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The MOHAWK: KANIEN’KEHAKE or “People of the Flint.”

The MOHAWK:  KANIEN’KEHAKE or “People of the Flint.”

(I added this, because the Mohawk people were living side by side with the early settlers in Franklin County, Northern New York.)

 

Link to to the original source

Link to the source   Link to Hogansburg/Bombay history page

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Link to Nelson Jesmer documents     Biographical letter by Jesse Johnson  

How the Jesmers came to Minnesota

Link to Joseph A. Jesmer (Nelson’s Dad)

 

The Mohawk Nation is one of five founding nations of the Iroquois Confederacy formed by neighboring and closely related North American Native Nations: the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and the Seneca. According to the oral history of the Iroquois, the founding date was some time between AD 1000 and 1450, and maybe as late as 1600 according to some writers, but certainly before the arrival of the Europeans. Later on, in the early eighteenth century, a sixth nation, the Tuscarora, was admitted to their fold, although they are still known as “The Five Nations.” They were also know as the “People of the Longhouse” or HAUDENOSAUNEE (ROTINONTSIONNI) from the rectangular shape of their communal houses and the layout of their territories. Thus the lands of the Confederacy are likened to a communal house, and the role of each Nation is likened to that of the family occupying the same position in a communal house. The Mohawks guarded the territory in the East and became know as the “Eastern Doorkeepers,” the Seneca were the “Western Doorkeepers.” The Onondagas in the middle were the “Firekeepers” while the Cayuga and Oneida are the “Younger Brothers” and the Tuscarora the “Adopted Brothers.”

The name “Mohawk” was given to them by the Algonquin Nation and was later adopted by the British, Dutch, French and Americans due to the fact that it was easier to spell and to pronounce. Their true name is KANIEN’KEHAKE or “People of the Flint.” By being called the Mohawks through history, they more or less accepted that name in the same manner as they accepted being called “Indians.” Some people in Akwesasne are of Abenaki, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga and Huron blood but the majority are of Mohawk or Kanien’kehake descent.

Akwesasne today is a small remnant of the hunting and dwelling grounds that the Mohawk have occupied for eons. During the mild and warmer months they lived in the area along the St. Lawrence River, true name Kaniatarakeh. During the colder weather they migrated to the “MohawkValley” – what is now Central New YorkState – near present-day Fonda and Auriesville. The Mohawks were never tent, tee pee or wigwam dwellers. They erect tidy, comfortable and permanent homes using locally available building materials, in the past in the form of long houses (averaging in size from 80 to 120 feet) covered with Elm bark and sometimes Hemlock bark, in the present in the form of European style houses. Their St. Regis village closely resembles the villages of central and eastern Europe, and especially the villages of the plain in eastern Hungary, the Ukraine and Russia.

 




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