It was revealed in Montreal court on June 29 2023 that three well trained cadaver dogs identified the older of human remains at the Hersey Building of the Royal Victoria Hospital of McGill University. Last October the province of Quebec and McGill University insisted that “there were no signs of remains”. On June 9, 2023, the historic human remains detection dog team executed techniques under the “Settlement Agreement” and found remains.
The reason the kahnistensera Mohawk Mothers went into this colonial court system using their own traditional way was to make the defendants accountable to their own laws and actions. Judge Moore made an order to find the remains of the children buried on the grounds of McGill university before building the mass Mount Royal renovation. The problem is the defendants disregarded the kahnisteneras and survivor warning that the site contained human remains. and started building their project violating the respect for human remains. The rule of law does not seem to be for everybody in Canada.. Their own corporations, provincial governments and institutions can pick and chose when to follow the rule of law. The autocracy does whatever they want without consequences, while others are expected to follow them. Our concern is for our children and our sacred land. and accountability. Their remains could be buried anywhere on Mount Royal. Our children want to continue their final journey and not to continue to be violated. On June 30, 2023 the defendants of the Royal Vic Project advertised in the media that they [representing the perpetrators of the crimes] are going to carry out the investigations to which all parties agreed would be indigenous led. The kahnistenser have not been informed about this and wonder why.
Stonewall Jackson, the great predictor, sees what’s coming when he sings about “Waterloo”:
Waterloo Waterloo Where will you meet your Waterloo? Every puppy has his day Everybody has to pay Everybody has to meet his Waterloo
Now old Adam Was the first in history With an apple He was tempted and deceived Just for spite The devil made him take a bite And that’s where old Adam Met his Waterloo
Waterloo Waterloo . . .
Little General Napoleon of France Tried to conquer the world But lost his pants Met defeat Known as Bonaparte’s Retreat And that’s when Napoleon Met his Waterloo
APRIL 20, 2023. COURT STATEMENT OF KAHNISTENSERA “MOHAWK MOTHERS”, QUEBEC, MONTREAL – #500-17-120468-221
This is a historic Agreement between:
The kanienkehaka kahnistensera of Kahnawake, the Mohawk Mothers,
and
The Quebec Government, Royal Victoria Hospital, McGill University Health Centre, McGill University, City of Montreal, Attorney General of Canada and Attorney General of Quebec.
We followed the great peace which is our way since time immemorial. It is the spirit of these children that is making us seek the truth so that we can more clearly see into the future.
We came to the Montreal Supereior Court with the kaianerekowa to find a way to fsearch for the unmarked graves of our children and families. This is how the kahenkehaka [Mohawk Iroquois] are dealing with the issue of genocide. Our children’s lives were devalued. We are using our natural way, with the women at the helm supported by the men.
There will be justice for all children and families.
With the other parties we can put the spirits of our children to rest and that the entities that are responsible for their deaths will be held accountable. We will stay focused and continue searching for justice. We assume that all parties before this court and the whole world will join us in this new beginning.
JOHNNY CASH explains the kahnistensera’s situation pretty well in his song when the mother keeps telling the son not to take their guns to town. They don’t listen to their mother and end up dead.
[Chorus] Don’t take your guns to town son Leave your guns at home Bill Don’t take your guns to town
[Verse 2] He laughed and kissed his mom And said your Billy Joe’s a man I can shoot as quick and straight as anybody can But I wouldn’t shoot without a cause I’d gun nobody down But she cried again as he rode away[chorus]
[Verse 3] He sang a song as on he rode His guns hung at his hips He rode into a cattle town A smile upon his lips He stopped and walked into a bar And laid his money down But his mother’s words echoed again[chorus]
[Verse 4] He drank his first strong liquor then to calm his shaking hand And tried to tell himself at last he had become a man A dusty cowpoke at his side began to laugh him down And he heard again his mothers words [chorus]
[Verse 5] Filled with rage then Billy Joe reached for his gun to draw But the stranger drew his gun and fired Before he even saw As Billy Joe fell to the floor The crowd all gathered around And wondered at his final words
[Chorus] Don’t take your guns to town son Leave your guns at home Bill Don’t take your guns to town
QUEBEC SUPERIOR COURT DECISION – JUDGE GREGORY MOORE. OCT. 27, 2022. THE ORDER :
MNN. Oct. 28, 20220.We are happy to announce yesterday’s successful court decision for the Mohawk Mothers in #500-17-120-468-221 kahentinetha et al v. Societe quebecois des infrastructure et al. This landmark decision halts all excavation work at the Royal Victoria Hospital site. This is the first injunction granted to self-represented indigenous people based on our way of representing ourselves, using our great peace to achieve concensus. The judge decided that the two parties shall spend 4 months together to do this but will convene out of court to determine together the best archeological practices to respect the land and remains.
