Jessica Crabtree

Booming Out: Mohawk Ironworkers Build New York – Smithsonian Exhibition surveys six generations of Mohawk men and women who helped build New York City

The documentary To Brooklyn and Back tells the little-known stories of the artisans who played an important role in developing the infrastructure of the world’s most famous skyline. Hundreds of Mohawks left the reservations beginning in the early 1900s looking for work in the growing metropolis; taking a leap in the dark, some came with their families, establishing neighborhoods that still bear their name. Kahnawake Mohawk filmmaker Reaghan Tarbell traces her own family history in one of these communities.

PBS Documentary “To Brooklyn and Back: A Mohawk Journey”

Indian Country Today: Documentary Traces Brooklyn’s Mohawk Ironworkers

Image: Katja Esson – Skydancer

Skydancer: A Film by Katja Esson

Beginning with the St. Lawrence Bridge near the Canada border, built in the 1880s, Mohawk emigres first established a reputation in construction. As more Kahnawake crews joined the burgeoning steelworking industry, employers were impressed with their determined work ethic and remarkable coordination and balance – and they quickly became renowned as some of the country’s finest metal builders. The Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, the World Trade Centers, and even the San Francisco State Bridge are all on the impressive list of projects to which they have contributed substantial effort.

The Straight Dope: Why do so many Native Americans work on skyscrapers”

Today, metalworking and construction are almost a family business among Mohawks – they work all over the nation wherever skyscrapers and steel frames go up; many still live in the New York boroughs where their ancestors first “boomed out.”

David Noble: The Mohawk Ironworker Series

From Language Among the Skywalkers by Mushkeg Media

This installment of video-photo essays by Syracuse Post-Standard photographer John Barry explores the winter traditions of the Onondaga nation.

Iroquois people are no strangers to winter weather – their upstate New York homeland gets more than its share of frigid temperatures and snowfall.

Below: Throwing snow snakes and mud cats is a favorite traditional winter sport for Iroquois guys.

Togetherness and thankfulness are the cornerstones of traditional Iroquois culture. The coldest part of the year marks the time of the Iroquois midwinter ceremonies, held in the community longhouse.

Schoolkids make visits to senior citizens to help with chores and errands and share stories, bonding the two pillars of Iroquois society: the children and the elders.

A symbolic circle of pine trees at a counseling center. Members of the community struggling with substance abuse gather for support and healing.

Syracuse Post-Standard: People of the Hills – Winter

From the “People of the Hills” video essays by John Berry of the Syracuse Post-Standard

Summertime is the spotlight in this seasonal journal from the Onondaga Nation in New York state. This time of year is full of the celebration of life: school graduations combine the traditional with the modern; the first harvests from the community gardens begin; and music and dance are everywhere.

The milder summers of upstate New York have everyone outdoors enjoying the sunny weather, making it an ideal time for public events. Late June sees the main summer holiday – the Strawberry Festival – held, as in ancient times, in the community longhouse for all to participate.

Because of water pollution issues encroaching from neighboring areas, scenes like this are becoming increasingly less common. Lake Syracuse itself is a superfund site and is considered one of the most polluted lakes in the country, a condition affecting the water supply of the entire region. The Onondaga Nation is embroiled in major legal battles to reclaim water rights and establish more responsible methods of resource management.

WATCH: Post-Standard Video Essay – People of the Hills (Summer)

May 26, 1912: Mohawk Iroquois film & tv star Jay Silverheels is born

Jay Silverheels was born Harold Smith in Canada on the Six Nations Indian Reserve. His father was a Mohawk chief who had served in World War I. At the time, the Iroquois – like most First Nations people in Canada and their counterparts in the United States – were not considered citizens.

As a young man, Silverheels was incredibly athletic and quickly rose to the status of lacrosse & boxing champion. He came to the US to pursue an athletic career off-rez and soon caught Hollywood’s eye, landing him his first roles as a stuntman and movie extra.

At the time very few Indians were involved in the media spotlight; they almost never received leading roles of any kind and were often overlooked for Native roles in favor of white actors. When Silverheels entered the movie business, Native casting was dominated by actors such as “Iron-Eyes Cody” (an Italian who was billed as an Indian) or by any spray-tanned performer who could be passed off as Indian. It was common practice for white actors with a make-up job to play the lead role of an Indian, while Indians like Silverheels were relegated to being stuntmen or nameless extras with no lines.

Whether the motive was a dependence on big-name actors, or racism, or a need to portray Indians in an artificial and contrived way, this kind of industry provided difficult competition for aspiring Native actors.

