Sid Hill serves as Tadodaho, or spiritual leader of the Haudenosaunee. He has known Joe Heath for decades, because Heath — a Syracuse lawyer — serves as general counsel for the Onondaga Nation.
I asked Hill the other day if he has one particularly vivid memory of Heath. Hill does, though it isn’t from any of the tense moments when Heath was in the middle of complex negotiations involving the Haudenosaunee and their efforts to protect the lands where they’ve lived for countless generations …
Such as, say, the day a few years ago when the Onondagas learned they would regain 1,000 acres of land in Tully Valley from Honeywell International, including the headwaters of Onondaga Creek. The transfer was finalized after multi-governmental talks, and Heath said the agreement is of particularly historic meaning because the land is now under total Onondaga control, without asterisks…