Judge Moore decided that both parties will use good relations and dialogue to achieve concensus the way kanienkehaka achieve it in the longhouse.
Mohawk Mothers will continue to represent ourselves.
Kimberly Murray, the newly appointed Interlocutor on Unmarked Graves in the case is forming a new legal framework for dealing with unmarked graves and the genocide of our children.
We have demonstrated a strong possibility that our children and others were experimented on and murdered at Royal Victoria Hospital. This ruling is a start in the right direction towards a new legal framework consistent with the two row wampum and kaianerekowa.
This is a turning point on Canadian legislation so indigenous people and the legal system can foster a new relation based on respect and dignity. Once McGill is transformed by this new relationship with onkwehonwe, other institutions will take inspiration and also be transformed.
The court decision will be posted on Mohawk Nation News as soon as it is available. If they understand our process, we will come to one mind. The judge saw that it is time to find another way to deal with what happened to our children by using this ancient process of the longhouse.
Shorty Long “Here Comes the Judge”Niawen to everyone who helped us accomplish our duties and responsibilities as kahnistensera.
Shorty Long sings, “Here comes the Judge”: Here ye, hear ye, the court’s in session, the courts in session. Now here comes the judge. Here comes the judge. Stop eating that fudge, cause here comes the judge. Dont nobody budge, cause here comes the judge. Judge Shorty is presiding today and he don’t take no stuff from nobody. No kind of way. Hey boy take off that hat. Where do you think you’re at. I know were you’re gonna be if you don’t heed my plea. Court’s in session. Order in court. Now court can’t nobody smoke cause here comes the judge. Here comes the judge.
We are due in quebec superior court at 9.00 a.m. on Wednesday, October 26, 2022 for our attempt to get an injunction to stop the excavation of McGill’s Allen Memorial Institute and other areas of tionni tiotialkon and tekanontak, now called Mount Royal, where there are serious suspicions of unmarked graves of our indigenous children.
This is a book about Louis Karonhiaktajeh Hall of Kahnawake and other areas of kanienkehaka’onwe. Niawen’kowa.
Shé:kon We have been notified that a number of actions have taken place this > week at the dig site and the offices of Arkéos. The SQI is accusing us of instigating them. We hereby unequivocally deny any knowledge of what > may have happened. We have absolutely nothing to do with any of this. These are false accusations causing prejudice to our legitimate concerns regarding the unmarked graves of our children. We stress that as the caretakers of our land and children, we are bound to follow the > kaianerehkowa, which includes skennen, peace, as one of its three > pillars. We advocate for the truth to be known, for the land and > children to be protected, and for skennen, peace, to be respected at all times. We refute all false accusations and misinformation by anybody trying to cause prejudice to our legal process to halt the excavation of the unmarked graves of our children. O:nen kanien’keha:ka kahnistensera, Kahnawake
kanien’kehá:ka kahnistensera (Mohawk Mothers) Kahnawake ka***********@ri****.net October 9, 2022 OBJECT:
Re: Arkéos intervention and information meetings on the upcoming excavation in front of the Hersey pavilion of the Royal Victoria Hospital: we were informed that the SQI and McGill have declared that they would wait completing the “information meetings” before carrying out the archaeological intervention. Not so. Arkéos’s intervention can start immediately.
We are wholly opposed to the archaeological intervention in its current form, which dismisses all the guidelines and frameworks that have been developed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and by archaeologists engaged in searching for unmarked graves since the first findings in Tk’emlúps in 2021. Disturbing ancestral and recent Indigenous burial grounds is a very serious matter in our culture, and the area in front of the Hersey pavilion show a very high risk of containing both precolonial and modern graves of our relatives.
The first ethical rule mentioned by the Canadian Archaeological Association (CAA) for searching unmarked graves states that “Any work to locate missing Indigenous children must be led by Indigenous communities”. The upcoming intervention at the RVH is not led by Indigenous people, but rather by development promoters and a private firm they hired. We note that not a single one of the 10 rules determined by the CAA for ethically conducting professional archaeological work on unmarked graves is being respected.
