When I wrote yesterday about the passing of Jake Swamp, I was hoping someone who knew Jake far better than I did would respond.<\/p>\n
My contact with Jake Swamp came mostly during the gambling troubles that so divided the Mohawk community in the early 1990s, when guns, police and violence linked to unauthorized casinos were the STORY at Akwesasne.\u00a0 Those were awful days. Jake Swamp was a trusted, calming voice.<\/p>\n
Later I saw him plant trees of peace, and heard his Mohawk Thanksgiving Prayer at ceremonies around the North Country.<\/p>\n
I was glad for all that, but regretful that I didn’t have more to say, personally, about this man I’ve admired for so long. So, many thanks to John Scarlett of Littletree Forge in Rossie for this:<\/p>\n
Martha,<\/p>\n
Liz and I will miss Chief Jake Swamp.\u00a0 We have many memories of time spent with him and Judy\u00a0over more than the last ten years.\u00a0 He has influenced us in so many ways since he first\u00a0showed up at our front door to tell us he\u00a0had bought some land two miles down the road to be\u00a0the Tree of Peace Society’s learning center for teaching the Mohawk relationship to nature.<\/p>\n
At Tree of Peace we heard the Peace Maker’s story (in abbreviated form; Jake could tell the whole nine day story), how to use the forgiveness stick, how to make fire and to dance, but mostly to just sit and talk in the wonderfully calm, slow, thoughtful way of Jake, who not only planted trees for peace around the world but who also wrote such beautiful books as Giving Thanks, A Native American Good Morning Message<\/em>, with which our family\u00a0continues to use to\u00a0open our Thanksgiving meals, passing it around the table for each person to read a page.<\/p>\n
We make no claim to\u00a0having\u00a0shared more than\u00a0intermittent\u00a0moments with Jake and Judy, whose\u00a0family lives in Hogansburg, many miles from here.\u00a0 But we were full time admirers and fans.\u00a0 In 2000 I forged a large snail for Jake and Judy and stamped on it the Mohawk word for snail–otsiskaienita.\u00a0 I loved hearing Jake\u00a0make the sounds\u00a0of\u00a0a language I could only mangle. As I look back on that snail, I like to think that it symbolizes the pace at which the non-native residents of this continent are learning to live in a sustainable way on Turtle Island–maybe too slow to succeed.\u00a0 It is something\u00a0I hope we\u00a0rediscover,\u00a0for the first peoples such as the Mohawks had the proper attitude and skills long before the European invasion, and we were not ready to learn from them.<\/p>\n
I once asked Jake why he did not seem to be angry with the genocide and continuing abuse of native Americans.\u00a0 He said he had had\u00a0to work hard to\u00a0overcome what he felt was a self-destructive anger.\u00a0 The man we knew and loved\u00a0had found peace and a powerful\u00a0way to share it.<\/p>\n
John Scarlett<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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