Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society

Vol. 3, No. 3, 2014, pp. 134-144  

 
The Akwesasne cultural restoration
program: A Mohawk approach to land-
based education
 

Taiaiake Alfred  
University of Victoria  

Abstract  
This article tracks the creation of a cultural apprenticeship program in the Mohawk community
of Akwesasne. The program aims to give youth in the community the necessary skills,
knowledge and experiences in land, language and culture to help the Mohawks of Akwesasne
retain and regenerate land based practices in the community. The program arose from
Akwesasne’s participation in the Natural Resources Damages Assessment (NRDA) process. This
is the legal process that resulted from the 1981 “Superfund” legislation in which corporations
must provide redress to communities that have suffered from the egregious pollution of their
local environments. Although constrained by the legal requirements of the process, the Mohawks
of Akwesasne re-envisioned the process within a context of their own nationhood by focusing on
these two questions: How has industrial pollution affected the Akwesasne Mohawks’ people’s
way of life? And, what can be done to restore that way of life? This article explains how the
research was carried out of the NRDA process and used to negotiate for the funds necessary to
establish the cultural apprenticeship program.

 
 
Keywords: Mohawk; Akwesasne; cultural restoration; cultural apprenticeship; Indigenous
nationhood

 
 
 
 

2014 T. Alfred This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0), permitting all non-commercial use,
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
 Akwasanse cultural restoration program 135

 
 

We used the river and the land for our livelihood, cause we fished and whatever
fish we didn’t eat, other people ate. And we did a lot of our own gardens and ate
whatever we produced. We used to live off the land before. We had no welfare
back then, we had to live off the land. In my elders’ time, everybody fished and
gardened, the whole village, and a lot of people came and bought stuff from us.
After that, everything changed… - Akwesasne Elder

Early in 2014, the Mohawk community of Akwesasne began a land-based and language-infused
cultural apprenticeship program that gives learners the opportunity to apprentice with master
knowledge-holders to learn traditional, land-based, cultural practices, including hunting and
trapping, medicinal plants and healing, fishing and water use, and horticulture and black ash
basket making. The Akwesasne Cultural Restoration (ACR) program was designed through a
collaborative community-based effort to counter the cultural impacts of environmental
contamination that occurred in the area from the 1930s through the 1980s. The program came
about after a ten-year process of research, community consultation and program design as the
community’s consensus response to cultural loss as a result of industrial chemical contamination.
Program funding is part of a legal settlement reached through the 1981 “Superfund” legislation,
that enables redress and compensation for communities affected by egregious pollution of their
natural environments. The legal process to seek redress is structured by United States Federal
Law through the Natural Resources Damages Assessment (NRDA) process. The Mohawks of
Akwesasne, as part of a “trustee” group which also included US federal government and New
York State agencies, put forward and defended their understanding of cultural loss within the
context of their nationhood and in contention with the corporations responsible for the
contamination: General Motors (GM) and the Aluminum Company of America/ALCOA. The
community’s articulation of a culturally grounded, consensual approach to redress centers on a
unique concept of, and approach to, cultural restoration. This article describes the ACR program
and the process the community undertook to secure funding for a settlement, conceptualize an
approach to restoration, and design a model and structure for implementing a Mohawk vision of
land-based education.
As Principal Consultant on the project, my role was to conduct research and prepare
reports forming the basis for negotiating a legal settlement agreement, and to advise the St. Regis
Mohawk Tribe’s NRDA team.1 In later phases of the work, including negotiating a settlement

                                                                                                                       
1
I acknowledge and express gratitude to Ken Jock and the whole of the SRMT’s environment division for allowing
me to be a part of this important work, especially NRDA coordinator Barbara Tarbell for being such a passionate
and effective leader in defending the community’s vision in this process, and to Jari Thompson and Amberdawn
Lafrance, two dedicated staff members who were crucially important of this work getting done and this process
moving forward. I would also like to acknowledge my two collaborators on the Anthropological Report – Drs.
Theresa McCarthy and Stella Spak.

