9 ęhǫwadihsadǫ ne:ˀhniˀ gadigyenǫ:gyeˀs ganahaǫgwęˀ ęyagǫnhehgǫhǫ:k / They Buried Them, but They the Seeds Floated Around What Will Sustain Them

Teri Lyn Morrow, Bonnie Freeman, and Sandra Juutilainen

Introduction

Nê togyę:́ niyódo̱ hǫ:k ǫgwânigǫ́hâ (so be it in our minds) is a common phrase that is used in our Ganǫhǫnyǫhk (Thanksgiving Address) in the Gayogoho:nǫ nigawęno:dęˀ (Cayuga language), a language that was denied to many who attended the Mush Hole in Tganadahae:ˀ (where the town sits up on something, later named Brantford). Our words become the foundation of how we see ourselves and how we see our connection to the world around us. Intrinsic and extrinsic and the bridge that flows between, this is how our language speaks to us; it is relational gyǫnhehgǫh odiyaęnaˀ (what we all live on; our sustenance). When we understand our connection to the living world around us, we speak to it as if it has the same value as any human being that we may encounter in our time here on ohwęjadeˀ (existing earth, land). Although there has been over one hundred years of engagement for our children and families with residential schools, this seems small in comparison to the thousands of years that Ǫgwehǫ:weh (Original peoples of this land) have been existing upon our traditional lands. When we think of who bore the brunt of these horrific engagements with non-Native peoples, it was our children. Children who carry our legacy, culture, and language with them as dęyagodawęnyehahk (they walk about).

This chapter presents a case study based on a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council–funded research project entitled “Truth Telling: Gardens, Farming and Food Experiences at the Mohawk Institute Indian Residential School.” The case study shares the experience and perception of gardens, farming, and food of participants who attended the Mohawk Institute Indian Residential School located in Brantford, Ontario, and how this has impacted their lives and families after their attendance in residential school. The aim of this research study is to understand and improve the food access and food sovereignty of Indigenous community-led programs, as well to advance the understanding of reconciliation through the Call to Action 65 of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission: “We call upon the federal government, through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and in collaboration with Aboriginal peoples, post-secondary institutions and educators, and the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation and its partner institutions, to establish a national research program with multi-year funding to advance understanding of reconciliation.”¹

First Nations, Food, Nutrition, and Environment

The 2012 First Nations Food, Nutrition and Environment Study, completed in collaboration with Six Nations of the Grand River residents, found that it is more nutritious for our people—physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually—when we can eat the traditional foods of our territory and ancestors. These traditional foods included sustenance from the land, water, and natural environment (plants and animals) we lived among. Our sustenance also included how we grew and attended to our heritage foods, such as corn, beans, and squash (Three Sisters). The results from this study reveal how today’s dietary intake among Six Nations residents strayed from the traditional natural foods we were accustomed to and veered more toward foods with higher-than-recommended amounts of fat and salt. While important nutrients such as iron, vitamin B12, riboflavin, niacin, thiamine, zinc, and phosphorus were present in adequate quantities, vitamins A, C, and D, calcium, magnesium, and fibre were lacking according to modern dietary standards.² The number one source of saturated fat consumed by Six Nations was from beef and processed meats such as cold cuts and sausage. Saturated fat is a fat source that can raise the low-density lipoproteins in our bodies, and too much of this type of fat can increase the risk of heart disease or stroke.

The study also found that the common traditional foods in Six Nations were gathered, hunted, fished, and gardened. When we examined the nutritional value set of the commonly eaten traditional foods in Six Nations, we found that deer, corn, beans, walleye, and perch were the top traditional foods eaten. These foods provide lower amounts of saturated fats and higher amounts of omega-3, -6, and -9 fats, which contribute to healthy brain development; vitamins D, B12, and B6 are also increased when these foods are eaten. Plants in this diet produce multiple varieties of Haudenosaunee seeds that draw out specific vitamins. During processing, we make a lye for the corn with boiling water and wood ashes, in the traditional Haudenosaunee way. Doing so increases the calcium, fibre, and zinc content.³

In contrast, Western perspectives about food are derived from a food system that only respects nutritional value. These perspectives are void of the ceremonial value of these recommended traditional foods. The ritual, respect, and reciprocity of hunting, gathering, and tending responsibility to these natural foods is required to gain a holistic and ancestral ecological knowledge of the Haudenosaunee food system that has been imperative to our survival. Our people also understood the “nutritional” value of these foods as they paid attention to when they were given to us by creation. Once we followed the moon and sun cycles to learn when these foods would honour us with their presence, we began a reciprocal relationship that continues to be practised today.⁴ When food is streamlined into its vitamin and mineral counterparts without looking at the holistic and reciprocal relationships embedded in the language, land, and ceremony associated with particular foods, it results in a disconnected relationship with food.

