| | | 08.11.2006 14:36:15 | | MythBusters in Montreal | "MYSTERIOUS" DISAPPEARANCE AND RE-APPEARANCE OF THE ST. LAWRENCE IROQUOIS
- COLONIAL REPORTS ABOUT OUR DEATH AND DISAPPEARANCE ARE PREMATURE AND
SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY. (MNN Museum Report)
MNN. Nov. 9, 2006.
At the last minute on Tuesday, November 7, we Iroquois found out there was an exhibit opening at the Calliere Museum in Old Montreal. It was on the "Mysterious Disappearance of the St. Lawrence Valley Iroquois". They wish! Four of us from Kahnawake, Kanehsatake and Tyendinaga decided to go and look it over.
We were curious as to how they got the idea that we had "disappeared" or that there was any mystery to be solved. How would anyone feel if their so-called demise was advertised and put on exhibit? It's like finding yourself invited to your own wake when you're not dead. It really bugged us. Can you understand? It felt like a death threat. It reminded us of the way we were all told at school that our moms, dad, brothers, sisters, grandparents, everyone were all going to die out. We cried. By now we know a terrorist threat when we see one.
We arrived around noon. The banner outside indicated that this was sponsored by a whole bunch of Quebec, Canadian and international corporations. We were almost the first visitors there. Instead of welcoming us as the long lost Iroquois, they treated as though we were spoiling their party. The man at the front desk told us we had to pay $12 to go into the wake. We suggested that since we had disappeared and were ghosts in their eyes, we should be allowed in for free. Suddenly he started to speak only French to us. This is when we started to talk only in Mohawk to him. He got mad and started punching the cash register. Eventually, after arguing about the taxes on the ticket, we could see the only way to get around this extortionist was to pay him off. Then we went up to the second floor.
What we saw was a gross rip off not just for us but for the ignorant public that they hoped to ensnare with their fake account of history.
Some of the corporate perpetrators of these deceptions were the National Archives of Canada, the Birmingham Public Library, the Canadian Museum of Civilization, some patrimonie organization from Sorel Quebec, the Quebec Conservation Department, the National Archives of France, the National Capital Commission of Quebec, the ghost longhouse at St. Anicet, the Gilcrease Museum of Tulsa Oklahoma, the Huntington Library of San Marino California, Jefferson County Historical Society of Watertown NY, McCord Museum of Montreal, McGill University Osler Library, Michel Crepeau of France, Quebec Ministry of Culture and Communications, MODIS Rapid Response Project of NASA, Montreal Botanical Gardens, Quebec Museum of Civilization, National Science Foundation of North Arlington Virginia, New York State Museum of Albany, Point-de-Buisson Archaeological Park, State Hermitage Museum of St. Petersburg Russia, Trustees of the British Museum, Department of Agriculture in Washington and the University of Montreal. Yep, there you go! A whole bunch of people want us dead. Here we are, raining on their parade.
Why was NASA involved? Maybe they think we came from outer space. Or maybe that's where they want to send us. Each of these entities must have had one little item to show that we had disappeared. Somebody had a big travel budget to visit all these bastions of colonial tradition.
The museum had the cash to rack up record numbers of air miles. Somehow they just couldn't find the time to stop in Kahnawake or Kanehesatake on their way to the airport. Of course, the hour's drive to Akwesasne would have been out of their way. When we asked why, they said they did speak to one young fella in Kahnawake about this, by phone! It wasn't long distance so that was in their budget. They couldn't
ask us because, in their minds, we had mysteriously disappeared. Their tour guide told us, "You are different Iroquois", and "our scientists have archaeological evidence that backs up our claims".
"Yes", we said, "lots of people used to think the earth was flat".
So, there! Apparently, even though we had disappeared, our horticulture lives on in the "descendants"! Isn't this a contradiction?
On Sunday Oct. 3rd 1535 Cartier visited Hochelaga at the foot of what they call Mount Royal. He drew longhouses, a central square like in Spain, with avenues and maybe even street signs. There was a shaman's house who lived apart from the "mere mortals". Lol!
We apparently left Montreal before Cartier arrived for his second visit and were gone for good by the time Champlain came. Don't they know we have relatives all over the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence Valley, New York State and every where. We loved to travel too and go visiting. Myth busted! Another reason we left temporarily for 75 to 100 years was to leave the ground to fallow. Our idea was to use the ground and when it was getting depleted of minerals and nourishment, we would plant orchards, take down our villages and then move to our next site for 20 or so years. We had 4 to 5 regular sites. It would take from 80 to 100 to complete a rotation. By the time we returned, the earth would have regained its nourishment. We don't put down hundreds of thousands of pounds of potassium nitrate to mock what the earth does naturally. This modern practice is destroying the earth. We certainly didn't expect a bunch of foreigner to move in and defile it with asphalt and all the other pollution that has made this once beautiful place infertile for agriculture or man.
We were here when Champlain came in 1607. "I won't look at them so I can say I didn't see them', said Champlain. They suggested we were the victims of diseases or a "Little Ice Age" that began around 1450? Then they said, "It was "intertribal warfare". Their evidence for this is that we built "defensive palisades" around our villages. Well, we did grow our medicines right next to our longhouses and we erected these fences to keep out the creatures who might want to come and disturb them. We also had 3000 years of peace until the colonists brought their incessant warfare here.
We notice they sprinkled words throughout their texts like "appeared", "might have", "may be", "probably" and "it would appear". Their lawyers advised them so we can't sue the pants off them for lying about us. They don't want to acknowledge us because they say that the land was for the taking because nobody was here. This is coming from a culture that has no stewardship for the land. So where did we come from, under some rocks?