 
 
136 T. Alfred

and designing the ACR program, the NRDA team and I worked with around fifty community
members: some as researchers and others as participants in public consultations. The consultative
work focused on two questions fundamental to understanding both the pollution’s cultural
impacts and potential restitution measures: How has industrial pollution affected the Akwesasne
Mohawks’ people’s way of life? And, what can be done to restore that way of life? We started
off in 2004 with community meetings to introduce our work and our team, and to allow the
community members to voice their perspective on the work we were setting out to do. Based on
this engagement with the community, we designed a research approach. The research began with
an investigation, in a scientifically rigorous and formal academic manner, of the effect
contamination has had on the traditional land-based culture of Akwesasne. We used all the
knowledge resources available in the community, including written sources from history books
and newspapers, personal testimonies, scientific studies and oral histories - documented as part
of this project. We did all of our work under the guidance of an advisory committee made of up
respected people from the community who have knowledge and interest in the area of the
environment and traditional land-based cultural practices.
The investigation phase concluded in 2006, with the submission of the team’s findings
contained in an anthropological report to the companies and the other parties in the process. The
report concluded that GM and ALCOA had released contaminants such as PCBs, heavy metals
and fluoride into the environment and that, as a result, the community’s way of life was affected,
starting in 1955.2 Prior to 1955, almost every family in Akwesasne was reliant on the land, the
river, and the harvesting of fish, plants and animals - called “traditional resources and resource-
based cultural practices.” One elder’s answer to the question of whether or not the release of
contaminants into the river changed his way of life is illustrative of the sense most Mohawks that
we talked to in our work had:

I had to start working away from here; there were no other jobs available. If I
hadn’t left here, I would have been like my father, I would’ve hunted and had the
knowledge to become a fisherman, and to trap for muskrats. My father taught me
everything, how and where to hunt if I wanted to, and if we were able to…

Overall, we found that traditional cultural resource practices have survived but, as a community,
because of pollution, Akwesasro:non have been denied the opportunity to provide their families
with healthy foods, to fulfill their traditional obligations toward the land, waters, plants and
animals, and, denied the opportunity to pass on practical, spiritual philosophical and language-
based knowledge of what it means to be Mohawk. In the past, life in Akwesasne centered on the

                                                                                                                       
2
Contaminants released into the natural environment include the PCBs Aroclor (1248) and Therminol,
polychlorinated dibenzofurans, dioxins, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, fluorides, cyanide, aluminum, arsenic,
chromium, and styrene. There was also evidence indicating a probable release of heavy metals, including lead,
arsenic, cadmium, chromium, and methylmercury.

 
 
 Akwasanse cultural restoration program 137

river, which provided the people with their main food sources; fishing as an economic and
cultural activity was central to the identity of the people.
The river also provided the people with a source of clean drinking water, transportation,
and recreation, in swimming. Being cut off from the physical, psychological and re-creative
sustenance provided to Akwesasro:non by the river has impacted the people negatively in many
ways. People have suffered great harm in losing the ability to fish and use the water of
Kanienterowannene, the great flowing majesty (as the river is called in the Mohawk language)
and the other rivers that flow through Akwesasne. This remembrance by another Mohawk elder
invokes the sense of practical and personal loss felt by those who experienced the devastating
transition from the traditional lifestyle to their modernized post-contamination existence:

My grandmother taught me how to row and how to make the boat go sideways so
we wouldn’t drown, so our boat wouldn’t capsize… When it rains we would try
hard to get to an island and turn over the boat. The winds would be so strong that
we would have to take cover under the boat. After the storm had passed we would
then get back in the boat and keep going. Sometimes we would have to hide there
for a long time before we got going. We took a lot of abuse to get what we
needed… This is how we managed to get around on the river, and there were many
times in the early hours of the morning I would stand out there and watch the fish
as they swam around. Today you will never experience this sight when you go
down to the river. There were no contaminants then, and you could see, everything
was so visible, it was so clear. And I drank that water, I did everything. My tree is
still standing there where I used to hang my clothes… a willow tree, it’s been
chopped away at, but it’s still standing there…

