#kahnawake

anyways i just wanted to take the opportunity to maybe direct some aew fans towards a documentary i think is worth your time. Mohawk Girls is a 2005 film by Tracey Deer (who also directed the fantastic semi-autobiographical 2020 movie Beans). It follows three teenage girls —Lauren, Amy, and Felicia— living on the Kahnawake reserve in Quebec. Deer includes footage from her own teen years as well.

It's a pretty simple, straight-forward series of interviews taken over a two year period. Deer isn't interested in crafting a three act structure or overarching, neat and tidy narrative. The docu isn't about any specific "big issue" but a lot of what would be considered by many to be significant capital letter Social Issues™ are present in the docu because what Deer is interested in above all else is allowing each girl the space to speak for herself on what matters to them and the structures that shape their lives.

I can not recommend it highly enough, and the national film board of canada has it available on line completely free!

Dozens of young people from Kahnawake, Que., stopped traffic on the Honoré Mercier Bridge on Saturday, saying they're worried Bill 96 will be a setback for the community struggling to keep the Mohawk language alive.

Quebec's newly proposed and controversial language law is expected to pass in the National Assembly this coming week.

The bill would reform several pieces of Quebec legislation, including the Charter of the French Language, touching everything from education and health to the rights of immigrants to be served in other languages.

"We do not have a lot left. We have a little land left, our language. We only have about 300 speakers compared to 85 per cent of French speakers in Quebec," said 19-year-old Teiotsatonteh Diabo, who helped organize the protest.

Diabo said Indigenous people should be exempt from sections of the law that would force them to speak French or take French courses, which are proposed at the CEGEP level.

"Not everyone can focus on French," said Diabo, who is heading to Dawson College next year.

"You need to understand that we are still in the middle of trying to save our culture and language from all the assimilation and residential schools that you [the Quebec government] put my people through," she said, adding she intends to learn the language one day.

Continue Reading.

“Proud Iroquois Plead for Aid For First Time in All History,” Toronto Globe. February 4, 1933. Page 1.  ---- (Canadian Press Despatch) Caughnawaga, Que., Feb. 3. - "Never before in the history of America have we, the proud Iroquois Indians of Caughnawaga [Kahnawá:ke], aborigines of this continent and wards of the nation, appealed to you, brothers and sisters of Canada," begins a statement appealing for unemployment relief funds, signed by members of the Caughnawaga Relief Fund Committee, and titled "The End of the Trail." 

"We appeal for mercy and charity funds to feed and clothe our - and you own - destitute people residing on our reserve,” the statement continues. "Advertising experts, leaders in their field, employ pictures of our people in various phases of life as symbols of endurance. This is logical; but even we, with our traditional powers of endurance, can no longer endure without your help the merciless exactions of the economic depression.   

"We have come to the end of the long quagmire trail. Exhausted in body and soul, gasping for breath, we stand collapsing at the brink of the great divide. Are you going to stand by and watch us and our children fall into the abyss of lost hope? Or will you, like good palefaces, extend a helping hand to our groping people.”

The appeal is nationwide, and is endorsed by several prominent Montrealers, a member of the Relief Committee said. About $25,000 is needed to tide over 2,700 families who, it is contended, are unable to live on relief extended by the Department of Indian Affairs.

Keniia’ti:saks - I miss you too

We headed over to Six Grandfathers (Mount Rushmore) to hike the short trail that snaked around the base of the mountain. I brought with me a print of a painting by artist Babe Hemlock. The painting depicts Six Grandfathers with carvings of prominent Native American leaders rather than U.S. presidents. The men in the painting are Red Jacket, Geronimo, Chief Joseph, and Sitting Bull (not 100% positive on the order, please correct me if you know!)

I had the privilege of meeting Babe and Carla Hemlock several times since I’m friends with one of their sons, Raohserahawi. Raohs is an incredibly talented total filmmaker, animator and storyteller. He worked on my thesis set as a sound recordist / swing grip and I helped him on camera for his thesis. We both graduated from the film program at the college of Visual & Performing arts at SU in 2019.

Raoh’s parents are not only prominent & successful Mohawk artists, working with a range of media and having work shown in galleries and shows both in the U.S. and Canada, they also did instrumental activist work during the Oka Crisis of 1990. Often referred to as ‘90′, this rebellion was a result of the town of Oka’s attempts to expand a golf course on Mohawk land. Mohawks defended their land by protesting and barricading access to the area. 

Babe and Carla have a store called Calico Cottage in Kahnawake, Canada where they sell their art and other handmade items. It’s where we got our masks from and my little bag! Please give them your business if you are ever in the area!

(from top to bottom: me with the print, me & Raohs on graduation day, Six Grandfathers before it was known as Mount Rushmore, Sam & I with our masks & my bag)

Keystone, the Black Hills forest and Six Grandfathers (Tȟuŋkášila Šákpe) are very significant areas to Cheyenne & Sioux Native Americans. The bluff where the presidents faces are carved represented six directions, North, South, East, West, Above & Below. The name Tȟuŋkášila Šákpe came from Nicolas Black Elk, a Lakota (Sioux) medicine man, who gave the mountain the name after he experienced a vision.

This area has a long history of conflict between indigenous people and white European-Americans that colonized the area and carved the faces of the presidents into this culturally & religiously significant mountain. The remnants of these struggles are still everywhere here today. For example, the town we are currently staying in, Custer, is named after  Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer. Custer killed over a hundred Cheyenne people with the 7th Cavalry while establishing Fort Supply, before triggering a gold rush that brought even more European-American settlers to the area, causing more violence and pushing Indigenous people to reservations.