One exhibit entitled "To Pop or Not to Pop" is about pop corn, corn soup and all the cooking skills we had. They did not mention that corn, beans and squash, the Three Sisters", provided all the nutrition one needed to live a healthy life. We got these at the beginning according to our creation story. They found we Iroquois were in the Bay of Gaspe and elsewhere. Cartier found us with corn like he had seen in Brazil. He said that this had convinced us to give up our nomadic ways and tie our fate to the soil.
Most of the articles on display were little pieces from pipes, pots and who knows what. They were tiny and under glass with texts on a red or white background in French first and then English. Nothing in Mohawk! Maybe they think that our language is not relevant. After all, its their theory that we have disappeared.
Really misleading was info that the clan mothers led the families and selected the chiefs. The people tell the clan mothers and chiefs what to do and say. The power is with the people. Their sham democracy doesn't want to say that.
They refer to the "Creator", implying we believed in their god. Our philosophy is based on our knowledge of the natural world. Gariwiio is the perfect reality which is nature. The kasatstenera kowa sa oiera is the great natural power which we can see and know exists. We have many symbols for the stories that we passed down to remind us of our history.
They minimize our world down to making offerings of tobacco and sacrificing dogs and eating them. In the glass were the bones of a dog. We did not use shamans to contact any forces. We made our relationships with and respect for the natural world and developed our awareness ourselves.
The shaman did not suck out the evil or sickness from a person. There was no evil when everything was part of the natural equilibrium. Holy hell! This is completely manufactured probably by a bunch of priests who are trying to hit up people for money. "The shaman would gaze into the fire and go into a trance by dancing, chanting, fasting or sitting in a sweat lodge". We did not have shamans or sweat lodges. Where did this come from? It's one of those phony Indian Affairs healing programs being used to pacify us? We were almost tempted to ask where the brown Baby Jesus in the cradle was.
Cartier said we loved games and gambling. Is that why they built the Montreal casino nearby? They found a lot of different colored potsherds in their digs, which they think might be ripped up off-track betting slips. We did have the peach pit game in a wooden bowl played by clans to decide who was going to win the gifts and do all the work until the next festival.
They definitely found no evidence that we played lacrosse. They want to steal this as a Canadian invented game just like hockey. Hockey comes from the expression "a-kee", which means "ouch" when they hit each other with their sticks. It was played between villages as it is today.
As for fashion, they said that we ran around naked except for small skins to cover our privates! In the cold! Are they kidding? If we went naked, we bared it all. Afterwards, we did cover ourselves to protect us from European perverts.
We made necklaces from recycled pipe stems [that we got from the second hand stores in Old Montreal?] They said that wampum beads were the most precious item we possessed in the whole wide world. All Iroquois men smoked. Did they examine our lungs? We did for ceremonial purposes apparently until Cartier arrived. They say we started to smoke like chimneys like those French Canadians who drive over to our communities today. They're all pale and desperate to buy cheap native cigarettes. It states that tobacco appeared in the new world in 800 AD and in Montreal in 1300. They know this because they found a whole lot of pipes dating from that time. Was this on one of the pipe stems they found? How do they know it was tobacco being smoked? Who was Cartier trying to impress. He just wanted to raise money to make another trip over here in his search gold, the fool!
This is a pitiful exhibit. Cartier said that Iroquois women were industrious and the men were lazy. He called us "nomadic". How would he know? He hung around the skirtless women and didn't go with the men into the forests or on trading, hunting and diplomatic expeditions. Who's the lazy bugger here?
We wondered what all this was leading up to? Yep! The colonists found a new archaeological site at Cap Rouge River - "the remains of the very first French settlement in America". Hoo-ray! Lots of money for diggers! It was apparently the fort built by Cartier in 1541 where he spent that winter. This is where the king had ordered a white colony be built. They found sherds of Italian faience. Wow! The public can see all this in 2008. This is how long it will take to manufacture the ancient artifacts they will put on display and celebrate 400 years of colonization.
We complained to the guide that we had not disappeared, that he was not staring at ghosts, that this whole exhibit was misleading and that we are definitely still here. In other words, we were unconvinced by the story of our death. Excited and
anxious, security was summoned. We were followed around for a bit. Then a short little women sergeant appeared and told us that the museum would refund our money.
We'd prefer they shut down this travesty. Or if the public sees it, they should be told it's a fictional representation meant to mislead the public and justify colonization. Cartier was just a hack explorer like the heroes of the Harlequin romances. There were lots of Euros over here before him. But they didn't try to scam the nobility at home into financing their misadventures.
Disappearing Iroquois Myth "Busted"
Kahentinetha Horn
MNN Mohawk Nation News | | poster: Thahoketoteh | | |    |
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| | | 08.09.2006 19:53:45 | | One Dead Indian | THE VAMPIRES STRIKE BACK: "ONE DEAD INDIAN" BLOOD AND GORE TO CONDITION THE MASSES
MNN. Sept. 7, 2006. Why are CTV and APTN showing the film, "One Dead Indian" over and over again? This film is about the Ontario Provincial Police OPP attack on the Stoney Point people who were defending their land, known as "Ipperwash". Dudley George was shot and killed in cold blood.
When they sit and watch this, who are the Canadians identifying with? Many would be with the Indigenous People, some would be neutral and a few would see the viewpoint of the cops. Then there is the lunatic fringe and some of the ordinary people who had no previous interest in Indigenous issues. These two groups would be drawn in subconsciously. They are the ones the establishment wants to reach and influence. These people who might end up watching this because they're looking for a good action flick.