We have repeatedly requested that remote sensing technologies be used before breaking the ground and disturbing the remains of our families. New Vic and Arkéos have acted as if we were in the 1960’s and those technologies did not exist (GPR, cadaver dogs, resistivity tests, conductivity tests, LIDAR, etc.). In order to respectfully treat the remains of our families, we must have an idea of what is underneath the ground before breaking it, so that we will follow our cultural burial practices and the will of the survivors and families.
A bioarchaeologist will not even be on site, only on call. Our request to monitor the work has not been respected either. As the opponents are failng to take our demands into consideration, we hereby announce that we will be taking the following steps to protect the site:
1) On Tuesday October 11th, if the intervention is not postponed, we will file an official grievance to the CAA to stop the professional misconduct of Arkéos inc. and its failure to comply with its national association’s ethical guidelines for searching unmarked graves;
2) When the work starts, we will report to police authorities an ongoing criminal desecration of human remains and destruction of forensic evidence on a crime scene;
3) We will monitor the work ourselves from the sidewalk using binoculars.
As reinstated by the CAA, “the TRC directed that the work of documenting, maintaining, protecting and commemorating residential school cemeteries should be led by the affected communities and families, with guidance from residential school survivors and other Knowledge Keepers, and must respect Indigenous protocols. This work must be undertaken with the utmost care and appropriate mental health supports because of the huge potential to re-traumatize Indigenous communities.” At this stage, we have already been re-traumatized by the way that our legitimate concerns have been completely ignored by the promoters of the New Vic.
Regarding the information meetings, our duty is to inform all parties that these meetings are not consultation. We invite the SQI, as a public institution, to read the Guidelines for Federal Officials to Fulfill the Duty to Consult, which was apparently not consulted as none of its guidelines are followed. As for us, we were not available on the date that the promoters had unilaterally selected for an information meeting with us, on October 6th. We proposed a range of alternative dates, any time between October 10th and October 14th to meet at the 207 Longhouse. The promoters did not respond to our suggested dates. Instead, they told us that we could come on the next day, October 5th at 7:30pm, to the Golden Agers club, after completing the meeting between them and Band Council affiliates, as well as other meetings that day, including cigarette taxation and an Alcoholic Anonymous meeting, that was canceled because of the McGill information meeting. The natural low of the community was totally disrupted.
McGill and the SQI claimed that we declined their invitation, which is not true. That date did not work for most of us. However, two Mohawk Mothers went to the Golden Agers Club in Kahnawake at 6pm to see the information session with Band Councillors. Neither us nor anyone we know was notified by anybody that this meeting was taking place, though we are Longhouse people. We saw in the invitation shared with the court that elders were supposed to be welcome.
The two Mohawk Mothers who went are 77 and 82 years old. They found no more than five Indigenous people inside, most of whom were currently or recently under contract with McGill or Canada, and about 15 non-Indigenous people representing McGill, Arkéos and the SQI. Such situations where Mohawks are outnumbered by White people are extremely rare and sensitive in Kahnawake, as in such cases our “At the Edge of the Woods” ceremony must be followed to access our territory without trespassing.
During the presentation the unmarked graves of our people were not mentioned. All the zones that Arkéos checked in 2016 did not indicate were declared to contain no archaeological interest, regardless of the widely acknowledged fact that this section of tekanontak (Mount Royal) is the exact location of the highly populated villages of our ancestors. This silencing of our history retraumatized us. So we asked direct questions such as “Where are the bodies of our children?” The organizers reacted by calling the police to escort us out of the building.
The Kahnawake Peacekeepers were surprised to see that they had been called in to remove two of their elders who are still shocked. We are waiting for the Peacekeepers to give us the report to understand what happened. We would appreciate if the other parties could use dialogue instead of armed force to deal with differences. Even though we continue to uphold our role as caretakers of the land and the children, we are still humans, and we are still fragile as survivors and elders.
Early in September, a purple haze of smoke ascended over the colonial cross on top of tekanontak (Mount-Royal), at the heart of Tiotiake (Montreal). Kanien’kehà:ka oral tradition says that smoke signals sent by their ancestors on tekanontak used to be picked up in the Adirondaks, making its way down the East Coast with surprising rapidity. Our signal today calls on people across Turtle Island to “open their minds and think how to help” so that these issues do not become white noise.
