatrice Long Visitor Holy Dance – Oglala Lakota – Black Hills, South Dakota, USA
Rita Long Visitor Holy Dance – Oglala Lakota – Black Hills, South Dakota, USA
Agnes Baker Pilgrim – Takelma Siletz – Grants Pass, Oregon, USA
Mona Polacca – Hopi/Havasupai/Tewa – Arizona
Bernadette Rebienot – Omyene – Gabon, Africa

Statement of Alliance

WE ARE THIRTEEN INDIGENOUS GRANDMOTHERS who came together for the first time from October 11 through October 17, 2004, in Phoenicia, New York. We gathered from the four directions in the land of the people of the Iroquois Confederacy. We come here from the Amazon rainforest, the Alaskan Tundra of North America, the great forest of the American northwest, the vast plains of North America, the highlands of central America, the Black Hills of South Dakota, the mountains of Oaxaca, the desert of the American southwest, the mountains of Tibet and from the rainforest of Central Africa.

Affirming our relations with traditional medicine peoples and communities throughout the world, we have been brought together by a common vision to form a new global alliance.

We are the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers. We have united as one. Ours is an alliance of prayer, education and healing for our Mother Earth, all Her inhabitants, all the children and for the next seven generations to come.

We are deeply concerned with the unprecedented destruction of our Mother Earth, the contamination of our air, waters and soil, the atrocities of war, the global scourge of poverty, the threat of nuclear weapons and waste, the prevailing culture of materialism, the epidemics which threaten the health of the Earth’s peoples, the exploitation of indigenous medicines, and with the destruction of indigenous ways of life.

We, the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, believe that our ancestral ways of prayer, peacemaking and healing are vitally needed today. We come together to nurture, educate and train our children. We come together to uphold the practice of our ceremonies and affirm the right to use our plant medicines free of legal restriction. We come together to protect the lands where our peoples live and upon which our cultures depend, to safeguard the collective heritage of traditional medicines, and to defend the earth Herself. We believe that the teachings of our ancestors will light our way through an uncertain future.

We join with all those who honor the Creator, and to all who work and pray for our children, for world peace, and for the healing of our Mother Earth.

For all our relations.

Margaret Behan-Cheyenne-Arapahoe Rita Pitkta Blumenstein–Yup’ik  Aama Bombo–Tamang,,Nepal Julieta Casimiro-Mazatec  Flordemayo-Mayan  Maria Alice Campos Freire-Brazil Tsering Dolma Gyaltong-Tibetan  Beatrice Long Visitor Holy Dance-Oglala Lakota  Rita Long Visitor Holy Dance-Oglala Lakota Agnes Pilgrim- Takelma Siletz Mona Polacca-Hopi/ Havasupai  Clara Shinobu Iura-Brazil  Bernadette Rebienot- Omyene