When people watch the bull fights, after seeing a few bulls ritually executed with blood flying all over the place and the matadors taking bows for the murders, the crowd screams for more blood. There is no therapeutic value in any of this.
Why aren't they trying to stop the arousing of anti-Indian feelings? Reasonable and rational thinking about constructive ways to deal with Indigenous people and our grievances should get equal time on television, in the movies and on the media.
Canadians have been conditioned all along to see Indigenous People as the lowest rung on their hierarchical ladder. To this day they're being taught that people who live in the natural world are "primitive". We have been "spun" as someone they can look down and trample on to make them feel superior.
Look at the 500 Indian women who have disappeared. The police won't do an investigation. Was this because they think they're primitive? What about the Indigenous boys who were left out in the snow to freeze to death? The cops put them there. Only when the Indigenous People made an outcry was something done. The cops shot J.J. Harper on the streets of Winnipeg. The subsequent film gives a sympathetic view of the police officer who killed him. There were discussions about how to cover this up right in the film. After it was shown nationally, no Parliamentarians were outraged nor did they condemn such a depiction. During the Oka Mohawk Crisis of 1990 two old men were stoned to death which was shown over and over again on national news to get people used to how to treat "Indians".
"One Dead Indian" depicts us as a problem. The viewers are being conditioned to think that the solution is to kill off all of us. They want to see us suffer and bleed. They're being conditioned to see us as natural targets. For their fulfillment and to set us up for the corporate/government agenda, movie makers are being given millions of dollars of government funds to make gory bloody films about Indians. Never are they shown how we can sit together as equals and discuss our legitimate relationship.
During the 1920's and 30's Germany put out propaganda depicting Jews in caricature. German people were conditioned to accept the "final solution" which was to exterminate a race.
When people see Indians being shot, abused, beaten up and killed often enough, it makes them want to see more Indian blood. This is the old Cowboys and Indians movies paradigm.
About six months ago the New York Times did a scathing article on the Mohawks of Akwesasne, which was publicized all over the world. Their main message was that we are criminals and deserve the bad treatment we are getting and going to get more of. Akwesasne, they say, is a haven for criminals and that Mohawks are part of "organized crime". The U.S. is trying to get people to think that our warriors are "terrorists". Who planted the story? It's part of the continual assault against us. It's meant to justify whatever they do to us in their genocidal quest.
A lot of the initiatives against us seem to be coming from the United States. Why are they doing this? It's because Indigenous People stand in the way of their exploitation of our resources. Don't forget, most of the companies operating in Canada today are U.S. owned and controlled. They're the same corporate giants that control the U.S. government. They've obviously taken control of some parts of the Canadian government.
The ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) came to Canada to work with the OPP. How long have they been here? Maybe for 20 years! Our people catching them was hardly mentioned in the corporate media. It would have been a scandal to Canada a few decades ago. This has got to be one of the biggest outcomes of the Six Nations land reclamation issue. We found out who our enemies are, that Canadian institutions are just puppets for corporate America. Who has been organizing the attacks on us? Is it a U.S. procedure that has been put in place by people in Canada who've been bought off or manipulated?
Could this be similar to what happened back in 1812? This is when Tecumseh and General Brock beat back the American general who declared they were taking over Canada, "Your choice is to join with us or enslavement!" This was the first time the U.S. ever invaded foreign soil. Invasions of this kind are a continuing theme in Canada-US relations. It's obviously happening again? This time what's shockingly different is that Canadians seem to neither notice nor care. It's being done through control of the economy and by infiltrating the police and governmental institutions. This is how the U.S. has already marched into Canada and no one even knows. The ruthlessness of the U.S. towards Indigenous People will frighten Canadians so they will be too scared to resist the takeover.
What are the politicians and their corporate bosses getting the Canadian public ready for? They have invaded Iraq and Afganistan. They appear to be getting ready to invade Iran. The new "passport control" is probably going to end up as a "bait and switch" operation. People will get so upset about the passports, they'll accept the "smart cards" that allow control without even noticing how much freedom they're losing.
The U.S. is the only nation in the history of the world that dropped nuclear bombs against another nation. They are blood thirsty and brag about it when they teach history, especially their ruthless takeover of Turtle Island from the Indigenous People.
In the recent covert operations against the Six Nations land reclamation, nothing goes back onto the police forces, even though they're behind it. Their tactic is using (un)ordinary people to do their dirty work, such as the skinheads, fascists, KKK, the Brown Shirts and the heavily state funded Caledonia Citizens Alliance to attack the Indigenous people. These groups might all have died out had they not been called back into service and funded by the state. Just what is the justification in using tax money to finance hate groups like these?
"One Dead Indian" satiates the appetite for Indian blood for this portion of the public. It's part of their indoctrination. This is similar to the frenzy of sharks when blood is thrown among them, called "chumming the water". The sharks can smell the blood from miles away. They speed towards it. It drives them crazy. They eat everything except each other. Then they need more and more blood. They're driven to attack again and again.
The ancestors of the non-natives on Turtle Island did kill off 99% of the Indigenous people in the Western Hemisphere. These people today are their descendants. They're being indoctrinated to release their self-control through video games and violent films where multitudes of people are violently killed.
The police and army are trained to shoot at targets that are replicas of their enemies. In Saskatchewan the police were caught shooting at a replica of an Indigenous woman. It's meant to stir up their hatred for the targeted people.