Tekanontak is at the heart of a colonial dispute. In their press conference of July 27th the Mohawk Mothers detailed their legal struggle to stop the construction of McGill University’s New Vic project. The risks are damaging multiple archeological sites of Rotinonshionni presence on the island of Montreal and throughout onowarekeh, turtle island, and destroying evidence of unmarked graves from the Mk-ultra experiments on indigenous children, orphans and innocent children classed as juvenile delinquents.
Contrary to colonial history’s cover ups, the smoke signaled that it is time to make things right! Mainly to do away with the religious symbols of the atrocities committed on Indigenous peoples ever since the Europeans grabbed Turtle Island. *** To stand firm with the Mohawk Mothers, we call on all solidarity groups to join in action to end the cycle of unquestioned ways of doing.
The Mohawk Mothers have filed an interlocutory injunction to “stop excavation of unmarked graves of children and disturbance of archeological remains of kahnienkehaka/Mohawks on tekanontak [Mount Royal Montreal]”. Regardless of the upcoming hearing on 26th October to address the unmarked graves on the grounds of the Royal Victoria Hospital, McGill and the Société Québécoise des Infrastructures announced that they will start excavating work in early October.
Unmarked Indigenous Graves on McGill Campus https://canada.detailzero.com/news/amp/47970 The Weeks take place on the sidelines of the long legal battle waged by the Kanien’kehaka Kahnistensera (Mohawk Mothers) against McGill University’s New Vic project on the site of the former Royal Victoria Hospital. In this lawsuit against McGill, the City of Montreal, the Attorney General of Canada and the Société québécoise des infrastructures, the Mohawk Mothers seek an interlocutory injunction to stop the construction of the project because of suspicions ” that the site contains unmarked graves of indigenous children (tdlr) “, they express in a statement of September 17th. The hearing is set for October 26. . . . continue
Judge Rules Mohawk Mothers can Speak for themselves according to their own culture. READ PRESS RELEASE
Audio
kanien’kehá:ka kahnistensera (Mohawk Mothers) Kahnawake kahnistensera@riseup.net PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE PUBLICATION Judge Rules that Mohawk Mothers Can Represent Themselves According to their Own Culture. On September 20th, 2022 at the Superior Court in Montreal, Justice Gregory Moore ruled that the Mohawk Mothers (kanien’keha:ka kahnistensera) can represent themselves, dismissing Quebec’s motion to make them get a lawyer. His judgement acknowledged that it is contrary to Mohawk culture to be represented. The Attorney General of Quebec and the Société Québécoise des infrastructures (SQI) are leading this case to stop the Mohawk Mothers from getting an injunction to block McGill’s New Vic project. The case will be heard on October 26th . The September 20th case management hearing also addressed the intervention of the Independent Special Interlocutor on unmarked graves, Kimberly Murray, who was appointed by the Federal government last June. Murray has experience at the National Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the searches for unmarked graves at the Mohawk Institute in Brantford, Ontario. The Special Interlocutor asked the court’s permission to join the case to provide her expertise and file evidence. However, the defendants the Attorney General of Quebec and the SQI opposed her intervention for “conservatory purposes”, impeding her from filing new evidence and historical context. At stake is Quebec’s non-compliance with Federal commitments to facilitate independent investigations of the genocide of Indigenous peoples in Canada. The guilt of genocide has been acknowledged by Pope Francis last July. For procedural reasons, the defendants also want to strike most of the evidence filed by the plaintiffs. Excavation work on the New Vic project is set to start in October 2022, before the hearing on the injunction on October 26th. The Mohawk Mothers want to halt the project to investigate the unmarked graves of victims of medical experiments as alleged by survivors. The Mohawk Mothers are concerned that human remains, forensic evidence and precolonial artifacts will be destroyed. The archeological film Arkéos affirmed the likelihood of finding these on site. McGill declined the Mohawk Mothers’ invitation to have out of court negotiations, while the SQI cancelled an informal meeting between them and Arkéos. The Mohawk Mothers were planning to request that special care be taken to stop any destruction of unmarked graves, using Ground Penetrant Radar, bioarchaeologists and cadaver dogs. The Mohawk Mothers also ask that Quebec’s Cultural Heritage Act be declared unconstitutional as it ignores any consultation with Indigenous peoples. “This law only specifies that they have to sent a notice to the Band Council, who don’t inform our people and who are agents of the Federal government“, said a Mohawk Mother. “It seems that they can legally bulldoze the bodies of our children, cover it up and no questions asked”, she said. By contrast with other provinces like British Columbia