Elders from Hawai'i

Grandmother Susan Ka‘iulani Stanton (Nanatusi Aukwe – Chiefmoon Lady) was born in 1949 in Honolulu, Hawai‘i. For many years she was a single mother, raising her two children and fostering several others on a seven-acre off-the-grid kuleana in a remote valley on O‘ahu’s North Shore.

 

Susan was a member of the Hui Ho‘oulu Aloha Hālau under the direction of Kumu Hula Cy Bridges. She danced at the Hawaiian Village in the Polynesian Cultural Center and attended Brigham Young University–Hawai‘i. At age 56, she danced in the Chiefmoon Sundance on the Blood Reserve in Alberta, Canada, and has participated in additional Sundances since then.

 

She has been initiated to carry Medicine after eight years of Ceremony and teachings on the Navajo Reservation in Shiprock, New Mexico. Today, she serves as a Pipe Carrier and Women’s Lodgekeeper.

 

Susan is a member of the White Buffalo Cow Society (Mandan-Hidatsa-Sioux) and has spent 23 years working with incarcerated men, women, and youth of many Tribes as a Spiritual Counselor.

 

She is deeply grateful to her Elders and teachers, including her Godmother Mary Luna (Pima-Yaqui), Priscilla Vigil (Tewa), Leon Secataro (Canoncito Navajo), Chief Marie Campbell (Eyak), Jr. Thompson (Red House Clan – Diné), among others.

 

She believes in the prophetic role of the Grandmothers, as expressed in the Great Law of the Iroquois, and in their powerful influence for good during the Coming Earth Changes. She supports all Grandmothers of all Nations of Mother Earth in this sacred work. Susan is the wife of the late Narragansett Elder Brad Walking Bear Stanton.