How do we protect ourselves? Making people realize they have been set up as tools to eliminate the descent within their society of totalitarianism.
This is how the U.S. prepares their society for war against helpless people around the world. They use their military hardware to shoot innocent people as practice to exercise their dominance over other human beings.
At first some of the soldiers say they do not like what they are ordered to do. However, these young soldiers are trained to be sadists and are trigger happy. They go to war as nonchalantly as kids go to video arcades at the mall. To them going to Iraq is like going to a local garbage dump and shooting rats. They begin to enjoy menacing and killing defenseless people. After a while they can't control themselves. Don't forget, they've been given carte blanche to kill people without impunity. Remember the public inquiry on the Mai Lai massacre during the Vietnam War when the soldiers went on a murderous rampage killing countless innocent women and children?
Today on Turtle Island we are being used as their guinea pigs. The so-called super master race (billionaires of the world) feels they can abuse and kill those of other skin colors and languages whom they have determined to be inferior to them.
During the Oka Crisis of 1990, Canada brought over Col. Musgrave who had developed the strategies for the British in their conflict against the Irish. In a newspaper article, he bragged that he could break down the Mohawks in three weeks. They started flying jets and choppers over us all night long so we could not sleep, shot and detonated concussion bombs and flares, held back food and then gave it to us, spread fear among the public by showing threatening videos on television about all the warheads we had, spread lies and propaganda and shut lights and water off and on. It didn't work. In fact, it backfired! Some of the soldiers involved had nervous breakdowns.
Their masters are experimenting on those they consider to be inferior and whose life isn't worth anything to them. In fact, getting rid of us would be very beneficial to them. Then they would complete their illegal theft of our land.
"One Dead Indian" shows us hundreds of menacing cops "goose stepping" into Ipperwash, banging in unison on their shields. This reminds us of the Gestapo in movies about Nazi Germany where they marched into the Jewish areas of the cities. They must be getting the public ready for a total police state. A few former OPP officers are absolutely disgusted with the direction their force has gone.
Martial Law already exists in Indian country. As long as we behave according to their dictates, we don't see the cops. As soon as we step out of line we see the armed forces showing up in droves. Why can Canada and other colonial nations that are squatting on Indigenous territory defend their so-called "sovereignty"? If we try to defend our human rights and our sovereignty against their brutality, we are called "terrorists" and criminalized.
Like the vampires, once they start drinking blood, they can only stay alive by drinking more blood. These corporate and government vampires are trying to suck the blood out of the people who are preaching peace to the world.
Canadians, you're next!
Kahentinetha Horn
MNN Mohawk Nation News | | poster: Thahoketoteh | | | |
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| | | 19.08.2006 16:10:46 | | Corporate Machine | TELEPHONE TERRORISM: CORPORATE BULLY ROGERS IGNORES CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATION - ATTACKS FREEDOM OF SPEECH
MNN. August 14, 2006. On August 9th at 3:20 pm I picked up my home phone to make a long distance call. A man came on. The first thing he said was, "This is Rogers and we've disconnected your long distance". Rogers is my long distance server.
"Why?" I asked. He told me I hadn't paid my June 2006 bill of $103.19. This is not really normally considered past due according to normal collection policy. I was surprised. I always pay my bills and had never received a "past due" notice. While he waited on the phone, I pulled out my June receipts There it was. I had indeed paid my bill at the local Caisse Populaire Bank in Kahnawake. The Rogers employee, Shawn, at 1-800-818-1248 became both nervous and nasty. He claimed the money was not in their account. As far as he was concerned it had not been paid. He wanted me to pay him again by credit card. It crossed my mind that this could be a scam of some kind. If it wasn't, I couldn't understand why I should pay again. I offered to fax him a copy of my receipt. He didn't want it. He again told me he wasn't going to do anything to check what the problem was. The long distance service would remain cut.
While he was still on the line, I called the Caisse Populaire 450-638-5464. It is the bank in my community. Sure enough they found that I had paid my bill on June 28th 2006 to Teller No. 7. The bank confirmed that the money had been sent to Rogers. The man was still on my other phone line listening to us. I explained what the bank said. He became even nastier. He informed me he wasn't going to reconnect. To the bank employee and me, it looked like the mistake had been made at his end. But that did not matter to him. He said he had no more time or patience for us and abruptly smacked the phone down on us.
As an elder, over 65 years old, I need my long distance service to stay in touch with my family. I was greatly distressed over the way this young man spoke so angrily and rudely to me, a senior citizen. He was so offensive that I thought about changing my long distance service and telling all my friends to do the same. I wrote to the CRTC (Canadian Radio Telecommunication Commission) telling them I would appreciate it very much if they would investigate these strong arm harassment tactics by Rogers to threaten one of its helpless clients. Especially those who live alone and are desperate to maintain crucial telephone contact. I sent a copy to Rogers. To this date I still have not received any response from the CRTC.
Around noon on Friday, August 11th, the bank called me and said they had "repaid" the June bill and my service should come right back on immediately. They told me to call Rogers and confirm that they could now turn my service back on. I called. They refused to do this. They claimed they had not received this repayment. I sent my receipt to two people at Rogers. They transferred me around to five people. I had to explain everything from the beginning to each one of them. They still would not give me long distance service. I was on the phone with them for over two hours. Still no service.
I told them I needed the long distance desperately as a close family member, an ironworker, had just fallen off the job and was in a coma in a hospital. I needed to get in touch with other family members. They said that they would allow me a "courtesy" call. To get this, I had to call a certain number, go through their recorded messages, hit numbers and dial "0". Someone finally came on. He asked me all kinds of personal questions. Who was I calling? Why? Where? And so on. Then he dialed the number for me. After ten minutes of this trouble I got through. I was told I could only speak for 5 minutes, then the call was cut without warning. Due to the family crisis I was forced to do this several times.
