Stirring the Ashes
How Mohawk Mothers Fight Against Representation
Abstract
This article draws on participant observation in a legal battle at the Quebec Superior Court in 2022, where the Kanien’kehá:ka Kahnistensera (Mohawk Mothers) sought an injunction to halt excavation work around a hospital where Indigenous victims of medical experiments were allegedly buried. In response to a motion from the government of Quebec, the Mohawk Mothers refused to use a lawyer who would obey colonial law, arguing that it was their traditional duty as caretakers of the territory to speak for themselves and for their community without legal representation. This article examines their fight for self-determination through their specific understanding of the relationship between individual autonomy and social responsibility, notably by way of the Kanien’kehá:ka’s use of a single word to denote assemblies, fires, and families: Kahwá:tsire’. To reach a consensus, when it seems that everyone has come to an agreement, the Kanien’kehá:ka council must “stir the ashes” and ask everyone who has not spoken yet to voice their opinion and bring their unique perspective in the balance. As a result of this method, the author suggests that the Kanien’kehá:ka simultaneously take on the roles of legislators, executors, and judges all at once.
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Tooker, Elizabeth. 1978. “The League of the Iroquois: Its History, Politics, and Ritual.” In Handbook of
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Tuck, Eve, and K. Wayne Yang. 2012. “Decolonization is Not a Metaphor.” Decolonization: Indigeneity,
Education & Society 1 (1): 1–40. https://doi.org/10.25058/20112742.n38.04.
Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo. 2004. “Perspectival Anthropology and the Method of Controlled
Equivocation.” Tipiti: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America 2 (1): 3–22.
Voget, Fred. 1951. “Acculturation at Caughnawaga: A Note on the Native-Modified Group.” American
Anthropologist 53 (2): 220–231.
Wallace, Anthony F. C. 1971. “Handsome Lake and the Decline of the Iroquois Matriarchate.” In
Kinship and culture, edited by Francis L. K. Hsu, 367–76. New York: Routledge.
Wallace, Anthony F. C. 1972. The Death and Rebirth of the Seneca. New York: Vintage Books.
Wysote, Travis, and Erin Morton. 2019. “‘The Depth of the Plough’: White Settler Tautologies and
Pioneer Lies.” Settler Colonial Studies 9 (4): 479–504. https://doi.org/10.1080/2201473X.2018.1541221.
Wyton, Moira. 2023. “Residential School Denialists Tried to Dig Up Suspected Unmarked Graves
in Kamloops, B. C., Report Finds.” CBC News, June 16, 2023.
Yakub, Mehanaz. 2018. “Iroquois Village Dug Up Downtown on Peel Street.” The Eastern Door, August 6, 2018.
Legal Impacts.” Global News, June 5, 2021. https://globalnews.ca/news/7924188/trudeau-indigenous-genocide-legal-impacts/.
Blouin, Philippe. 2022. “For the Children Lost and Yet to Come: Restitution and the Indigenous
Genocide.” PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, Emergent Conversations Series, March 31, 2022. https://polarjournal.org/2022/03/31/for-the-children-lost-and-yet-to-come-restitution-and-the-indigenous-genocide/.
Deer, Brian. 1999. “Review of William Fenton, The Great Law and the Longhouse: A Political History
of the Iroquois Confederacy.” Recherches amérindiennes au Québec 29: 63–76.
Deer, Ka’nhehsí:io. 2022. “Pope Says Genocide Took Place at Canada’s Residential Schools”. CBC,
July 30, 2022. https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/pope-francis-residential-schools-genocide-
1.6537203.
Gal, Susan. 2015. “Politics of Translation.” Annual Review of Anthropology 44: 225–40. https://doi.
org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-102214-013806.
Gehring, Charles, William A. Starna, and William N. Fenton. 1987. “The Tawagonshi Treaty of 1613: The Final Chapter.” New York History 60: 373–93.
