Road To Your Name - Season 7, Episode 10: Visiting with Samantha Doxtator and talking about Haudenosaunee Cosmology
Reading the Sky — A Return Visit with Samantha Doxtator
This episode was recorded in June 2025
This episode was recorded in June 2025
Road to Your Name | Season 7 / Episode 10
Episode Description
Samantha Doxtator of the Oneida Nation at Oneida of the Thames returns to the Road to Your Name podcast for a conversation that reaches across the galaxy. Samantha is a Haudenosaunee astronomy researcher and presenter who travels to Indigenous communities, universities, and museums across North America — and as far as the Hayden Planetarium in New York City — sharing the star knowledge of the Haudenosaunee.
This episode begins with a deeply moving story: how Samantha came to carry on the work of her late sister Sasha, who spent three years gathering Haudenosaunee astronomy research before passing away from cancer. That work — continued in Sasha’s memory, with her presence still felt in dreams and through others — has grown into something remarkable.
From the Pleiades as a celestial navigation marker to the connection between dying stars and our own blood, from the Great Law of Peace and solar eclipses to her dream of building an Indigenous science center — Samantha brings ancient knowledge into vivid, present-day conversation. This is an episode about how the sky has always been speaking to us. We just have to learn how to listen.
What We Talk About
- How Samantha’s late sister Sasha spent three years gathering Haudenosaunee astronomy research — and how Sasha’s presence, even after passing, guided Samantha to continue the work
- What it felt like to be “downloaded” with knowledge once Samantha accepted her calling to carry on Sasha’s research
- Presenting at the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City — the most visited planetarium in the world — as the first Indigenous woman to do so, and receiving its first-ever standing ovation
- Designing her own planetarium show: asking to see the universe from the sky’s perspective, not Earth’s
- The Pleiades as a celestial marker — a guide for travel across the Milky Way, a signal for planting and harvesting, and a connection to where Haudenosaunee people come from and return to
- The 2024 total solar eclipse passing through Haudenosaunee homelands for the first time in 99 years — and what it means when the sun and moon’s paths cross
- The connection between solar eclipses and the formation of the Great Law of Peace
- How modern science is catching up to Indigenous knowledge: the iron in dying stars is the same iron that makes our blood red
- Wampum belts and their hidden connections to the stars — through the diamond shapes of the Oneida wampum belt
- Traveling to Indigenous communities, museums, and universities across Ontario, New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, and beyond
- Her goal of owning a portable planetarium ($100,000 USD) and eventually building a stationary Indigenous science center
- What it’s like to tour communities — and why she’s starting to realize she needs a road manager and social media help
- Why she does this work: so people walk away feeling how brilliant and connected Onkwehon:we people truly are
Guest
Samantha Doxtator — Oneida Nation, Oneida of the Thames. Haudenosaunee astronomy researcher and presenter. Samantha travels across Turtle Island sharing Indigenous star knowledge with communities, museums, and institutions, carrying on the research begun by her late sister Sasha.
Connect with Samantha
- Email: justalittlestardust@outlook.com
- Facebook: Samantha Doxtator
- Instagram: Life of a Freelancer (or search Samantha Doxtator)
- GoFundMe (coming soon) — to support the purchase of a portable planetarium
- To book a presentation for your community or organization, reach out via email
Also Mentioned
- Wilfred Buck — Cree astronomer and star knowledge keeper, who also presented at the Hayden Planetarium
- The Hayden Planetarium — American Museum of Natural History, New York City
- NASA’s solar eclipse database and their 2024 eclipse programming in Niagara Falls, NY
- Aboriginal Legal Services — aboriginallegal.ca
- Support the show: click Donate at the top of the ALS homepage
- Facebook: Road to Your Name
Road to Your Name is produced by Aboriginal Legal Services and hosted by Lisa VanEvery, Mohawk Nation, Wolf Clan. Recorded on Haudenosaunee territory with technical assistance from True Seed Media. Nia:wen for listening.
Creators and Guests
Host
Lisa VanEvery
Lisa has worked for Aboriginal Legal Services for sixteen years. She began hosting the Road To Your Name Podcast in December 2020.