On Monday, August 14th, still no service. Finally about 4:30 pm I tried and got a long distance call through. Still no explanation. Still no apology. Still no rebate for the loss of one-quarter of a month's service and all of my time. What gives? Rogers clearly breached its contract with me. Who knows why? Who knows what they've been doing. I am starting to get calls from people saying
"Where were you. I've been calling all week, leaving messages." I never left home. I never got one long distance message though I did get some local ones.
Does anyone have any idea what's going on. Has anyone ever heard of anything like this? How can customers defend ourselves from corporate bullies? Now, may I ask - if they reconnect, are they going to deduct the time they gave me no service and are they going to charge me for reconnection? Doesn't it sounds like a scam? Whatever happened to old fashioned respect for people who pay their bills on time?
In my note to the CRTC I asked whether any long distance provider has a right to cut off my service when my bills have been paid. Rogers did reply. On August 10th they sent me a "Termination notice" because they allege that "my bill was severely past due" even though I have paid it twice. They are now sending this to a collection agency. They want me to pay it again for a third time, this time $172.76. In other words they want me to pay three and a half times the agreed upon rate for the phone service. You know what? They're wearing me out. If there is freedom of speech and freedom of association in Canada, how can anyone be subjected to such mistreatment?
Kahentinetha Horn
MNN Mohawk Nation News
See news on Mohawk Issues at http://www.mohawknationnews.com | | poster: Thahoketoteh | | | |
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| | | 10.11.2005 23:48:00 | | MNN #196: Forgotten arguments of Deskaheh. (Speech) | YOU ARE ON NATIVE LAND
Conference McGill University
Speech by Kahn-Tineta Horn
Nov. 10th 2002
HOW CANADA VIOLATED THE BNA ACT TO STEAL NATIVE LAND: THE FORGOTTEN ARGUMENTS OF
DESKAHEH
Canada's Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples now admits that the relationship between the First Nations and the European colonizers began with the Two Row Wampum Treaty. We agreed to live side by side with each other - with us in our canoe and they in their ships. This is an agreement that allowed our peoples to share the river. The Two Row recognized that the Indigenous Peoples and the newcomers belonged to different families with different languages, culture, laws and ways of life. Back in the days of first contact, Europe's monarchs recognized that we were not their subjects and they agreed to leave us alone to live according to our laws and customs. We agreed to share the land as separate social groups, not as one political entity.
As time went on the colonizers started to look at things differently. They forgot about the Two Row Wampum and adopted a geographic description of themselves. They had battles with their European cousins over who could come to North America. Then they started to impose their laws and ways on everyone over here based on the treaties they made to end their wars with each other. They never consulted the Indigenous nations who had been taking care of the land since time immemorial. Instead of staying in their own ship they decided to take over the whole river.
Some of Britain's North American colonies confederated in 1867 to form Canada. The new political organization was called a "dominion" because the colonial visitors started thinking they had a right to dominate the land and all the people on it. They changed the way they defined their political identity. Instead of basing it on the allegiance they owed to their king or queen, they based it on the land they claimed. They changed from sharing to dominating.
There was no legal basis for this change. Canada was a British colony and Britain could not give her subjects here more than she had to give. All the British had was an agreement to share. Maybe Canadians forgot about the Two Row Wampum, but Britain could not give Canada the right to make laws for our people because we were never British subjects.
The Indigenous peoples never agreed to change the terms of the Two Row Wampum treaty. Our ancestors were not consulted. They would never agree to such a serious change because that takes the land away from our future generations. And they had no right to do that. The whole concept violates our law. We are the caretakers. We hold the land for the future generations. Britain's Canadian subjects had no right to force Indigenous peoples into their territorial concepts of nationality and property. They have no right to continue to disregard the original agreements by imposing their new geographic definition retroactively.
When Europeans first came to Turtle Island everybody knew they were subjects to their kings, and that Indigenous people were not. The way of life of the Indigenous peoples was a revelation to Europeans. We were free. We treated everyone equally. We were all citizens of our own nations.
The European peoples were influenced by the freedom we had. They didn't want to be subjects anymore and so there has been a change in the colonizer's way of thinking about law and international relations. Europeans have formally embraced equality along with the rest of the world. Britain does not have subject status anymore. Canadians define "nationality" in territorial terms now. They have citizenship based on place of birth. But they have not fully grasped the meaning of equality. Their institutions don't give their citizens much of a voice. And their new First Nations Governance Act shows that they don't respect our voice at all. They are ignoring their obligations under the Two Row Wampum.
As far as we are concerned, the colonizers are free to change the way they think of themselves....but this does not give them the right to define our identity and appropriate our resources. They made many changes in themselves during the 19th and 20th centuries. But, especially since Confederation, Britain's Canadian subjects have been violating Britain's agreements with the Indigenous nations.
Confederation and the British North America Act did not give Britain the right to let Canadians violate the Two Row Wampum. Britain recognized that its people could only come onto our land as a separate social group that would share the river with us. But Britain's Canadian subjects fell into the erroneous habit of thinking that they owned the land. This lie is taught in your education system. Canada draws its maps to perpetuate the propaganda that justifies the theft of our resources.