where the free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous peoples is required to excavate archaeological sites, Quebec’s Cultural Heritage Act treats Indigenous heritage as a property of the province. The Mohawk Mothers insist that the Royal Victoria Hospital is a crime scene and that forensic evidence must be protected throughout the site. Medical experimentation on mind control, brainwashing and torture techniques was rampant in the 1950s and 1960s. The testimonies and 141 exhibits filed by the Mohawk Mothers on August 26th show that Indigenous children were buried there after being used as guinea pigs in psychiatric experiments. Their research team discovered archival records showing ominous connexions between the Canadian Army’s cold-war deportation of Inuit children, the treatment of Indigenous children labeled as “juvenile delinquents” in residential schools and reform schools, and the CIA’s MK-Ultra program on mind control. This program was run by Dr. Ewen Cameron at the Allan Memorial Institute, which is part of the Royal Victoria Hospital and McGill University. The families of non-Indigenous survivors of the Mk-Ultra experiments are also in a legal battle for reparations. They wrote a letter to the Mayor of Montreal Valérie Plante to ask her to halt the excavation at the Royal Victoria Hospital. For the Mohawk Mothers, however, negotiations are at a stalemate as excavation work soon approaches. The Attorney General of Quebec served intrusive cross-interrogation questions to Kahentinetha, which bore no relation to her testimony. Quebec fears the Mohawk Mothers’ demand for a permanent injunction declaring Tekanontak (Mount Royal) an unceded and inalienable traditional territory of the kanien’keha:ka people. Their demands include removing the cross from the top of Tekanontak, which is a symbol of the atrocities committed against their people. For more information or for booking interviews with the Mohawk Mothers, write to kahnistensera@riseup.net
In traditional Kanien’kéha:ka (Mohawk) society, the Kahnistensera (mothers) play a crucial role in political life, social governance, and land stewardship. The Kahnistensera Mohawk Mothers of Kahnawake are guided by this tradition, rooted in the Kaianerehkowa (the Great Peace), to seek justice for the people of Kahnawake and other Indigenous people whose lands, bodies, and cultures have been harmed by Canadian settler colonialism.
Kanienkehak land at the foot of Tekanonkak (Mount Royal, Montreal) is currently targeted for the construction of McGill University’s “New Vic” project on the site of the former Royal Victoria Hospital, without the permission of the indigenous land owners. However, McGill is on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) territory, and built with funds borrowed from the Rotino’shonni:onwe (Iroquois) Trust Fund, which were never repaid. Furthermore, evidence suggests that the site contains remains of pre-colonial Iroquois villages, as well as the unmarked graves of Indigenous children who were experimented on at the Allan Memorial Institute in the 1950s and 60s as part of the CIA-funded MK ULTRA “mind control” experiments.
In response to this persistent injustice, the Kahnistensera are mobilizing within their own community and with settler allies to advocate for their rights and title. They are joined by a research committee investigating McGill’s history of medical experimentation and its expropriation of Indigenous funds.
Finally, the Kahnistensera are taking McGill, the Société Québécoise des Infrastructures, the Attorney General of Canada and the City of Montreal to court for an injunction to stop the construction project and avoid the destruction of the gravesites. The hearing is scheduled for October 26th, 2022, but McGill University announced that they will proceed with excavation work in the vicinity of the alleged graves before the hearing. If nothing is done, the graves and forensic evidence could be destroyed, causing irreparable harm and profound disrespect to Indigenous communities and the spirits of the children buried at the site.
This struggle has already generated significant attention in Canada and garnered support from thousands of people. The Kahnistensera are now seeking your support to help with legal, research, and administrative costs. They are self-represented in court, refusing to be represented by lawyers who abide by non-Indigenous laws. Speaking the truth about the unmarked graves, treating the burial sites with respect and protecting forensic evidence of medical crimes are essential parts of the reconciliation process. Reconciliation is incomplete, however, without the repatriation of unceded lands. The Kahnistensera’s work is an important step toward restoring Kanien’kehá:ka title and addressing the ongoing legacy of settler colonialism in Canada.
By empowering Kanien’kéha:ka women as decision-makers and stewards of the land, you can help rebuild grassroots communities that is directly linked to Kanien’kehá:ka culture that educates and mobilizes the wider public around the continuing strength of Kanien’kéha:ka ways.
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The kahnistenser have not been informed about this and wonder why.
