Ukwaka·lá·
Our Story
The Oneida Nation of Wisconsin includes nearly 17,269 members, with 7,000 residents residing on or near the reservation near Green Bay, Wisconsin. Our community is one of three Oneida communities and is the furthest displaced from our ancestral territories due to settler-colonial assimilation policies, broken and illegal treaties, land theft, and removal. These historical atrocities have affected every aspect of our ways of being including language, culture, self-determination, Tribal sovereignty, art forms, traditional agricultural practices, governing systems, family structures, and connection to our land, environment and all of Creation. These colonial impacts continue to this day within our territory in nearly every capacity of our lives further resulting in historical trauma among our people. Despite such efforts to eradicate and assimilate our people, efforts toward language and cultural revitalization have taken place. With these efforts, it is known that only 0.01% are fluent in our ancestral language.
Despite these challenges, hope lies in the core of our identity - our language and culture. "Skaˀnikú·lat," meaning "one mind," embodies unity and strength through consensus decision-making. Originating from the union of five original nations, including the Oneida, this principle is central to the Great Law of Peace, shaping traditional governance, kinship practices, and moral standards of our collective nations. Embracing skaˀnikú·lat enables healing from centuries of trauma, empowering Oneida people to lead and contribute to society, addressing pressing issues like climate change and social injustice.
With this, Skanikulat, Inc., a registered 501(c)(3), was born in June 2023 to address the impacts of settler-colonialism on our ways, people, and land using a community-based approach that centers cultural values as guiding principles. This organization is led by Oneida people, for Oneida people, and with Oneida people. Skanikulat, Inc. is an Indigenous women-led and Oneida-based community non-profit organization. It is said that women have been given the gift of life and creation, and we embrace that role we have as women in nurturing our language and culture back to life. Skanikulat, Inc. fosters women’s leadership (rematriation) in language and cultural revitalization as a sustainable, culturally-aligned, and just-transition approach to ukwehuwehnéha reclamation. Furthermore, the name of the organization is an ancestral principle that provides our people with a traditional and sustainable solution to issues and challenges facing our people today. Skaˀnikú·lat (pronounced ska-knee-goo-lat) translates “one mind” in the Oneida language and is a traditional, ancestral, historical, spiritual, and cultural value representing strength, a good mind, trust, safety, unity, peace, respect, responsibility, relationship, and reciprocity. This notion of “one mind” is understood to be a multifaceted principle and includes ideas like reciprocity, sustainability, and stewardship to the land, ourselves, others, our language, culture, and all of creation. This serves as the pillar of the organization's mission, outlook, and organizational philosophy.
The organization houses, fosters, cultivates, shares, and teaches the Oneida language and culture enrichment through 3 branches of programming including: Oneida language medium education (for children and adults), Oneida cultural wellness programming, and Oneida language and culture resource development, advocacy, and community outreach. The idea behind these three areas of programming is the desire to create a Indigenous ecosystem of language and cultural programming, one that is complementary, sustainability, and collaborative. By integrating these educational enrichment opportunities, our community can begin to individually and collectively heal from the historical and generational trauma.
