An Onkwehonwe in Kanata

I was driving to work this morning, consumed with the thoughts of what I had to do today, when this seriously old song from my teenage years came on my iPod. It was the Blue Oyster Cult’s “Veteran of the Psychic Wars” from 1981’s Fire of Unknown Origin (Yeah, I know, I’m dating myself, but seriously – I’m an old woman, not gonna deny that). You see me now a veteran of a thousand psychic wars I’ve been living on the edge so long, where the winds of limbo roar And I’m young enough to look at and far too old to see All the scars are on the inside I’m not sure if there’s anything left of me I turned it up very loudly. And I started to listen, really listen, to the lyrics. Don’t let these shakes go on It’s time we had a break from it We’ve been living in the flames We’ve been eating up our brains Oh please don’t let these shakes go on Dude.  This is me and my people. We’ve been living with this thing pressing on our communities and on our bodies and minds for five hundred years. W...

I've been musing for quite some time how I want to do this. I think it's simple really -- I can, therefore I should. I think being a modern indigenous person in occupied territory needs to speak about the experience. And I'm a rock'n'roll kind of gal, I think/feel that I should. It's important. If not me, who else. About me: 45, wife, mother, daughter, Haudenosaunee of Kanien'kahakeh persuasion. Or for you non-speakers (which compromises probably 99.9% of the population) I'm a full-blooded Mohawk woman from Six Nations of the Grand River Territory, the last remaining congregation of all the six Iroquois tribes (and some of our more fortunate allies like the Delaware and the Mississauga) in the entire world. I live for rock'n'roll, indigenous rights, worker's rights, my large and extremely cool Mohawk family, shih tzus, cats, cool books, art, photography, film, and yoga. And I am, by virtue of being Mohawk, opinionated, stubborn, political, a ...