The Six Nations Confederacy knew this back in 1920. In desperation they sent Levi General Deskaheh to ask the Supreme Court of Canada to stop the Department of Indian Affairs from violating the British North America Act. That piece of British legislation only gave Canada the right to negotiate with us in place of Britain. It did not give Canadians the right to impose their laws on us. But Canadian officials would not let Deskaheh have his day in court. Maybe they were afraid of losing their jobs.
After all, if Deskaheh had proven that what they were doing was illegal, these bureaucrats would have been out of a job. So they sent troops, the RCMP, to invade the small piece of the Six Nations`Grand River territory that was left after a century of theft and fraud. In the end they deposed the traditional government, one of the oldest governments in North America. This is the model the Americans copied rather poorly for their constitution. Since that time Canada has refused to recognize or deal with our real leaders. They will only deal with councils imposed under Canadian laws.
Six Nations diplomats had been honoured guests in Britain's courts. But by the 1920's Britain was refusing to deal with the problems that had befallen her old allies. This is why Deskaheh went to the League of Nations to appeal for justice. The Six Nations wanted membership in this new international organization so they could present our arguments and protect our legal rights. The Netherlands, Persia, Estonia, Panama and Ireland all agreed that the Six Nations complaints should be examined by the international court. But Deskaheh was ambushed again by Canadian officials skulking behind the scenes to make sure the case never got a formal public hearing.
Today, whether Canada wants to admit it or not, our people still maintain our right to independence. We were allies, not subjects of Britain and so we are not part of Canada - the colony that became a successor state. Canada imposed Canadian laws on us unlawfully, in violation of both the Two Row Wampum and modern International law. This is outrageous. As Deskaheh put it in his last address before he died in 1924, it's as if Mexico tried to apply its laws in the United States. Canadians know how it feels when the United States tries to impose its laws on them. So why are they doing this to us?
The root of this problem is the failure of European colonists to fully understand the meaning of equal rights. Besides, they refuse to look at their own history and acknowledge that they have changed the way they define themselves. When we made the Two Row Wampum Treaty with Britain we both defined ourselves in terms of personal relationships. Our nations were based on our clans. The European nations were based on subject status and the allegiance they owed to their sovereigns. Their decision to shift to a territorial definition of themselves does not give them the right to impose their laws on us or to take our resources. As a successor state, Canada is still bound by Britain's treaty obligations. The settlers and their descendants are still a guests on our land...even though Canada has presumed to take over our whole house. Canada has not worked out fair and valid agreements with the First Peoples.
When the colonizers celebrate "Canada Day" they forget that Canada was not an independent nation at Confederation. In 1867 there was no such thing as Canadian nationality. Nationality is tied to idea of having shared ancestry and culture. Being Canadian is not a nationality. The settlers and their ancestors have only the shared experience of fleeing oppressive regimes and immigrating onto someone else's land.
Canada is a "dominion" that was produced by Britian's will to dominate. The concept of a "dominion" has its origin in feudal customs carried to Britain by foreign lords who conquered the land and the people on it. It is based in deeply rooted cultural habits that violate the egalitarian respect represented by the Two Row Wampum concept.
As a consequence, the whole existence of Canada is illegal. There is no legal foundation for the present territorial description of Canada - even by the European's own rules which say that treaties continue to bind successor states. Canada's self-definition that appropriates both our political identity and our resources violates the initial treaties made by Britain with the Indigenous peoples.
It violates both the European version of international law and our Indigenous law. It violates the principle of human equality that Canadians finally recognized in a formal way in the middle of the twentieth century - after the atrocities of World War II - when they signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Charter of the United Nations and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Deskaheh tried to present this argument way back in the 1920's but Canadians didn't get the message. Even today Canadians and their institutions continue to close their ears to our demands for political and economic equality. They have not thought things through. When Americans had their revolution they threw off their subject status. But they went crazy, grabbing land, killing people and destroying resources. They called the people of the First Nations "Indians" and treated us as vermin. In Canada people accepted this idea of the Americans that might makes right and that Europeans had a god-given right to grab lands, possessions, resources and lives. Canada thinks it was more honourable, but they bought into the sleazy American dream.
What happened was unthinkable. In the subsequent treaties on the prairies there was no meeting of the minds of the people who signed. The Anglo-Canadians imagined those people agreed to give up everything they had. The First Nations thought there was just an agreement to co-exist. It was not like the time of the Two Row Wampum treaty when there was a real meeting of minds. Back then the British knew they were British and recognized that Indians had nations. There was mutual agreement to live side by side.
The anglo-Canadian decision to shift to a territorial definition of themselves does not give them the right to take over our land and resources. All this has to be done through treaties and agreements. Canada needs our consent and we do not have to consent just because they lust after our resources and crave the right to ransack the land.
If Canada believes that all people are equal, Canada has no right to impose its laws and beliefs on us. We are the original caretakers of the land and resources. As a successor state Canada is still bound by the limitations of Britain's treaty obligations, which were agreements to live as a separate social group on our land. This is according to international law which Canada has agreed to. The colonizers are obliged to share the land. They do not own it. They have no legal right to claim dominion over us, or to take our lands and possessions. They are visitors still. They have not worked out fair and valid agreements with us that consider the needs of seven generations to come among our people or among their own. Canada's current attempts to force Aboriginal peoples to prove to their courts that we have a claim to our own lands is ridiculously backwards. They are the ones who are robbing us and their own future generations. They are the ones who must prove to us and to their descendants what right they have to be on this land, to ransack our resources and to leave a trail of pollution behind. If Canadians own this land, where is their receipt?