Goettner-Abendroth, Heide. 2012. Matriarchal Societies. Studies on Indigenous Cultures Across the Globe. New York: Peter Lang.
Graeber, David, and David Wengrow. 2021. The Dawn of Everything. A New History of Humanity.
Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Hall, Oswald. 1949. “The Use of Sampling Procedures and Role Theory in Sociological Research.”
The Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science 15 (1): 1–13.
Havard, Gilles. 2001. The Great Peace of Montreal of 1701. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Hyslop, Katie. 2020. “Wet’suwet’en Crisis: Whose Rule of Law?” The Tyee, February 14, 2020. https://
thetyee.ca/News/2020/02/14/Wetsuweten-Crisis-Whose-Rule-Law/.
Kahentinetha. 2019. “Guess what! Canadians are ‘Ga na jon’.” Mohawk Nation News, October 18, 2019. https://mohawknationnews.com/blog/2019/11/18/guess-what-canadians-are-ga-na-jon/.
Kahentinetha. 2022. “Mohawk Mothers: Excavation Stops & Injunction Starts.” Mohawk Nation News,
October 8, 2022. https://mohawknationnews.com/blog/2022/10/28/mohawk-mothers-excavation-
stops-injunction-starts/.
Kahentinetha. 2023. “‘RECONCILIATION’ @ PSAC Oct. 19, 2023é” Mohawk Nation News, October
21, 2023. https://mohawknationnews.com/blog/2023/10/21/reconciliation-psac-oct-19-2023/.
Kahentinetha et al. v. SQI et al 2022a. Avis de gestion des Défendeurs SQI et al. (Qc. Sup. Ct. August 1,
2022).
Kahentinetha et al. v. SQI et al 2022b. Amended Originating Application. (Qc. Sup. Ct. September 8,
2022).
Kahentinetha et al. v. SQI et al 2022c. Written Examination of Kahentinetha on a Sworn Statement
at the Pre-Trial Phase – Attorney General of Quebec. (Qc. Sup. Ct. September 18, 2022).
Karoniaktajeh, Louis Hall. 2023. The Mohawk Warrior Society. A Handbook on Sovereignty and
Survival, edited by Philippe Blouin, Matt Peterson, Malek Rasamny, and Kahentinetha Rotiskarewake.
Oakland: PM Press.
Lafitau, Joseph-François. 1724. Moeurs des sauvages américains comparées aux moeurs des premiers temps. Vol. 2. Paris: Saugrain l’aîné–Hochereau.
Lemieux, René. 2022. “L’espace du droit et ses limites : la sculpture Spirit of Haida Gwaii et le wampum à deux rangs (two row wampum) comme images du pluralisme juridique au Canada.” Revue de Droit. Université de Sherbrooke 51 (2–3): 431–63. https://doi.org/10.7202/1095741ar.
McGill Provost’s Task Force on Indigenous Studies and Indigenous Education. 2017. Final
Report. https://www.mcgill.ca/provost/files/provost/final_report_-_clean_-_270617.pdf.
Milum, Nick. 2015. “Kahnawake Mohawk Nation Sends Seizure Notice to McGill.” The McGill Daily,
September 22, 2015. https://www.mcgilltribune.com/news/kahnawake-mohawk-nation-sends-seizurenotice-to-mcgill-092115/.
Morgan, Lewis H. 1877. Ancient Society: Or, Researches in the Lines of Human Progress from Savagery Through Barbarism to Civilization. New York: H. Holt.
Muller, Kathryn V. 2007. “The Two ‘Mystery Belts of Grand River: A Biography of the Two Row
Wampum and the Friendship Belt.” American Indian Quarterly 31 (1): 129–64. https://doi.org/10.1353/aiq.2007.0013.
Parker, Arthur C. 1916. The Constitution of the Five Nations. New York State University Bulletin 184.
Albany: University of the State of New York. https://lccn.loc.gov/16027201.
