21st Century Miscegenation Impurities

"They've taken 50 years of my life. I want the rights that I'm owed. I'm a Mohawk, I observed the Mohawk traditions, but some of my own people call me a white man."
"But when I was living outside of Kahnawake, people called me a savage. It's something a lot of us have had to face. So, no, I don't want mediation. I want justice."
Kahnawake complainant of mixed ancestry

"They are asking that people respect the law on residency and membership."
"One of the problems we've been having is that people, especially on the outside, not understanding that this is not about people not being able to have relationships or marriages with people from elsewhere. All it is, is that you can't live here. You can work here. You can play and you can visit every day."
Band council spokesman Joe Delaronde

"I woke up to the neighbour hanging ‘marry out, get out’ signs on the telephone pole at five this morning. Shortly after I noticed that my house and car was spray painted."
"[The lawsuit?] We just want there to be some point of peaceful resolution. My wife ain’t taking anything, she’s not from here, she can’t own anything. Land can’t get transferred to her even if I did pass away."
Marvin McComber, status Mohawk, married to a white woman

People in Kahnawake, Que., protested in front of the home where a Mohawk man and his non-native wife live. Mixed couples are prohibited by the territory's law from living on Mohawk land. (CBC)

The recommendation was made by the Canadian Human Rights Commission after an investigation was launched into the constitutionality of the band's membership law which doesn't permit its members to live within their territory if they marry outside aboriginal circles, that the band council of Kahnawake consider mediating with those living on the reserve whom they insist must leave, in respect of reserve rules on entitlements.

The unnamed man quoted above comes from a family forced to leave the reserve in the 1970s when his mother married a non-indigenous man. Under the law a woman's Indian status was automatically revoked if she married outside her aboriginal ancestry. The same rules did not apply to aboriginal men who married non-aboriginal women. The Supreme Court stepped in to exert its legal authority guaranteeing equality under the law, when it struck down that unequal law in 1985.

Once again, as seems to occur at regular intervals, letters have gone out from the Kahnawake Mohawk Council to Mohawks living on the reservation who are married to or living with non-aboriginals. These letters of eviction, duly signed by Grand Chief Joe Norton set out the band's rule that Mohawks living with non-indigenous people stand to have their band membership revoked. Eliminating a person's right to vote in local elections, to receive services and to live on Mohawk land.

APTNNationalNews

The law was adopted in 1981 for the direct purpose of ensuring that Mohawk land not be monopolized by non-indigenous people, and most of the band members in Kahnawake support that membership law. Although the federal Indian Act will not allow for local bands to revoke membership, the Kahnawake council has as a result never physically forced people off the reserve. But it is typical that they insist as a nation within a nation that they are subject to their own laws.

And if you make things uncomfortable enough for people it is likely they will no longer resist majority opinion, when they are subject to being ostracized, shunned, shamed and blamed. A year ago Waneek Horn-Miller, one of the daughters of a famed aboriginal activist mother from the reserve, and famous enough in her own right as a former Olympic athlete, helped launch a lawsuit with seven other band members claiming that their rights were being abridged.

Waneek Horn-Miller is a Kahnawake Mohawk, a former Olympic athlete and an avid human rights activist. She is fighting for her right to live in her community with her non-indigenous partner, Keith Morgan (left), and two children. (Waneek Horn-Miller)

People's homes were being vandalized, they have experienced sit-ins and protests by band members eager to see the last of them, carrying placards in front of their homes urging them to leave with the common refrain: "Marry out, get out". Those who are targeted feel bruised and abandoned, having no wish to leave the place that represents home for them, among others with whom they have grown up and felt as an extended family. But the town council is adamant, and the reserve members supportive.

It's a hugely divisive situation, one that pits family members against other family members. There are occasions when a band member marries outside the community, bringing his non-aboriginal wife to live on the reserve with their children, and finding support among some of his extended or close family members, but being picketed by protesters including other family members who want to see him and his family leave the reserve.

Vandalizing the property of those who are known to have received eviction notices since the band council publishes the names of community members affected by the membership law, brings ugly actions to the fore, dividing people and causing hard feelings. Those who have chosen to collectively bring law suits against the council are resented by other band members for taking action outside their community.

If the case ends up before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal it's possible that the Mohawk council will be facing up to $100,000 in punitive damages. Eviction of status Indians or children of bi-racial marriages who qualify for status is a choice the band has made, ostensibly to ensure that their land ownership is not challenged by those outside the band, and to support the blood-purity of the band.

It's a concept one might have though was long thrown into the dustbin of human history.