Two Row Research Paradigm

The framework of Indigenous inquiry engages a holistic paradigm that integrates the epistemology of land and is built upon a relationship with the spiritual and natural worlds.⁵ The relationship between the spiritual and natural worlds is reflected through interactions people have with the natural environment and expressed through the discourse of Indigenous languages and cultural practices.⁶ The Two Row research paradigm has been developed to “decolonize Western presumptions and re-establish healthy and productive research partnerships.”⁷ These principles are based on the philosophical tenets of the Kahswenhta and the support of an Indigenous methodological approach to understanding the experiences of residential school survivors, their families, and the traditional knowledge associated with gardens, farming, and food experiences.

The foundation of this research paradigm is based on Kaianere’kó:wa (Great Law of Peace) and calls upon all researchers (Indigenous or non-Indigenous) to adopt a Good Mind in working with and guiding those relationships in a peaceful and respectful way.⁸ The researchers and authors of this research have respectfully guided their research methods according to the five principles of this research paradigm: (1) establishing and maintaining relationships and trust with Indigenous people and communities; (2) Indigenous knowledge, language, and understanding is at the core of this research; (3) researchers honour Indigenous epistemology, methods, and practices; (4) the research honours the distinctness of Indigenous knowledge and methods without blending with other methods of knowledge in doing research; and (5) the research adheres to the First Nations Information Governance Centre’s OCAP principles (ownership, control, access, and possession) as it relates to data and information collected on Indigenous people and communities remain with Indigenous communities.⁹ The following research is guided by these principles as they relate to the Two Row research paradigm. The next section highlights the stories and experiences of a mother and daughter through the Indigenous framework of storytelling.

Indigenous Storytelling Methodology

This case study draws on two semi-structured interviews that were conducted by Sandra Juutilainen between January and February 2020 as part of the research project “Truth Telling: Gardens, Farming and Food Experiences at the Mohawk Institute Indian residential school.” We chose an interview with a mother and daughter from twenty-three interviews that were conducted for this study to highlight the intergenerational link between parent and child. The case study explores the experiences the mother and daughter have had with gardens, farming, and food during and beyond the Mohawk Institute Indian Residential School experience. The data is explored through two different time frames: (1) as an attendee of the Mohawk Institute Indian Residential School; and (2) as a daughter of an attendee. Both interviewees were asked open-ended questions about their experiences with gardens, farming, and food at the Mohawk Institute and traditional food systems revitalization. Consent from both mother and daughter was obtained in sharing their names and stories presented within this chapter. While research often anonymizes the identity of study participants, as Indigenous scholars we see our study participants as both collaborators in research and on a deeper level as our extended family. As such, we would never refer to a member of our family with a pseudonym.

Sharing Stories and Experiences—Findings

This case study is a reflection of the experiences of Beverly Albreight, a Cayuga woman, Turtle Clan, who attended the Mohawk Institute from 1966 until 1970. Beverly is from Six Nations of the Grand River. She first entered through the daunting school doors of the Mohawk Institute as a seven-year-old. Interjected alongside the lived experiences of Beverly are those of her adult daughter, Elizabeth Maracle. Elizabeth grew up primarily in the urban settings of Brantford and St. Catharine’s, Ontario. She shares her experience growing up with a parent who attended residential school. She had many family members who attended the Mohawk Institute, including her mom, grandmother, and all of her aunts and uncles. One of the key themes during our interviews was not being fully connected to the community of Six Nations, since she had a predominantly urban upbringing. Elizabeth iterated that “the women in my mom’s part of the family, like her and her sisters, her sister did not get any land. So, none of the women have any lands in our family. So, it’s been a bit of a struggle. So, yeah. I would like to live down here, but I don’t. I have not been able to do that yet.” Elizabeth’s comment refers to the sexist and racist policies that impact Native women as a result of the Indian Act, whereby these Indigenous women lost their rights to land.¹⁰ There are well-documented intergenerational impacts for women who attend residential school and marry non-Native men.¹¹ It is therefore important to have an understanding of the experiences of both attendees and their family members. The findings from this case study highlight what children knew of and/or understood about their food sources prior to going into the residential school system. The research also examines what children were fed while they were at the Mush Hole and how this impacted and changed the way they ate and fed their own families. In addition, this study explores how these experiences influence the relationships with food among family members.

Language, Land, and Our Connection

Haudenosaunee food systems are deeply shaped by ceremony. As we practise these ceremonies collectively in our homes and at our Longhouses, we are passing on the words and traditional ecological knowledge that our ancestors have shared from time immemorial. We have a reciprocal relationship with this ecosystem and a duty to be mindful and respectful to keep its presence in the front of our minds and to ensure that our children are taught the same. When the children were taken from their homes, denied their language and specific cultural values, as mentioned above, this resulted in the present-day chronic health conditions and limited access to language and Haudenosaunee food ways.