Parker, Arthur C. 1918. “The Constitution of the Five Nations: A Reply”. American Anthropologist 20:
120–24.
Parmenter, Jon. 2013. “The Meaning of Kaswentha and the Two Row Wampum Belt in Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) History: Can Indigenous Oral Tradition be Reconciled with the Documentary Record?” Journal of Early American History 3: 82–109. https://doi.org/10.1163/18770703-00301005.
Pitkin, Hanna F. 1967. The Concept of Representation. Berkeley: University of California.
Price, Joshua M. 2023. Translation and Epistemicide. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press.
Real Peoples Media. 2020. “Two Row Teachings on the Track,” February 12, 2020. https://realpeoples.
media/video-two-row-teachings-on-the-track/.
Reid, Gerald. 2004. Kahnawà:ke: Factionalism, Traditionalism, and Nationalism in a Mohawk Community. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Richter, Daniel K. 1992. The Ordeal of the Longhouse: The Peoples of the Iroquois League in the Era of European Colonization. Chapel Hill: the University of North Carolina Press.
Schmitt, Carl. 2006. The Nomos of the Earth. New York: Telos Press.
Silverstein, Michael. 2003. “Translation, Transduction, Transformation: Skating ‘Glossando’ on Thin
Semiotic Ice.” In Translating Cultures: Perspectives on Translation and Anthropology, edited by Paula G. Rubel, Abraham Rosman, 75–106. London: Routledge.
Tekarontakeh. 2021. Teyohake and Covenant Chain. Youtube video. Accessed December 18, 2023.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z0qKkAht5s&ab_channel=daisydynamite
Tomesco, Frédéric. 2022. “‘It’s empty’: Montreal Mohawk Women’s Group Slams Pope’s Apology.”
Montreal Gazette, July 27, 2022. https://montrealgazette.com/news/quebec/its-empty-montreal-mohawkwomens-group-slams-popes-apology.
Tooker, Elizabeth. 1978. “The League of the Iroquois: Its History, Politics, and Ritual.” In Handbook of
North American Indians. Vol. 15, edited by William C. Sturtevant, 418–41. Washington: Smithsonian
Institute.
Tuck, Eve, and K. Wayne Yang. 2012. “Decolonization is Not a Metaphor.” Decolonization: Indigeneity,
Education & Society 1 (1): 1–40. https://doi.org/10.25058/20112742.n38.04.
Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo. 2004. “Perspectival Anthropology and the Method of Controlled
Equivocation.” Tipiti: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America 2 (1): 3–22.
Voget, Fred. 1951. “Acculturation at Caughnawaga: A Note on the Native-Modified Group.” American
Anthropologist 53 (2): 220–231.
Wallace, Anthony F. C. 1971. “Handsome Lake and the Decline of the Iroquois Matriarchate.” In
Kinship and culture, edited by Francis L. K. Hsu, 367–76. New York: Routledge.
Wallace, Anthony F. C. 1972. The Death and Rebirth of the Seneca. New York: Vintage Books.
Wysote, Travis, and Erin Morton. 2019. “‘The Depth of the Plough’: White Settler Tautologies and
Pioneer Lies.” Settler Colonial Studies 9 (4): 479–504. https://doi.org/10.1080/2201473X.2018.1541221.
Wyton, Moira. 2023. “Residential School Denialists Tried to Dig Up Suspected Unmarked Graves
in Kamloops, B. C., Report Finds.” CBC News, June 16, 2023.
Yakub, Mehanaz. 2018. “Iroquois Village Dug Up Downtown on Peel Street.” The Eastern Door, August 6, 2018.
Published
2024-11-17
How to Cite
Blouin, Philippe. 2024. “Stirring the Ashes: How Mohawk Mothers Fight Against Representation”. Swiss Journal of Sociocultural Anthropology 30 (1):81–99. https://doi.org/10.36950/sjsca.2024.30.9510.
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