Perhaps it was an attempt to create a more “photogenic” Native identity that Silverheels took on his more Indian-sounding screen name in 1945. Originally his nickname on the lacrosse court, “Silverheels” was admittedly more Indian than “Harry Smith.”

His first major movie role was 1948′s Key Largo, the Bogart and Bacall classic also featuring another Native great of Hollywood, Rodd Redwing.

The following year he made his debut in his most famous role as Tonto, the Lone Ranger’s sidekick. The series made history by making an Indian actor a household name; but in the process a generation of Americans were raised with the image of Indians as nodding, grunting sidekicks.

While he continued to star in the low-budget Westerns that were so prolific in the 40′s and 50′s, he was discontented with the availability of good work opportunities for Native actors and the typecasting of Indians on-screen. He later went on to found the Indian Actors Workshop, a project to which he devoted enormous amounts of time and resources. It still operates today.

In 1963 he was inducted into the Screen Actors Hall of Fame, but it was a hollow triumph; the social constraints of the day had limited his achievements in film to a dubious legacy that ran counter to his advocacy efforts off-screen. In addition, racial issues and activism were coming to the forefront in America, and the kind of roles that made him famous also made him an effigy of outdated thinking for a new generation to attack.

Regardless of the controversy surrounding his career, he is still widely recognized as an important television pioneer. His persistence and talent paved the way for a new class of Native actors and actresses, causing many to wonder what he might have achieved had he lived under different circumstances, in another era of film. Jay Silverheels died in 1980 at his ranch in California. He continues to receive posthumous awards for his accomplishments.

Wikipedia: Jay Silverheels

Haudensosaunee Confederacy – Notable People

Jay Silverheels’ “Tonto spoof” on the Johnny Carson Show (1969)

April 21, 1869: Seneca Ely Parker, or Ha-sa-no-an-da, is appointed Commissioner of Indian Affairs by President Ulysses S. Grant

Parker was the first Indian to hold this position; in fact he was the first Indian to hold any cabinet-level government office. His achievements in several fields – engineering, military, and diplomatic – mark major milestones in the history of modern American Indians.

More on Ely Parker’s life and career in this post

April 5, 1755: Mary Jemison is taken captive during a Shawnee raid on the Pennsylvania frontier

Mary Jemison was one of numerous white settlers whose stories of captivity among the Indians became legendary.

The daughter of Scots-Irish immigrants living in what is today central Pennsylvania, she was captured by the Shawnee during a border dispute in which most of her family was killed. She was traded to the Seneca Iroquois and adopted into a family as part of a custom which enabled the replacement lost loved ones, or at least income provided through ransom. Mary eventually married into the Seneca and although offered redemption chose to remain with her adoptive people, becoming known by future settlers in the region as the “White Woman of the Genessee.”

Wikipedia: Mary Jemison

About.com Women’s History: Mary’s Jemison’s Captivity Narrative

Explore Pennsylvania History: Mary Jemison

Indian Country Today – “Thinking in Indian: A John Mohawk Reader”

A review & critical analysis of a compendium of works by the recently departed Iroquois scholar:

“A Seneca Nation elder, thinker and activist, John Mohawk (Sotsisowah) challenged readers to reset and then reboot their value systems—to consider the obvious that we are trained in school to ignore…”

“If you want to compare notes with a man who was a thousand years old in his thinking while also a contemporary of scholars around the world, this is the book for you. It does not get more Indian than this.”

I haven’t read the book yet myself but it’s on my must-have list. It is intriguing to hear the shrewd observations of a Native person, trained in Western academia, who recognizes the relevance of his own marginalized culture’s precepts. Few people are better qualified to voice such an objective assessment of modern Western society, its environmental role, and the crossroads it which it now finds itself. What an apt time for this publication.

Fulcrum Publishing: Product page

Well, spring is now upon us – at least for those of us in most reaches of the Northern hemisphere. The days are noticeably longer and the first signs of green are appearing.

Peoples of every culture since time immemorial have appreciated and commemorated the surge of life and rebirth that the season brings.

This video is part of the Syracuse Post-Standard’s photo essay by John Berry, documenting how the Onondaga nation incorporates the new with the old throughout the cycle of seasons.

From collecting the first sweet sap and gathering freshly-sprouted herbs, to the age-old routine of planting and sowing, to tending the community buffalo farm – the Firekeepers of the Iroquois Confederacy use new ways to teach the old precepts to the younger generation.

Syracuse Post-Standard: People of the Hills – SPRING