Mohawk Shawn Brant speaks to reporters last night after his protesters lit two bonfires in the middle of the highway near Marysville, Ont. (Ryan Carter/The Globe and Mail)
Wonder if he’s related to Joseph Brant, killer of women and children and Mohawk war leader on the British side in fighting in the Mohawk Valley, NY, during the War of Independence.
The Mohawks should be glad they weren’t exterminated during those days, they were firm allies of the British, mortal enemies of the French and later, of the Americans. The Mohawks oppressed all their neighbors and destroyed the Huron Confederacy, helped defeat Metacomet or King Phillip in his war against the British colonists by attacking the Delaware Confederacy in the rear while the settlers took the offensive from the east.
Some redeeming characteristics of the culture are a premium on personal courage and fierce independence. Downsides included the enjoyment of ritual torture: the slow roasting and skinning alive of captives, to include children and a taste for human flesh.
I can’t see the point of letting aboriginal peoples style themselves as “nations” any loger. The only reason for treaties in the first place was to assert a legal claim for use in intra-European power politics of the time. Those times are long past, all treaties and special rights and statuses should be extinguished.
Vae victis, I believe is the tagline.
Many of these people have a direct line of descent on the one side to Britain, Ireland and Europe. Civil servants should pursue genealogy and really put things in perspective.
Tim Hortons was chock ablock this morning on Bay Street, Sault Ste Marie. I could not wait. Then I saw a certain group of presumably natives marching down to Clergue Park. One was carrying a tattered white flag. Hmm.....
I am going to quietly observe that scene later. We were promised "Information only" by local chiefs. Certainly I respect that. Hope it keeps that way.