The community relied on fishing, gardening and farming to support themselves, and the sale of
hand-made baskets and locally produced or collected food items supplemented their incomes.
These activities were central aspects of people’s lives right up to the time of forced acculturation,
when pollution made such activities very difficult if not impossible. The contaminants released
by the companies had harmful effects on medicine plants. In some cases, the pollution has led to
the disappearance of medicine plants and, in other cases, it has changed the appearance or taste
of the plants, making them unusable. Medicines also came from animal parts that can now no
longer be obtained for similar reasons. While some healers still travel to distant locations in order
to attempt to gather traditional medicines, sadly, much of this knowledge has been lost and what
remains is at risk because traditional healing can no longer be practiced without the availability
of medicines in the territory. People also depended on hunting and trapping in order to
supplement their diet and income. Because of the closeness of their contact with the animals and
natural environment, hunters and trappers were some of the first people to notice changes in the
animals and decided against using their meat or other parts, and restricted or stopped their
practices altogether well before any official advisories were issued, a phenomena that began
occurring in 1981.

 
 
138 T. Alfred

Until the contaminants’ ill effects became apparent, Mohawk people in Akwesasne were
largely self-sufficient. The ability to produce, store, barter and sell most food items was the basis
for people’s economic security and security in their land relationship, including the power to
make choices and to be in control of the way they interacted and adapted, or not, to change.
Akwesasro:non themselves decided on whether to adopt or reject new technologies while
keeping the overall horticultural, fishing and farming practices grounded in the traditional values
instructing Mohawks on how to interact with Iekenistehnohontsa, Our Mother Earth.
Aside from the destructive effects of cultural loss impacting the community as a whole,
the psychological effects of having been cut off from a healthy, functional ecosystem as the basis
for the traditional way of life were devastating to those who endured the transition. Our research
found that the changes deeply impacted the community in many negative ways, and that the
effects are multi-generational, in that they continue to cause harm among the people today, even
though the younger generations did not directly experience the moment of alienation from a
land-based lifestyle. Akwesasro:non continue to be denied their full connection to the sources of
their cultural, spiritual and physical strength as individuals and as a people. Respected Mohawk
elder Jake Swamp succinctly conveyed the spiritual and psychological effect of this
disconnection from the land, from each other, from the sources of their identity as Onkwehonwe,
Indigenous peoples, and as human beings in this observation:

The way I think of it, it’s like they put handcuffs on your wrists. You’re no longer
free to live the way you want to live, it’s like something’s holding you back,
holding you down. It often feels like that.

Yet, the people of Akwesasne did not let the story end with the harming of the natural
environment and their people. They refused to be victims of contamination and instead chose to
push back against the idea that their culture and traditional ways were destroyed due to the
companies’ careless actions. They began to develop arguments and strategies to counter, and
means to organize, for restoration of their cultural practices and of healthy relationships between
the Mohawk people and the other nations of beings inhabiting the natural environment. This
cultural resurgence had been going on for some time in the community even before the avenue of
the NRDA opened up. Akwesasne’s awareness of contaminants and consequent health and
environmental impacts had been emerging for years through experience and was shared through
social networks in the community; this was a gradual, collective, cumulative process. In fact,
addressing the effects of industrial contamination in the area would not have happened had it not
been for the willful and persistent efforts of Akwesasne Mohawk community members, most
notably the midwife and community activist Katsi Cook who, on many fronts, worked to address
and advance multiple strategies for dealing with these circumstances. Community members’
commitment to activism and, specifically, direct action aimed at countering contamination and
environmental racism is itself an important facet of the adaptation of cultural practices involving
the land, the river, and ecosystems at Akwesasne.

