An Onkwehonwe in Kanata

Sewatahon'satat. That’s how we always start a story. Tonight I want to tell you my story, my deep dark confession about being Kanien'kehakeh in 2011. About living here in Ateròn:toh, thi s place you call Toronto. This word means, “There are trees standing in the water.” Our elders argue about what the actual translation is, but I like this particular version.  The Haudenosaunee, or as you name us, the Iroquois, had moved south of Lake Ontario to consolidate our considerable power in the wake of the Beaver Wars. When we would return to  Ateròn:toh  in our war canoes, the giant elm trees that grew to the edge of the lake would mirror themselves in the water and you could see their reflection for miles out. This image manifests even now. When you cross the waters of Skanadariio, the Handsome Lake, you can see the towers of the city shimmering in the water. People think this is Mississauga territory. The joke’s kind of on you. The Mississauga were here ...

I finally got around to seeing Shelley Niro’s feature film, “Kissed By Lightning.” It was actually on the The Movie Network’s OnDemand service, which pleased me to no end. I was hoping it would be visually stunning and provocative, the way all Shelley’s art is, but this – I have to say, I am feeling teary-eyed and awed after seeing it. The images haunted my dreams all last night and I woke up thinking about the film, which gave me the impetus to write this blog. I think everyone who ever wanted to know about Iroquoian philosophy and our values should watch this film. It was gentle and almost whisperingly quiet, the way Shelley’s art is, but it crept up on me and infused me with its lushly filmed, stunning visuals and the serene poetry of the story. Ostensibly the story of a woman’s journey through grief, it is actually the story of The Peacemaker and Hyenwatha, the two founding figures of our political and spiritual lives. The League of the Haudenosaunee could not exist without this...

I have been ruminating on my friend Audra’s main focus of study for a couple of days now. She is currently a professor at Columbia University where her main focus has been on re-shaping the notions of sovereignty for indigenous people. She always makes me think about what it means to be a sovereign people, and what that does for your sense of identity. I often think of sovereignty in Mohawk terms – we understand that our Confederacy formed alliances, political and military, with the other sovereign powers at the time of Contact and our political understanding of how we deal with foreign nations stems from that. However, colonization seems to have shifted the settlers’ idea of how they perceived us. Suddenly we were no longer allies; we were a nation that had to be subdued, conquered, or failing that, remade into a lesser version of the whites who had suborned our economic, military and political systems. Suddenly there is no talk of allies but talk of subduing, of remaking, of eliminat...

When I look out my (new) office window, I can see a sliver of the lake, Lake Ontario, and observe its many moods. Today it looks cold and metallic, silver blue and wave-capped in the wind. I think about the lake a lot. It’s a focal point to my people, part of the territory that we have always considered ours. Skanadariio, beautiful shining water, some days as calm and placid as a mirror, other days dark green and angry, surging and powerfully mean. Due south of Toronto is Rochester, originally a Seneca town, launching point of our northward trading and warring ventures. We used to control the waterways in our part of Anowara (Turtle Island) in giant war canoes made of elm bark, massive and menacing. The Ojibway had those sleek little birch bark canoes that were fast and agile, but we had elm bark canoes, made to hold war parties and transport goods and people over long distances. I think a lot about the military tradition of my people. I read once that to observe the Iroquois in battle...