At
the
Woods'
Edge:
An
Anthology of the
History of the People of Kanehsatà:ke
The Reality of Kanehsatà:ke and the Myth of 1721
Below is
an excerpt taken
from At the Woods' Edge: An
Anthology of the History of the People of
Kanehsatà:ke (pages 20-23),
written by Brenda Katlatont Gabriel-Doxtater and Arlette Kawanatatie
Van den Hende,
published in 1995 by the Kanehsatà:ke
Education Center, on the occasion of the 5th anniversary of what
is
commonly referred to as
the "Oka Crisis."
The Reality of Kanehsatà:ke and the Myth of
1721
A myth, the dictionary tells us, "is a view based more on convenience
than on
fact." While a myth contains some truth, it is most often made up of
only "half-truths". A
myth "gives expression to deep, commonly felt emotions." Commonly felt
emotions are
derived from commonly accepted knowledge. For example, when Columbus
sailed the ocean
blue in 1492, it was commonly accepted knowledge that the world was
flat, and most people
belived that his ships would fall off the edge of the world. This
belief was based on
knowledge gained through the interpretation of incomplete or
insufficient information. Myths
have a power all their own, they take on a life all their own and over
time they "form part of
the ideology of a society." History and the way people look at history
gives birth to myths.
The people of Kanehsatà :ke see history one way. The
Euro-Canadian society sees history
another way and has been able to shape history for its own convenience.
The history of
Kanehsatà :ke as the public knows it—that the community came
into existence when the
Seminary of St-Sulpice established a mssion in 1721—reflects the
commonly felt emotions of
commonly accepted knowledge of Euro-Canadians. The knowledge and oral
history of the
people of Kanehsatà :ke are completely absent from the story.
Thus, the story is made up only
of half-truths. It is, therefore, little more than a myth.
In the year 1721, the story which has become myth goes, as the frigid
winds of February
swept across the land known by the Europeans as Nouvelle France, a
group of Onkwehón :we
and a priest of the Seminary of St-Sulpice left the Sulpician mission
at Sault-aux-Recollets on
the north shore of the island of Montreal and made their way west over
the froen waters of
Rivière des Prairies. The people walked on snowshoes or rode on
sleighs. Then where the
Rivière des Prairies joins the St-Lawrence and Ottawa rivers,
the travellers turned north and
entered Lac des Deux Montagnes. Slowly they continued up the lake and
finally arrived at
their destination, the Seigneurie du Lac des Deux Montagnes, on the
northwestern shore. In
this uninhabited, wilderness place the priest and athe people began a
new life together. Here,
the Seminary of St-Sulpice established an Indian mission ; here the
Indians settled ; and her,
to this day, live their descendants.
This poignant, romantic tale of Kanehsatà :ke's founding
originates from even greater and
more powerful myth—that of European heroism. This ssecond myth calls
forth images of a
heroic age when the French came to a rude and savage land to bestow the
great religious
traditions of Europe on the ‘untamed' people of the New World. The
Jesuits were the first to
come. They were followed by the Sulpicians and then by other French
religious orders.
Occasional news from the Old World helped sustain these men and women
in their work. At
the same time their writings and their visits to France served to
nourish the European belief
that, in bringing their high civilization to others, all people and the
world would progress.
What then is the nature of the myth of 1721 and the visions it conjures
up ? It has been told
again and again by historians and by many others who, for different
reasons, have taken an
interest in the community. In fact, this version of Kanehsatà
:keès history hass been repeated
so often it has become accepted wisdom in most circules. The story
originatd with the
Seminary of St-Sulpice, which was granted the land at Kanehsatà
:ke by the King of France,
and is now taken as the only authentic report of the community's
beginnings. So powerful and
striking is thi account that it has reached mythical proportions and
all other evidence of
Kanehsatà :ke's history before the Sulpicians arrived has been
shrouded by it.