 
 Akwasanse cultural restoration program 139

Befitting this Mohawk approach to confronting contamination, the end-goal of the NRDA
process was not the documentation of the negative effects of contamination, although this truth-
telling was an important stage in the legal process. A primary motivator for the St. Regis
Mohawk Tribe’s involvement in the NRDA process was to ensure that GM and ALCOA were
held to account and forced to follow through on their moral and legal obligations to work with
Mohawks to start restoring the health of the natural environment, and to support Akwesasne in
their efforts to rebuild their crucial connections to the river and the land. Once the harm was
documented, our work turned to finding a way forward on a path that differed from the one laid
out by the NRDA process. Prior to the work we did, NRDA settlements focused on remediating
harms to the natural environment and compensating people for the calculated value of their lost
use of natural resources. What we did in Akwesasne was new; rather than seek compensation for
damages, per se, we sought to envision a way for General Motors and ALCOA to provide
financial support for programs that would restore the relationships that are crucial to the
expression of Mohawk identity. We decided that “restoration” meant reconnecting youth in
Akwesasne to the land and the waters and restoring crucial relationships were disconnected by
pollution.
Finding the right path involved asking some difficult questions: What could the
companies do to make up for what they have done to the Mohawk people? Can you put a
monetary value on what has been lost? What could be done to reconnect and re-strengthen?
These questions re-focused our team’s efforts as we left the investigation phase behind and got to
work on conceptualizing what land-based cultural restoration looks like from an Akwesasne
Mohawk perspective.

I hate to say but there’s been a gradual decline where money has become the most
important thing in life, and what money can do for you and what money can buy
for you. But it seems like in the last few years, I see little glimpses of the old ways
coming back… you know like people are starting to want to move back to the
Island, they got their gardens there and things like that, people are learning how
to tap maple trees… We used to do all that. Maybe we’ll get back, and I think part
of the answer about things getting back to their original value is when we start
with our individual selves, when we start to respect ourselves again and demand
respect from our children, and everything else I believe will trickle down from
that, so that you will respect again what the Creator put on Earth for our use.

This quote, taken from the reflection of a Mohawk elder on the difference between the old way
of life she grew up with and the way things are now in Akwesasne, captures a palpable sense of
loss representative of the collective loss felt in the community, yet also illustrates the hopeful
vision of reconnection that we tried to embody in the plan for cultural restoration.
The most prevalent view on restoration in the community is that the companies should
shut down operations and pay to restore the natural environment to its original condition, as it
was before the companies’ arrival. This means an end to polluting, and expending whatever
moneys and taking whatever measures necessary to revive the health of the land, the river, the

 
 