Send your comments to Kahentinetha Horn, MNN Mohawk Nation News
http://www.mohawknationnews.com | | poster: Thahoketoteh | | | |
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| | | 20.09.2005 23:37:00 | | MNN #190: "Mirror, mirror on the wall!" What Hurricane Katrina reflected. | "MIRROR, MIRROR ON THE WALL"! WHAT HURRICANE KATRINA REFLECTED.
MNN. September 20, 2005. Hurricane Katrina put up a mirror that exposed a hole within "democratic" society. She swept away the veil of delusion. She revealed a societal crisis. She showed our flaws. In a hierarchal system, only the man at the top can give the order. President George Bush delayed assistance to the victims for four days causing death, havoc and chaos. Now everybody is taking shots at George Bush. Bush says, "I take responsibility for what happened". Does it really make sense to balance our lives on the narrow little shoulders of this man? What does he know of the struggle that the people are facing? Why should we turn to someone who has no experience in practical reality?.
The problem is deeper. Bush is a pawn in the system in which he exists. He is trying to play the hero. He has to look good. "I am responsible", says he, while
saluting the flag. Who cares about a flag when babies are dying of starvation and dehydration in the middle of a cesspool?
Decaying structure. As Katrina showed, the Americans have a structure that's supposed to take care of them. It's rotted, crumbled and washed away by winds and tides, eroded by pollution and neglect. They aren't sure how this happened. So they are trying to find some scapegoats, some sacrificial lambs that they can burn on the alter of convenience to feed their fear and confusion. The energy they waste would be better spent listening to the people.
Scapegoating takes American society off the hook. Nothing gets solved. Katrina showed us their system cannot cope. It is structurally fraudulent. How much can they build with delusional beams? They refuse to look at a system that is supposed to have a rule of law root. They think that all their hierarchical structures will stand every hurricane even though they're crumbling.
Smoke and mirrors. Bush says he's going to rebuild New Orleans. Their system produces contrived leadership. It tells people whatever they want to hear. "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?" It's too busy asking silly questions to know how to roll up its sleeves and get to work rebuilding the structure and sorting out the rule of law.
The hierarchical system versus the true democratic system. The judiciary is supposed to uphold the basic principles of constitutional democracy and the rule of law. The judiciary has not permitted the power of the people to express itself, even though they have an inherent right to do so under the constitution. The judiciary is supposed to make sure a true democracy functions.
Our constitution. The Kaianereh'ko:wa/Great Law of Peace, is a true democracy that is not hierarchical. It is a tripartite system. Every citizen's opinion is valuable. Every person is responsible. Individual responsibility goes along with individual empowerment.
The U.S. Constitution is based on the Kaianereh'ko:wa. Accordingly, each individual is responsible at the grassroots level. In our language we call the brain "oni kon ra" which means "it takes care of you". We take care of ourselves with others by putting our minds together. Everybody has an opinion because humans are equal and everybody gets to have their say. The Longhouse government and court hears everyone, in the presence of everyone. This sets the truth free. By this means justice, as the application of truth to affairs, comes into existence.
The U.S. Founding Fathers have acknowledged the debt owed to the Kaianereh'ko:wa. They tried to copy our constitution. They got it almost right, but not totally. Now they're busy covering up the mess they've created.
U.S. and Canada. The constitutions of the United States and Canada are both based on the rule of law. Neither the political leaders nor the people have given much thought lately to what this means. Their legislatures passed federal laws which violated their constitutions and undermined their nation-to-nation relationship with the Indigenous people. The newcomers turned their backs on caring for the people. Katrina left them with a lethal combination of chaos and despotism.
They have to go back to first principles. Any leader in any country at anytime is a product of the society. Bush did not create society or its rules. It is a tragedy to see so much responsibility placed on the non-existent shoulders of such an uninspired man. Under the Kaianereh'ko:wa he would still have his contribution to make. But it wouldn't take precedence over the depth of human experience shared by fellow Americans.
Obligations. If they want to avoid chaos, they need to learn how to restructure their society in a way that respects their founding belief that all men and women are created equal. Everybody matters. Under the Kaianereh'ko:wa the relief effort in Southern United States would have been spontaneous. You have to help your brothers and sisters.
Symptom v. Cause. Bush made a deadly mistake when he delayed responding to the flood victims of New Orleans. What happened is deeper than any individual. He is a symptom, not the cause. The rule of law is not functioning as it should. To solve the problem you have to clean the wound and get the infection out of it.
Bush bashing is another way of avoiding responsibility. The man is not that important. The people are. We all have to join hands with our neighbors and learn how to work together again.
Everyone is responsible. The Kaianereh'ko:wa doesn't scapegoat the guy at the top. There is no guy at the top. There isn't a top. There isn't a bottom. The people are all together with all else in the circle of interdependent life on Mother Earth. The Kaianereh'ko:wa is pure democracy where each individual, all the relatives and nature are respected. Everybody is entitled to speak and be listened to. You never know where a good idea might come from, or who will tell the truth when all others are lying.
What's in store.? Katrina showed us what will happen if we don't reform the structure. We must return to the fundamental principles of justice. If nothing is done about the structure, society will break down.
Root Cause. The rule of law will change society if they address the constitutional jurisdiction question. Our case in the U.S. Supreme Court, number 05-165, addresses the root cause of the breakdown of the system. The Kaianereh'ko:wa is the origin of civil government and society which is the rule of law. This is not working right now. The judiciary allowed the structure to be created that allows people to take advantage of other people, contrary to the rule of law. Bush is a competitor. He takes advantage of the system. Scapegoating him instead of correcting the system is merely treating the symptom, not the cause.
