STORIES / Okara’shòn:’a
Where I feel at home
The Pines or Onen’tó:kon, has always been a sacred place and one of refuge for the generations of my grandparents who sought peace in the Pines when the Sulpicians were harassing and brutalizing the people. They wanted us all to leave for Wáhta, but in the end, we have won because we are still here and we’re not going anywhere.
detach with love
I would have a lot of quiet talks with my mother on her back deck by the pool. My birth mother helped me a lot. She told me my father’s name and helped my children and I get status. I remember we went to some office, she spoke Mohawk for about five minutes, and within a month I had my status.
The only thing Indian was the students
My grandparents raised all six of us. I was six months old when my father passed away. I was told that the Indian Agency came into the house here and tried to take my brothers away. My grandparents told them to leave. If they would have succeeded, maybe today I wouldn’t have any nieces or nephews around. Who knows what would’ve happened.
Adopted during the Sixties Scoop
I have vivid memories of being a toddler in foster care. I was originally adopted by a family, but then was sent back to foster care until my adoptive mother, Pauline adopted me. My mom was a single, non-Indigenous women, yet she had Ojibwe ancestry from Walpole Island through her grandmother.
Ice Storm
During winter months, some community members would haul goods by horse and sleigh down the main street (or the front street as we knew it back then). There were thick ice ruts in the street, and it became extremely hazardous for horses, more so for people trying to walk on the thick ice.
Christmas in Kahnawà:ke
My father used to go with his uncle and his friend up to Saint Lucie before Christmas to cut down trees and bring them back for his uncle, my grandfather and a few others in the family. It was an all-day process so they would only get back late at night.
Four Guys and Two Canoes
When we stopped that first night, it was at a field’s edge. We had some overnight stuff in plastic garbage bags, and we brought the canoes on land, turned them over and with the angle of it on its side, it protected our heads. We would have half our bodies inside the canoe with our feet sticking out, just lying on the ground with some blankets.
Life in the big garden
We would also help with planting and harvesting. When you plant tomatoes and they get big, there are these large kinds of green caterpillars that get on them and eat the leaves. They’d be hiding under the leaf or whatever. We’d have to pick them off the tomatoes. That was scary.
The baddest boy
Once when I was younger I was playing hockey every day after school and asked my father, “Baba, can you buy me new skates?” He said, “Just keep on doing what you’re doing, going to get the milk on the farm, going to get the water, and maybe one day you’ll get it.”
Life on the farm
We grew food that would be used for our survival. In the mornings we would go out and clean the barn, get eggs and those types of things, then head back to the house for breakfast. We were not rich but we were never hungry. In our crawl space, we had everything we needed like potatoes, carrots, and turnips.
Those guns won’t stop me
In 1990, we didn’t have any supplies in Kahnawà:ke because of the blockades. My husband Jimmy had a boat and my sister, Melissa, wanted to go shopping so Jimmy said, “Well okay Mel, get in my boat and I’ll take you.” She got on at Johnson’s Beach, and when they were halfway to the store, they had to land where the old movie theatre was in Dorval.
St. Patrick’s Mission
My father and my uncle, they were sent to a residential school in Oklahoma, in 1909. They had a railroad ticket around their necks. The conductors took care of them until they reached Oklahoma. Their parents didn’t want them attending there because already rumours were circulating about these schools. So anyway, they ended up there in Anadarko, Oklahoma at St Patrick’s Mission boarding school.
No help of any kind
My mother’s father, Frank Lazare, had a job in Lachine at the Dominion Bridge, it was a foundry. During the winter months, they used to have to walk to work on the train bridge - the CPR bridge. They’d put in a full day of work, then they’d have to walk home. There was no Mercier Bridge then.
Once-in-a-lifetime trip
My brother David and I did everything together. There used to be a creek that would run all the way from St. Isidore Road to the canal where the post office is today. There was a time when the creek was alive and flowed naturally. There were northern pike in that creek back then, you could see them by the protestant graveyard in the spring when it would flood.
Kwítaro
Halfway through eleventh grade I walked out of the school I was going to in Massena. I left because in social studies class, we were learning things about Indians that were all lies. I had had enough of it. I told the social studies teacher, “Do you know where that book belongs? It belongs right there in that garbage can because it’s full of garbage.” So, I took my book and threw it right out in the garbage can.
Burning wood
I remember in those years, when I was much younger, there were people still burning wood. There was a lot of wood burning. You would smell the smoke of wood stoves. During the holidays, and especially around new years, people used to go around to visit, so your relatives would come to your house, and that would last about a week.
Big giant hole
I used to play in the Seaway while it was being dug. My grandfather’s house, where I would stay in the summer, is just one street up from the river. They call it the Church road. From there, we used to just walk down to the river that used to be there. The riverside was where most of us would spend almost every summer day. It was within a football field’s distance.
A different life
I grew up in Kahnawake, but only during the summer time. My parents lived in Michigan, but always brought my brother and I back to stay with my grandparents in Kahnawà:ke every summer until I was around 12 years old.
Death Feast
I never attended a death feast until my younger brother, Irvin, passed away in December of 2009. A few days later, his wife, Dale, called me to tell me that she was hosting a 10 day death feast and she was inviting me.
Stay and listen
My cousins Susan, Shirley and Doreen had left our community to work in Montreal. When they returned, something had changed. They couldn't speak our Mohawk language anymore. It saddened me to see them speak English all the time. For me, regardless of where I am, I will always talk in my Native language.