140 T. Alfred

animals, the plants and, thus, the people. It had to be acknowledged by all of us working in the
NRDA process that we were not going to achieve this vision of justice or even anything
resembling fair restitution or compensation. Instead, our work was part of a larger and longer
term effort, and was simply one avenue and one set of tools to achieve the community’s goals in
relation to environmental and cultural restoration. Pragmatically, we accepted the position that
what we were doing was better than doing nothing at all, and more so, even in spite of the
process’ inherent limitations, was necessary because it was an opportunity to stave off the
cultural loss that was occurring in the community at an accelerated rate due to the continuing loss
of knowledge holders. We rationalized that short of doing what is ultimately right and absolutely
necessary, the companies and government agencies can achieve some alleviation of the cultural
damage caused by the contamination of the natural environment by supporting the Mohawk
community in its ongoing struggle to adapt and to survive.
One of the underlying assumptions of the community’s approach to restoration is that
cultural damage must be considered for its overall effect on the life of the community and must
recognize that culture is practice and, as such, cultural damages have affected the practices that
ensured cultural continuity, self-sufficiency, and political independence. The Mohawks suffered
cultural harm, and in suffering cultural harm, their freedom as individuals and independence as a
community was severely impacted as well. In this sense, the environmental contamination
resulted in direct cultural damage, which not only has cultural effects but political and economic
effects. This must be considered in designing and developing a response that hopes to be viewed
by Akwesasro:non as appropriate and adequate. Cultural harm is economic harm. Cultural harm
is also political harm. Given that addressing the political effects of cultural harm was outside the
purview of the NRDA process, the approach to restoration we outlined focused solely on the two
aspects which can be addressed within the legal framework of the process: cultural and economic
restoration – as well, the work to investigate and remediate harms to the natural environment
were a separate effort under the NRDA.
Akwesasne’s approach to cultural restoration is rooted in the community’s experience
and understanding of cultural harm. We do not see the ACR as a panacea for all of the harm
experienced. It is a limited form of restoration constrained by the conceptual parameters of
causation and harm established scientifically in the anthropological report. Specifically, our plan
addresses only the cultural harm that was identified as being directly caused by the release of
contaminants into the natural environment by the companies since the 1950s. It does not seek
redress or advocate measures to address changes in community practices attributable to general
cultural change as a result of the growth of industrial activities and the intensification of non-
indigenous settlements in the area beginning in the mid 19th century and intensifying in 1930s.
The report was clear in explaining the approach taken, differentiating general effects from those
harms directly caused by the release of contaminants by the companies in the timeframe under
consideration. It is important to emphasize, however, that our approach is premised on a notion
of culture where Mohawk cultural ways, like all others, are not static but continuously changing
due to naturally occurring factors such as cultural and technological diffusion and gradual

 
 Akwasanse cultural restoration program 141

variations in resource availability. There is every indication from the pattern of adaptation
demonstrated by Mohawks through the 1950s that, as long as there was room to do so, they
would have found a way to incorporate and adapt to the new technological and environmental
conditions within an intact land-based cultural framework. Thus the restoration plan responds to
specific obstacles to cultural adaptation presented by the release of contaminants by the
companies.
The cultural restoration plan was developed directly from input by community members
and is based on established educative practices and traditional modes of knowledge transfer. Its
prime commitment is to be respectful of the community’s experience in offering a useful
approach to regenerating traditional cultural practices on the land and the water. One way it will
do this is by establishing and directly supporting long-term master-apprentice relationships in the
four areas of traditional cultural practice that were harmed by the release of hazardous
contaminants. The cultural restoration plan will promote and support the regeneration of
practices associated with traditions in these areas:

1. Water, fishing and the use of the river: Restoring traditional community fishing practices
and local economy; restoring language use and transmission of knowledge regarding
traditional fishing and river practices.
2. Horticulture and basket-making: Restoring traditional and sustainable practices that are
vital to the local economy; restoring traditional roles and responsibilities for engaging in
horticulture and other activities, such as basket-making; provision of access to natural
resources for horticulture or other traditional uses.
3. Medicine plants and healing: Restoration of cultural sites and/or species necessary for the
spiritual survival of the community; restoration of traditional medicine plants, such as
sweet grass; regeneration of intergenerational teachings, language, and relationships
between Elders and youth regarding medicine plants and healing.
4. Hunting and trapping: Restoration of traditional hunting practices as community
livelihood; restoration of animal habitats and populations; regeneration of
intergenerational teachings and relationships between Elders and youth regarding hunting
and trapping.

