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Rooted in the Mountains
The 15th Annual Rooted in the Mountains Symposium
Thursday and Friday, September 25 and 26, 2025
Location: Bardo Arts Center on the Main Campus of 甜瓜视频app.
This year鈥檚 theme, 鈥淢atrilineal Worldmaking (Vision of What鈥檚 Possible)鈥�, honors the power of matrilineal societies, where kinship, inheritance, and identity
are traced through the mother鈥檚 line. In the Kituwah language:
Di gi tsi/ de da li he li sdi sgv/ i de hv i
To acknowledge and give thanks to our mothers for our life/lives.
These visionary leaders will share insights on Indigenous knowledge, reproductive sovereignty, and the enduring strength of matrilineal traditions.
Featured Topic: Doula Training and the Historical Significance of Birth Supporters.
2025 Rooted in the Mountains Agenda2025 Rooted in the Mountains Speaker Biographies
Evening Reception Meal (Thursday Evening): Available for the first 100 who select to register for this event during the registration
process.
Registration Information
Free Registration for the first 40 Regular Attendee Registrants and Select Groups
- Tribal Elders, 甜瓜视频app Faculty, Staff, and Students: Free of Charge, but still need to pre-register.
- Non-甜瓜视频app Students: $50 per attendee (after the first free 40 enrollment spots have been filled)
- Regular Attendee: $175 per attendee (after the first free 40 enrollment spots have been filled)
Boxed lunches can be purchased during the registration process for Thursday's lunch break at a cost of $13 each.
Keynote Speakers
Beverly Kiohawiton Cook
Beverly Kiohawiton Cook is recently concluded her 4th term as an elected Chief on the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribal Council. Beverly is a Family Nurse Practitioner, is a prominent voice in the mind-body medicine approach to restoring wellness, reproductive health and environmental justice for Mohawk people. She has presented her signature lecture, 鈥淩esilience from our Roots: You are Creation,鈥� to hundreds of community members as well as national and international audiences. The lecture weaves together Haudenosaunee traditions and beliefs with basic reproductive physiology, encouraging understanding of the responsibilities of men and women and an appreciation for the transmission of historical trauma through the generations.
In her previous role as Clinic Coordinator, Chief Cook led the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe鈥檚 Health Services systems redesign. Her innovative approach, including patient-centered care, aligned with a national trend to address trauma as a root cause of adult illness. Her efforts resulted in the successful implementation of symptom reduction services and the introduction of Adverse Childhood Experiences (or 鈥淎CE鈥�) awareness into the Tribe's organization.
During the 12 years she served on Tribal Council , she also served on the United South and Eastern Tribes (USET) Board of Directors and was selected to represent the Nashville Area on the National Indian Health Board (NIHB), Substance Abuse And Mental Health Services Administration Technical Tribal Advisory Committee (SAMHSA TTAC).
At home, she championed the Akwesasne Child Advocacy Center that provides victim-centered care for abused children. Beverly has been a valuable supporter of the Tribe鈥檚 Trauma Informed System's Change efforts focusing on establishing tools and resources that support trauma-informed and resilience building practices within tribal programs and in the workplace.
Beverly is active in ancient Indigenous practices and circles in her community of Akwesasne, where she lives on her ancestral home along the St. Lawrence River. She cherishes the time she can now spend with her friends and family, including three daughters, a son, five grandchildren and one great grandson.
Loretta Afraid of Bear Cook
Afraid Of Bear - American Horse Tiospaye is engaging our youth (both male and female) from their "toddler" days to take part in our traditional ways of teaching life lessons and preparing them for future leadership. Of course with their parents and tiwahe (siblings and relatives) participating in full cooperation. Strengthening and rebuilding family value foundations are our Ceremonial themes.
As their grandmothers-grandfathers we have found it is Spiritually, Physically, Mentally and Emotionally fulfilling for us to teach our young grandchildren. We've also realized it is much easier to teach our little people than to repair Adults. There's still Hope for our people no matter our tribal affiliations but it requires we all start the processes of working with our families before "conception" takes place among our young. Living happy, healthy lives is a total commitment from start to finish. Our prayers are sent out into the Universe in behalf of our next 7 Generations. Let it be so.
Dr. Danielle Dominique Lucero
Danielle D. Lucero is an assistant professor of Native American and Indigenous Studies at Dartmouth College. She is a reproductive justice scholar who focuses on Indigenous feminisms, tribal sovereignty, and Pueblo Indian histories. She is an enrolled member of the Pueblo of Isleta located in central New Mexico as well as Hispano with connections to the northeastern New Mexican town of Santa Rosa. She earned her PhD in Justice and Social Inquiry from Arizona State University. Danielle's current research explores the relationship between tribal sovereignty and reproductive sovereignty. Her work investigates the relationships between tribal enrollment, Pueblo women's experiences with reproductive and social labor, tribal governance/enrollment, and exploring the connections between identity, belonging, place, and gender. She specifically explores the historical and contemporary experiences of Pueblo women in the U.S. Southwest.
Special Thank You
Katsi Cook
Tekatsi:tsia鈥檏wa Katsi Cook (Wolf Clan) was born, raised, and resides in the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe adjacent to Northern NY State, Ontario, and Quebec at the U.S.-Canadian border. Katsi is a traditional Mohawk midwife, co-founder, and Elder of the National Council of Indigenous Midwives (). She holds a Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, from Ryerson University, Toronto, for her work in operationalizing the exemption for aboriginal midwives and healers from any regulation by the government in the province of Ontario. Katsi鈥檚 work demonstrates a lifelong career of advancing the superlatives of Indigenous Knowledge in her advocacy for American Indian/Alaska Native women鈥檚 health across the lifecycle, drawing from a Six Nations longhouse traditionalist perspective the idea that Woman Is The First Environment. Katsi's groundbreaking environmental health research of Mohawk mothers鈥� milk revealed the harmful intergenerational impact of toxic pollutants within the St. Lawrence River. Katsi founded the Spirit Aligned Leadership Program that supports the well-being and thriving lives of Indigenous women Elders, their emerging next-generation leaders, and the continuity of their ancestral knowledge and wisdom.
Lodging
Comfort Inn Sylva鈥揅ullowhee is offering a block of rooms available for reservation at participants' own expense.
To book within the group block, please use the link below or contact the Comfort Inn
directly and request to book your room within the "Rooted in the Mountains 9.25.25" block.
Available Thursday, September 25 - Saturday, September 27
9/25 - $99 + tax = $109.89
9/26 - $225 + tax = $249.75
Both nights with taxes = $359.64
