During the healing ceremony, an elder stood and declared that he had foreseen that Shenandoah would someday hold a high position among their people.
Throughout his career, he refused many proposals by various businesses which he thought would weaken the sovereignty of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy or which broke the spirit of the Great Law of Peace.
[5] In 1983, Shenandoah directly defied the U.S. federal government by providing sanctuary to Dennis Banks, who had been convicted in South Dakota of riot and assault with a deadly weapon.
[2] Sometime around 1986, a Kentucky farmer discovered a large indigenous burial site on his land and began charging treasure hunters to dig up artifacts.
When Shenandoah and fellow Onondaga chief Vincent Johnson heard of this, the pair went to the farm to restore the burial site and burn tobacco to put the spirits of the dead at rest.
[9] At the 1992 Earth Summit, Shenandoah met with Indigenous Amazon leaders, burning tobacco, giving corn, and sharing a prayer with them.
He shared advice on how to deal with white politicians, which led to the tribes demanding that Brazilian museums return their sacred religious artifacts.
It was the largest gathering of Haudenosaunee people in modern times, and the funeral was attended even by many who opposed his policies as Tadodaho, including the business owners whose casinos, weapons, and tobacco Shenandoah had blocked.
[3] Zeisberger's Indian dictionary, however, translates "unfinished" to "áchsonti jechsai" and "business" to "garrichwa, agojotechsera",[16] so the accuracy of this claim is questionable.