The basis of Indigenous learning-teaching models is mentoring and personal relationships,

promoting experiential learning over a sustained period of interaction on the land. All of the
existing knowledge holders in the affected areas have been identified and eight have been
recruited to serve as teachers of skills, practices and language. These “masters” are being
equipped as necessary with tools, supplies and support, and connected with sixteen “apprentices”
drawn from a pool of Akwesasro:non who expressed interest and demonstrated commitment to
learning cultural practices under this teaching model.
The plan also supports the enhancement of existing programs and institutions that are
demonstrating an ability to promote intergenerational cultural knowledge transfer in the

 
 
142 T. Alfred

identified areas of harm. This is being accomplished through one-time proposal-based

institutional funding aimed at enhancing or expanding existing programs.
In terms of governance of ACR and administration of the $8.4 million restoration
settlement funds, a Restoration Commission has been established as a non-political body, with
delegated authority from all three representative bodies in jurisdictionally divided territory (a
political accord has been signed by the American recognized body, the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe,
the Canadian recognized body, the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne, and the traditional
governing body, the Mohawk Nation Council of Chiefs to this effect). The Commission will
oversee and administer the implementation of the five-year restoration plan and serve as an
accountability structure for the individuals and organizations receiving support. The main form
of accountability for participants will be through public engagement, presentations and
workshops, as well as in the production of instructional materials for school use and archival
purposes on an ongoing basis and an annual Cultural Restoration Conference at which all
participants will present and discuss their learning experiences with community members.
The community’s ultimate objective is to re-establish the harmed cultural practices to the
level at which they were practiced before the release of contaminants into the ecosystem. This
plan is seen as a step in that direction. The restoration plan’s objectives have been determined in
consideration of the differential between the level of practice in the community at the baseline
and the level of practice at the present time. Akwesasne is facing a cultural decline in which the
trend, if left unchecked, will result in traditional cultural practices becoming obsolete – young
people are unskilled in these areas, the numbers of practitioners is declining, the general
preference is for non-traditional foods and occupations, and the practices themselves are not
adapting to change. It is hoped that all of the above efforts will contribute to the restoration of a
flourishing vital land-based culture in the Akwesasne.
This restoration plan seeks to create a new situation, where a) these cultural practices are
spread among all age groups and throughout the family groups in the community, b) the number
of people doing land-based cultural activities is increasing at pace with overall population
numbers, c) the practices are diffuse within the social, political and economic life of Akwesasne,
d) the practices adapt to the changing culture of the community, and e) the situation is achieved
where people again gain the level of expertise in these areas, that specialized knowledge and the
skill level within the community actually begins to increase, and the practices evolve further.
Since the program is built from a traditional Mohawk perspective, it incorporates cultural and
spiritual aspects that are unquestionably tied to the values and Onkwehonwe responsibility as
caretakers of the land and waters. A capacity for promoting and supporting the restoration of
Kanien’keha (the Mohawk language) through both the master-apprentice relationships and the
existing institutional activities is a core feature of the overall restoration plan. This aspect of the
plan addresses language deficits identified in the anthropological report, in terms of the number
of speakers in the community and the depth and complexity of the language itself, both of which
were detrimentally affected by the community’s disconnection from the natural resource based
cultural activities. Initiatives to maintain the transmission of language and important technical