Restructuring. The Kanien'ke:haka/Mohawk have been trying to get the system to address itself structurally. Bush is operating competitively within the system as it has been set up to operate. Should we continue taking pot shots at him? Or can we listen to the Kaianereh'ko:wa and the Indian message? We are trying to stop the genocide of Indigenous people. When we help re-establish the rule of law then genocide of others will stop too.
The Kaianereh'ko:wa represents something good about humans. It expresses the justice that is inherent in the natural world when it is based on responsibility for "all my relations". The people are the final decision makers. If Bush makes mistakes, it is the people's response to correct it by insisting that their judiciary do its job of upholding the constitution. The rule of law is based on the power and responsibility of all the people.
We are getting conflicted messages. The Kaianereh'ko:wa message of taking care of each other, and the mainstream message to take care of number one. The structure out there is not working. It produces scapegoats instead of structural reform.
Conclusion. Can we save people from themselves by correcting the system that produces and rewards such people? Is it our fault that this happened? We do have the ultimate power. We are the people. Our system of constitutional law and the rule of law is the solution. This is implemented by weaning the judiciary away from opportunism about what it wants the law to be, into respecting the law as it is. There is no point in a people having the rule of law if the people's judiciary makes up the law as it goes along instead of taking the law as given by the people.
Kahentinetha Horn
MNN Mohawk Nation News | | poster: Thahoketoteh | | | |
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| | | 06.03.2005 04:26:00 | | MNN #102: Holocaust deniers speech. | "NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN HOLOCAUST DENIERS": SPEECH TO SUPPORTERS
MNN. March 6, 2005. Saturday, March 5th, 2005, I spoke to the International Bangladesh Society. They are concerned about the way "Smart Cards" are being forced on Indigenous people. "If they can do it to them, they can do it to us". They wanted to know what to do.
Why don't more non-native people support our struggle? They can't if they don't know anything about us? We know more about our rights because we've had to defend ourselves since the newcomers arrived on our shores.
Most supporters don't know what their own rights are. Otherwise, they'd know what we're being deprived of.
Is this an oversight? Not likely. The powers-that-be don't want the facts to mess up the crystal clarity of their vision of the future. It's like a desert mirage or a drug induced hypnosis. The corporate power junkies have hooked the government. Neither wants a bunch of rabble rousers asking questions that make people think. They already have their plan in motion.
How do we get people to wake up? Did Canadians and Americans know they were coming to Turtle Island to live on someone else's land, that it wasn't empty land? That over 100 million Indigenous people were killed off in the Western Hemisphere?
The colonials described told us as a "vanishing race". They continue to promote genocide. They made a concerted effort to destroy Indigenous political, economic, cultural, social and family life. No one prosecuted known thieves, murderers and racists of Indigenous victims.
Neither Canada nor the United States teaches the historic impact of this genocide and holocaust to school children, immigrants or anyone else. Canada just sent Ernst Zundel back to Germany for being a holocaust denier. What are these states going to do about themselves?
Most Canadians and Americans don't know much about what happened. They prefer the lies they have been told for generations. If they don't come out of this trance, they will remain enslaved to a system that is killing the Indigenous people, the environment and eroding their own human rights.
How can they detoxify themselves and escape the vicious cycle of addiction? They have to educate themselves. Read books. Meet people. Make friends. Watch. Listen. Think. Smell.
Once their senses have been raised, they will be energized. They can face the fact that they or their ancestors came here under false pretenses. They will join us in our struggles. They will speak up. They will demand our and their rights. Like the five arrows that are bundled together, we can stand together to stop the lies.
We need solidarity from people of all cultural backgrounds. They need to recognize that we, the sovereign traditional people, are the legitimate voice of our people. The government entities like the Band Council Inc. speak for the colonial government, not us. Canada violates the rule of law by actively making sure that we are ignored by the international community as the legitimate voice.
Canada breached Section 109 of its own constitution, the British North America Act 1867, by passing the Indian Act in 1875 to bring us illegally under colonial Canadian laws. Canadian federal laws defined us "non-persons".
The rule of law is not "might makes right". The international community rejected colonialism and accepted our philosophy of human equality. Nothing can be done unless a majority of all the people concerned have given their informed consent. The abuses continue because people don't know their rights. That's why a lot of old colonial B.S. is still lying around. The old mules have to be put out to pasture.
What can we do about smart card? We can all refuse to be registered. We don't know what the implications of these smart cards are. The situation is already disturbing.
In Akwesasne some people are taking their names off the rolls so they don't have to take the smart card. They want to continue using their Red Indian Card. It's been in use for generations. One managed to get his name stricken off. The band council retaliated. They passed a resolution that they would refuse to take anyone else off the rolls. A letter was sent to this resister. His family has been living there for as long as they can remember. He was informed he now had no rights to land, housing, water, sewer, education and medical care. He was told to move. This is a violation of international law which requires equal treatment of everyone in any jurisdiction.
We need to support people like him.
None of us know what's on these cards. Whether it's true or false or a violation of privacy. Under the old system, there have been serious errors. I myself found that I had been declared dead. This new system is even more prone to abuse. We don't know who has access and how information is being interpreted. We all become vulnerable to conviction without access to due process that is required under the International Covenant on Civic and Political Rights.
Once again Indigenous people are the canary in the coal mine. What they do to us they will do to everyone else. We need to remind people how catastrophic and horrible such police state tactics have been for us and will be for them too.
Kahentinetha Horn
MNN Mohawk Nation News | | poster: Thahoketoteh | | | |
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