STORIES / Okara’shòn:’a
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.
Echinacea, Boneset & Yarrow
Echinacea has pink flowers and looks beautiful in your garden. You can make tea with the flowers and leaves for your immune system. However, it is the roots that are most powerful as an immune booster.
Remembering the Indian Village
The Indian Village had a big Quonset hut with a palisade fence and little stores all around it. There were a lot of people who worked there. That’s how a lot of teenagers who danced used to make money for school, clothes, and pocket money. There was no such thing as rent on the little stores of the artisans.
Don’t back down
In the winter, we had to walk for miles and cross on the ice. I wouldn’t go to school in the spring when the ice wasn’t safe or in the fall when the ice was coming in. Just when I could row the boat or walk on the ice.
Now it’s ours
They said it is Terra Nullius - uninhabited land. So now begins the idea of superiority and dominance over Indigenous people. That’s right in Genesis. Pick up a catholic bible and read genesis, what does it say after God created men? “So therefore, ye shall be fruitful, multiply, and subdue the world and have dominion over everything.”
All deception and lies
The Earth is our mother in our Creation story. She gives us all this unconditional love and that gives us all these things from water, to animals, to corn, and beans and squash. Tell me then, what gives you the right to say that you’re going to buy it and that you have the right to sell it?
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.
Childhood hijinks
I think the road from Kateri School to the hospital was the only road that was paved here in Kahnawake. There were a lot of dirt roads, a lot of hills. There were a lot of old houses. I remember a lot of the houses didn’t have good insulation, and in the wintertime there would be giant icicles on many houses - some right to the roof, right from the ground.
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.
Music Is my medicine
I went to the back door of K103 radio station at 10 o’clock one night. I had a Hank Williams record with me and asked, “Could I pay you $10 to play two or three songs?” I knew it wouldn’t be allowed if I had asked at the main entrance. They would think I’m crazy. So I bribed them all - everyone except the manager.
Inclination to share
I wish everybody would think the way I do; embracing the idea of helping one another and not holding back their knowledge. It’s crucial because when we pass away, all that wisdom disappears with us. There are few of us left from my generation and we are dwindling, especially in recent times as we lose more friends one by one.
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.
Nearby farm
I didn’t go home over the summer like some of the other kids at Spanish residential school. I would be sent to a nearby farm to work and the school would be paid for the work I did. It was like slave labour. But I liked it more than going to school. Like day and night. We would have to work at school during the year anyways. They’d make us clean the gym, the kitchen and do things around the grounds.
Scraping every last bit
When I was at Spanish residential school, they didn’t feed us enough. I was always hungry.
We had mush for breakfast - I guess it was some kind of oatmeal. For lunch and supper, we’d have soup, beans and two-day old plain rolls with no butter. And for snack, they gave us a slice of raw turnip and tea.
Otherworldly experience
When I was about six months pregnant with my daughter, I had a very surreal experience. It was late at night and I was watching the Academy Awards. My boys were asleep. I was sitting on the sofa all by myself.
No written history
I was living in Detroit for a while. In Michigan, there's so many different nations there. They’re scattered around, very small, different dialects, and are disappearing now.
There’s so many words missing now that were lost.
Proper indian
I grew up speaking Mohawk, until English came in. My older sisters were learning it in school, so they started to use English in the house.
Little by little, you pick it up and when I went to school, it was every day. The older people back then couldn’t communicate in English or any other language, strictly Mohawk.