Since 1721, this version of the community's origins has been used in
any number of ways to
convince the powerful forces of law and government that the
Kanehsata'kehró :non hold no
legitimate right to the land. At the same time, it was used on
successive occasions to reinforce
and finally to cast into law, the claim of the Seminary of St-Sulpice
to the land.[1]
The extraordinary lack of curiosity by historians and governments to
investigate, bring to light
and then pursue more information on the early history of
Kanehsatà :ke is astonishing in itself
and their failure to do so means the Seminary's view of history now
dominates the literature
almost completely.[2] Here, in this version of history we see the
full-blown belief of Terra Nullius as defined and discussed by
Boyce Richardson
in his recent book.
"Terra Nullius," writes Richardson, "a land that is empty of
people. This is a legal
concept used by Europeans when they first arrived in North America.
They wanted to justify
their claim to own all he land, pretending that no one else had been
there first."[3]
There is no doubt that in or about 1721, a group of Onkwehón
:we, in the company of a
priest of the Seminary of St-Sulpice, moved to Kanehsatà :ke.
There is no doubt that the
Sulpicians founded a mission and that the descendants of this group of
Onkwehón :we now
live in Kanehsatà :ke.[4] These facts are well documented, but
beyond this simple tale is a
great wealth of oral history other documentary evidence and some
archaeological findings
which, at the ver least, show an occuption of the land long before the
Seminary arrived. Even
a cursory examination of different colonial records points to the
existence of a settlement
before the Sulpicians arrived. Clearly then, more recognition must be
given to information
other than that supplied by the Seminary of St-Sulpice. Only be
exploring different evidence
and points of view can new light be shed on the past.
Notes
1. This view of history was employed as recently as 1990 during the
so-called Mohawk
Crisis, when the Department of Indian Affairs issued a press release on
the "Oka Issue." In it,
the Department of Indian Affairs explained the Government of Canada's
rejection of the
Kanehsata'kehró :non land claim of 1975 by the people of
Kanehsatà :ke (along with
Kahnawà :ke and Akwesasne) was rejected, since the "Mohawk
present in the region did not
predate European presence, the Mohawk came to settle at Oka only after
the Mission was
established in 1721," and "the Mohawks could not assert aboriginal
title as they had not
maintained possession of the land since time immemorial. The land being
alternately and
concurrently occupied by the Nipissings, Algonquin and Iroquois."
2. See for instance, Travels in North America, Peter Kalm, 1749,
Travels in the Americas,
History of the Catholic Missions Among the Indian Tribes of the United
States, 1529-1854,
John Gilmary Shea, 1899 ; "The First Indian ‘Reserves' in Canada, Revue
d'Histoire de
l'Amérique Français, Vol. 4, No. 2, September, 1950 and
W.N. Fenton and Elisabeth Tooker,
in Northeast, p. 472. Some historians have suggested a Five Nations
presence in the region.
For instance, in his multi-volume work on France and England in North
America, 1893,
Francis Parkman discusses, at some length, the presence of ‘enemy
Iroquois' around the lower
Ottawa River in 1660. In the Dictionnaire Historique et
Géographique des Paroisses, Missions
et Municipalités de la Province de Québec by Hormisdas
Magnan, 1925, the author notes that
"before 1700 the parish [of L'Annonciation] was composed of Iroquois
and Algonquin
savages." In her thesis, La Politique Missionnaire des Sulpiciens aux
XVIIe et XVIIIe Siècles,
1668-1735, Louise Tremblay makes mention of a Mohawk presence at the
Lake of Two
Mountains before the Sulpicians arrived. According to Tremblay, the
Mohawks settled at the
lake of Two Mountains following the decline of the Five Nations. In
addition, the Oral
History of Kanehsatà :ke is full of evidence of a pre-1721
Kanien'kehà :ka settlement known
as Kanehsatà :ke, located at the Lake of Two Mountains.
3. People of Terra Nullius : Betrayal and Rebirth in Aboriginal Canada,
Boyce Richardson,
Douglas & McIntyre, Vancouver/Toronto, 1993, p.vii.
4. Oka, Les Vicissitudes d'Une Mission Sauvage," Revue Trimestrielle
Canadienne, XVI,
June, 1930, pp.121-149 and "Histoire d'Oka, ‘La Mission du Lac des
Deux-Montagnes, fond/e
en 1721'," Rene Marinier, p.s.s. Cahier du Lac des Deux-Montagnes.
Website:
www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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