Tag Archives: Kanien’keha:ka

Humor

This is an offensive aboriginal stereotype, even if it does describe me perfectly

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haha

I‘M SURE you’ve all seen it: the offensive “Native” stereotype of the guy who has this long, thick, wild-flowing hair and intense, passionate eyes. Often he’s a lean, muscular type—again, passionate and earthy, mysterious, and sexually irresistible to women.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about that I found this week on Amazon.

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This is a book about a time-traveling white female doctor who meets a hot and seductive Sioux warrior from the 1800s. The woman is mesmerized and basically surrenders to this sizzling chunk of Onkwehonwe.

I haven’t read the book, but I’m guessing the plot has something to do with going back in time to acquaint the Sioux of the 19th Century with basic Photoshop concepts, like Layering and Magic Wand. (Yes, that really is a Photoshop term.) Then, in her later novels, I’m guessing Pamela Ackerson will get into more advanced techniques like Masking, Polygon Lasso, Curves, Color Balance, and Lighting Effects.

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First Nations

We Are Better than Blockades

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blockade

GREETINGS, PEOPLE. This is one of my regularly scheduled posts in which I address something happening in Indian Country. I encourage all of you to stick around, but let me be clear: I’m speaking to Onkwehonwe here, and only Onkwehonwe, and only on my own behalf. More specifically, I’m talking to Kanien’keha:ka, the People of the Flint, better known by some of you as the Mohawks. I am Kanien’keha:ka, of the Haudenosaunee – the People of the Longhouse, aka Iroquois, the name given to us by our longtime Huron enemies.

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First Nations

Canada’s Little War Against Contraband Tobacco

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Contraband Tobacco

If you were a collector of jurisdictional nightmare, then your holy grail possession would surely be the small Kanien’keha:ka — or Mohawk, as it’s called in English —  community of Akwesasne. Transected by two provincial, one state and two federal boundaries (Ontario, Quebec, New York, Canada and the United States of America), Akwesasne is something of a “hotspot,” and not by coincidence.

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First Nations, Obituary

Jake Swamp, A Man of Roots

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Jake SwampJake Swamp, 1941-2010

I didn’t know Jake Swamp, but as the saying goes I knew of him. Few are the Kanienkehaka who don’t. Or rather — I must get used to this now — didn’t. This morning I was informed of his passing, in the very early hours of Friday, October 15.

Tekaronianeken, or Jake Swamp as he was commonly known, was born at Akwesasne in 1941. He was of the generation born under the old dispensation of colonial shame but arriving to the 1960s and ’70s with a sense of purpose and a strong, proud voice. As a young man, he had been taught by Christian priests in St. Regis to consider the Longhouse a Pagan menace. So often the case with the Haudenosaunee (“People of the Longhouse”), a woman made short work of that. His wife Judy gradually brought him around, and so one year during Strawberry Festival time he went to the Longhouse and listened, out of curiosity. That decision changed his life. Continue reading Jake Swamp, A Man of Roots →