BY: DOUG GEORGE-KANENTIIO

INDIAN TIME - Vol. 23 #14 - Onerahtokha / April 7, 2005 Edition - Page 2

As a child at Akwesasne I attended the St. Regis Village School, then a Catholic institution where the students were taught by Nuns from the Sister of St. Anne with assistance from the Parish priest, a Jesuit from our sister community of Kahnawake.

While having a Mohawk priest administering to a Mohawk congregation may have convinced the Church that greater sensitivity would be shown towards our culture and Indigenous beliefs the opposite was true.

As students we were saddled with the imagery of our ancestors torturing Catholic priests by mutilating their bodies before roasting them alive and, while engaged in this act of savagery said to be characteristic of the Mohawks, dancing, prancing and rapturously celebrating the slow demise of those intrepid missionaries who sought only to deliver us from conditions of sin and depravity. Again and again we were told lurid tales of the crimes against the Church committed by our ancestors until we came to believe that but for the intervention of the priests and nuns we would surely be condemned to eternal hell fire just as hot and painful as the flames which perversely caressed the soles of the North American Martyrs.

There was not much good to be extracted from our history except when we abandoned heathenism to embrace the Holy Church.

For generations our community lived under the firm rule of the Church as it was the decisive political, social, economic and spiritual force since Akwesasne was reestablished as a Mohawk Christian settlement in 1755.

The strong hand of the Church was only relieved in the 1960s with the birth of the Native rights movement of which Akwesasne soon became the most important communications center. Leading the revival of our ancestral rituals, many of which predate organized Christianity, were a small group of Mohawks who risked their freedom to attend our Indigenous ceremonies on Iroquois reservations far from the scrutiny of our Parish priest.

As we began to relearn our history and ancient beliefs so did we begin to resent the Church for its blanket demonization of our spirituality. We did not "dance with the devil" when we gathered to express our collective thanks to a benevolent earth nor were we surrendering to lust when we danced and sang in honor of the natural world. Contrary to what we had been told, these rituals made us feel good and liberated us from guilt and fear.

Hundreds of Mohawks abandoned the Church to return to their "longhouse" ways where they could finally begin to heal from generations of oppression. But our anger at the Church lingered.

In September, 1984 that bitterness began to recede when the late John Paul II visited the Martyrs Shrine in Midland, Ontario. He made it clear he wanted to meet with the Mohawks, those descendants who had destroyed the Catholic Mission of St. Marie in 1648. He not only embraced a large delegation of Catholic Mohawks but also did something extraordinary and unexpected.

Pope John Paul II, the Vicar of Christ on Earth, agreed to take part in an ancient Native cleansing ritual, one meant to clarify the mind prior to reaching a state of humility, compassion and understanding. Ernest Benedict, one of our most admirable leaders, blessed the Pope with an eagle feather and smoke and then spoke words of healing, words to put aside centuries old pain. Following these words of condolence for the spirits past, Pope John Paul listened to one of our ceremonial chants (sung by Lawrence "Happy" Laughing-Ahonwenrate) since we believe certain kinds of music have the innate power to restore what is called in Mohawk "kanikenriio" or the "good mind".

Did this work? I believe it did.

The Pope spoke at Midland of the need to heal the divisions which had kept Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal apart. He emphasized the need by the Church to help revive Native culture while stating it was his "personal joy" to be with our people. He had preceded this by elevating the young Mohawk woman, Kateri Tekakwitha, to beatification status, but one level below sainthood.

As an advocate for the traditional elements at Akwesasne I was stunned, I found it astonishing the spiritual leader of over 1 billion people would make such an overture and actually call his historic speech "The Celebration of the Good Word" which for me meant an acknowledgement that the manner in which we honored our Creator was as viable as any other faith, Christian or otherwise. It was clear to me the good works at Akwesasne of the late Father Francis Arsenault in the 1960s and 70s to promote peace had been sustained by the Pontiff.

The Pope followed his visit to Midland with a special trip to the Dene people of the Northwest Territories in 1987 in which he called for the Native right to self determination. Over the years he has also granted audiences to small groups of Mohawks visiting the Vatican. His pleasure at being with Native people was obvious and sustained over the course of his papacy. He truly changed the Church at all levels by removing distrust and fostering a remarkable discourse between our faiths, Christian and Indigenous, which continues to the present day.