STORIES / Okara’shòn:’a
Healing in the Indigenous world
If you have long-term issues, over time, they have a tendency to create disease within the physical body. Then those long-term issues are now unconscious because they’ve been there for so long.
Everyone remained quiet
It was June 1st, 1988 when we got raided by the RCMP. They came in with the buses and set themselves up on the mountains with their machine guns and snipers.
Booze and Spirits
This is when we all get into fights, we are robbed or killed. Any kind of thing can happen when we are in that state. These are understandings I got from the old people. “Tóhsa shnekì:ra, don’t drink.” There’s going to be trouble because you are going to be attracting it - you are now in negative mode.
Cemetery Hill
This was the story he told. Well, that man never drank again and he became an elder in the church. And he is the one that got me to start read the scriptures in the church. And I read in the church for 43 years.
Smell signals
I learned this on a shoot: smoke signals. The real code was not just smoke. The smell. We were shooting in Arizona at Window Rock, and we wanted to do an interview. So, it was all organized with the daughter. We went to the daughter’s place, the mother lived up the hill.
Head Veteran
I am proud to be a Mohawk Veteran; I take the responsibility with much pride and bring the knowledge I carry from my 21 years of service into the powwow circle for the benefit of our people.
Baie-Comeau
In 1989, I was working in Baie-Comeau, still for Dominion Bridge. But now I'm not cleaning machines, I’m doing ironwork. There’s a small Innu community there, and one day we got rained out or something, so we were off work.
A connection to the past
It’s almost like a hint to go and fire up the woodstove. We have a dryer, but I say why use the dryer? You fire up that wood stove, and it dries all of our clothes.
Mohawk name
That little girl entered this world, waving her little hands and arms. I thought to myself, “Look at her! She is already showing off her wings, our beautiful little snipe.”
Mohawk language curriculum
I used to teach Mohawk at Howard S. Billings from 1972 to 1979. Once I walked out of the school I never went back. That was in ‘79 with Bill 101 but, I had to stay and finish that year even though I had no more students because all the students came back to Kahnawà:ke.
School committee
At the time, all the schools were federally run. About 400 of our students went to Billings high school in Chateauguay and they were treated badly. We tried to implement Mohawk language classes, which got started, but then Bill 101 was passed.
I don’t get the choice
There we were with our camera, and we had Marine Corps behind us with M16s ready to shoot, and we got the KGB across with AK47s, ready to shoot.
Taking back control
The people in town said that enough is enough. We are going to take over our education.
Prior to that, we had no one teaching us our culture, our language. It was all through Ottawa, they decided what we would learn. We used to have an Indian Agent in Kahnawà:ke who more or less ran the show.
Another century
I get down there and I saw the bathroom doors. I looked and there’s my cousin Mavis. I recognized her shoes. I was so happy to see someone I knew so I spoke to her. I don’t even remember what I was saying to but as soon as I turned around WHOM!
American quarters
I learned the Indian songs from the other kids. I could only get so far, and the other kids would finish it off because they knew the whole song. We all sang together and then the tourists would throw their nickels and dimes.
Not washed up yet
I was knocked out for a while, but my boss had an old Polaroid camera, and he took a hell of a lot of pictures when I was in the hole. To my right there was rebar sticking out. If I hit that, I'd be a dead man.
Echoes of Hooks Point
As kids, we used to play from sunrise to sundown, and sometimes we camped in our own yards. We’d go to the river in the summer to go swimming and fishing, and during the winter, we used to skate on the pond and play hockey.
Snaring rabbits
Every morning before school we would go out to the village and check the snares to see if we caught any from the night before. We had to go early in the morning because the rabbits are busy at night and we had to make sure that no dogs would get to it.
Hot spot
My son lit a candle and when I put my hand over the flame, this black soot shot up. I felt it leave my hand and my hand was covered in soot. The young man left and said, “Thank you very much.” He was going to go back to work on Monday morning.My son lit a candle and when I put my hand over the flame, this black soot shot up. I felt it leave my hand and my hand was covered in soot. The young man left and said, “Thank you very much.” He was going to go back to work on Monday morning.