The Seneca Nation hosted the Fall Healing Conference at the Seneca Allegany Resort & Casino on September 23-24, 2026. Five Haudenosaunee experts presented traditional and spiritual ways of healing. Wendy Hill, Samantha Doxtator, Jamie Jacobs, Louis Herne, and Diane Hill gave their insight and at knowledge to all Haudenosaunee participants in soothing and therapeutic environment.
Wendy Will, Cayuga (Bear Clan), works as a healer and peace-builder in many different Native communities in North America. She travels extensively, motivating community wellness and healing, as well as awareness of the Earth’s changes. She does hands-on healing for pain and illness, as well as emotional, mental and spiritual healing. Wendy continues to enlighten and share guidance, direction and healing wherever she goes.
Jamie Jacobs, Seneca (Turtle Clan), a ceremonial custodian in the ceremonial longhouse of the Tonawanda Seneca, which includes officiating traditional funerals, weddings, and ceremonies. Jacobs is very knowledgeable in the Seneca language and works to ensure Seneca language will survive into the future, along with the traditional art of porcupine quill work.
Samantha Doxtator, Oneida (Wolf Clan) is a Personal Development Consultant who specializes in teaching life and employability skills that are grounded by traditional values. Her many years of experience and knowledge help build bridges of new understandings. The sharing of this knowledge has been referred to as being very uplifting by many communities across Turtle Island, which aligns with Samantha’s intentions to nurture intergenerational gifts and brilliance.
As a matrilineal leader and mother, Louise Herne is a founding member of Konon:kwe (Goh-noon-gwe) Council, a circle of Mohawk women dedicated to reconstructing the power of their origins through education, empowerment, and trauma-informed approaches. She champions Kahnistensera (Ga-nees-the-sa-lah), or “Mother Law”—a natural law that guides Onkwehon:we (Uhn-gwe-hoo-weh), or Indigenous, kinship society. She also leads the Moon Lodge Society, which brings women and girls together monthly in alignment with the full moon cycle
Since 2005, Louise has served as the principal organizer and leader of Ohero:kon (Uh-ho-low-go), meaning “Under the Husk”, a traditional rite-of-passage ceremony for Mohawk youth. Through this work, she has guided hundreds of community families and volunteers through self-reflection, Haudenosaunee cultural instruction, and ceremony.
“Haudenosaunee people survived because generations of mothers, grandmothers and knowledge keepers adapted when they had to, resisted when they had to, and kept enough culture alive to pass it forward. Now the responsibility is to rebuild what colonization tried to destroy and make sure we all know who we are and where we belong, especially young people,” shared Louise.
Diane Hill, a member of the Mohawk Nation, Bear clan from the Six Nations of the Grand River Territory in Ontario, Canada. For the past 37 years, I have been consulting on various Aboriginal education initiatives both nationally & internationally. She has worked to promote culturally-based training strategies in social work, education and Indigenous cultural studies and possess expertise in the area of portfolio-assisted prior learning assessment. She has been teaching and facilitating practices of quantum healing and wellness in an integrated Indigenous and holistic educational training model in New Zealand, South Africa, Kenya, South America and the USA.
Nya:wëh to all that participated! Our goal was to provide a culturally grounded, uplifting space where Haudenosaunee people could gather to heal, learn, reconnect and achieve personal growth.