 
 Akwasanse cultural restoration program 143

focal vocabulary embedded in traditional resource harvesting practices are an important aspect in
the effort to restoring the health and vitality of the people.
The goal of this aspect is to increase the number of language speakers by having all
participants in the master-apprentice program and all of the main participants involved in
institutional projects recover fluency in Kanienkeha. A community wide strategy is also being
supported through this program, with emphasis on working with other organizations and
agencies to saturate Akwesasne with Kanienkeha, using all available print and broadcast media
(radio, newspapers, print, video, street signs, education materials, etc). Two language
development specialists have been hired as ACR staff and program resources and infrastructure
funds will be provided for the specialists to provide daily instruction in class format, to assist and
support all project participants in reintegrating Kanienkeha into their practices and work
environments, and to document and produce materials for use in enhancing existing programs
and broadening the scope of the existing language restoration effort in the community.
Knowledge holders and elders are also supporting the program by ensuring that spiritual and
ceremonial practices are integrated respectfully, and that the cultural activities are infused with a
holistic Haudenosaunee perspective.
To reiterate: we are conscious of the fact that, while significant efforts are being made to
restore cultural knowledge and practices to a sustainable and self-regenerating level, even when
fully supported and effective, the ACR’s elements may only re-create a basic level of cultural
fluency. The cultural restoration we designed and are now implementing reflects a scaling of
damages that occurred only in relation to the direct effects of the release of contaminants. In
contrast, the effects of the construction and operation of the older hydro-dam and those more
generalized losses due to the industrialization of the area and the ensuing impacts on Mohawk
society as a whole have not been factored into this restoration plan. So, even when fully funded
and ultimately successful in its objectives, this plan and all of its projects will only achieve the
restoration of a fraction of the cultural practices the community has lost over the long-term due
to the activities of the companies in the area. The example of fishing as a cultural practice can be
used to illustrate this point.
In 1950 the total population of Akwesasne was approximately 4000 people in 1400
households (precise numbers are impossible to ascertain, and this figure is based on tribal
government estimates used for other projects and historical data, notably the statements of the
Catholic pastor at the St. Regis Mission in the 1960s). The anthropological report showed that
50% of the Akwesasne economy relied on fishing. We can thus estimate the number of fishers at
700 in 1950, presuming that fishers at that time were adult males, and based on the number of
heads of households. The number of fishers in Akwesasne in 2006 was 24. So, Akwesasne has
faced, at minimum, a 96% decline in the real number of fishers.
What’s more, given Akwesasne’s 2006 population of approximately 12,000 and using the
1950 population-household ratio, the 2006 number of households is estimated at 3500. Based on
the same assumptions and using the same calculation as above, a full restoration for fishing as a
cultural practice would require the training and equipping of 1750 fishers. As it stands, as a

 
 
144 T. Alfred

differential, the number of fishers in 2006 was .01% of what the number of practitioners would
have been if the community of Akwesasne had not suffered cultural losses. It should be quite
apparent from these figures that the scale of the settlement, and the restoration plan itself, was
minimally acceptable as a means of addressing the harm that has been caused.
Once the ACR program has been successfully completed, the former apprentices will be
positioned to use land-based practices as a primary source of sustenance for themselves and their
families, and possibly supplementing their household incomes as a result of subsistence
practices. A main objective of the program is to generate a situation in which traditional foods
once again become common in the diets of Akwesasro:non, and the program is geared toward
creating conditions where land-based practitioners can use and barter traditional foods among
themselves and with other Indigenous communities to a degree that allows them to restore the
elements of character of the traditional Mohawk diet for their families. In terms of
supplementing income through participation in the market economy, the program will include
training in identification of markets for foodstuffs or goods that are made from traditional
resources.
The cultural restoration plan, though constrained by the anthropological report’s focus on
only those cultural harms caused by the release of contaminants, is a way of taking urgent action
to prevent further loss of knowledge associated with natural resource-based cultural practices,
and addresses a range of immediate needs in the community in terms of identifying and
supporting practices, programs and persons in their efforts to ensure the survival of traditional
Mohawk cultural life. Our focus is on beginning the work to restore necessary connections,
regenerate key cultural practices, and transfer crucial cultural knowledge. In taking this approach
to restoration, we believe that the patterns of belief and practice that once characterized the
Mohawk community can start to be restored and that, over time and through our focused efforts,
we will achieve a regenerating point at which these traditional cultural practices will once again
be widespread and self-sustaining and once again be fundamental parameters of existence in
Akwesasne. In our vision, this is the way to ensure the long-term cultural integrity of Akwesasne
as an Indigenous community, the recovery of social stability, and the revitalization of economic
self-sufficiency rooted in traditional practices, and thus promote the resurgence of Mohawk
nationhood.  
 
 
 

For  more  information:  

The St. Regis Mohawk Tribe’s Environment Division website includes links to all of the
research and official documentation relevant to the process:
http://www.srmtenv.org/index.php?spec=nrda_main