We have been taught to sadęˀnigǫhahni:ya:t (keep your mind strong) and put forth the words or ideas of our hędwaihwadihę:toˀ (Knowledge Keepers in our ceremonies). The Hwihs Nihonǫhwęjage (Five Nations) have ahsęh skaeˀ (thirteen ceremonies) that we offer as families. These ceremonies follow the ęhniˀda:gyeˀs (phases of the moon) on the dihsgo:wah (thirteenth or first moon of the lunar calendar). The Haudenosaunee ceremonies associated with the lunar calendar include the following:

Gayaˀdago:wah: The Month of Big Dolls (January)

• Mid-winter ceremony, usually second week in January, lasting for approximately eight days

Ganrahdahgah: Rustling Leaves (February)

• Haditsehsdǫda:s (The males are putting sap in the tree around the second week in February for approximately one day)

Ganęsgwaǫta:ˀah: A Few Frogs Month (March)

• Ęhadiyaǫdataˀt Drying up the Trees

Ganęsgwaǫ:taˀgo:wah: A Lot of Frogs Month (April)

• Hǫwadiwęnǫgohtaˀ Hadiwęnodagyeˀs (Thunder ceremony around the first week in April)

Ganaˀgaht: Budding Leaf Month (May)

• Ęhǫwaddiwanǫ:goth Ędehgeha:ˀ ga:gwa:ˀ (Sun ceremony around the first week of May)
• Ęshagodiwęnǫ:goth Ahsǫhehka:ˀ Ęhniˀda:gye’s (Uplifting the stature of the moon around the second week of May)
• Dęyetiyaˀtahahgwadęˀ (We will walk the seeds around the middle of May)
• Gotędihsˀanhǫˀ (Finishing planting ceremony around end of May)

Hyai:kneh: Berry Ripening Month (June)

• Adahyaohǫ:ˀ (Gathering of fruit ceremony around middle of June and last approximately one day)

Hyaiknehgo:wah: Many Berry Ripening Month (July)

Jihsgęhneh: Corn Silk Month or Firefly Month (August)

• Ęhęnadehsaheˀdaohe:k (They gather the green beans ceremony around the first week of August for one day)

Saˀgęhneh: Cough Month (September)

• Adekwao:hǫ:ˀ (Gathering of the foods, both green corn ceremonies around the middle of August/September)

Saˀgęhnehgo:wah: Big Cough Month (October)

• Tsaˀdegohsrahęh Gaihwayaǫni: (Mid-winter ceremony around the middle of October lasting about four days)

Jo:to:ˀ: Cold Weather Month (November)

• Hǫwadiwęnǫgohtaˀ Hadiwęnodagyeˀs (Thunder ceremony in November lasting one day)

Jo:to:ˀgo:wah: Really Cold Month (December)

For over one hundred years, our children who attended these schools had an unstable relationship with food, often going hungry and very seldom having access to the traditions of hunting, harvesting, and fishing and the passing on of procuring, processing, and sharing practices at the dining tables of these schools. Many survivors today express the limited ability they have to access this system of ceremony, language, and land; to know how to bring these foods back into their diet. According to Beverly, “the only traditional foods I knew was beans, corn and squash. That’s all I know. Um, because I didn’t go to the Longhouse or anything like that. And my mom didn’t take us. So, that’s why I didn’t really know about (traditional) foods.”

The importance of traditional foods is why in our Creation Story we are told our Mother, the Earth, has brought these gifts specifically for us. She brought us traditional tobacco to help heal our minds. She brought us corn grown from her breast to nourish our babies. As corn silk is nutrition for the baby, the squash grows from her stomach; it contains fibre and vitamin A that helps us to digest and connect a healthy mind with gut health. The beans grow from her pelvis and kidneys and help us to replenish the Earth within a reciprocal relationship. Out of her feet grows the sunflower or Jerusalem artichoke. The root is deep and helps keep us grounded to the soil and water that flows beneath us.

The Six Nations community was lucky enough to hear this story and teaching presented along with the visual painting done by Chief Jake Thomas and shared by Christine Skye (cant),¹² who has passed on to the sky world, but who has left a legacy of knowledge and food responsibilities to her family and those she shared within Six Nations. The resilience of us as Haudenosaunee has been maintained and passed on through our stories and through working alongside our Knowledge Keepers. While residential schools tried to bury us, they didn’t know we are created from seeds.

Before Indian Residential School

Many residential school survivors are unaware of traditional Haudenosaunee food. For many Haudenosaunee families, growing and harvesting food was very common in the days before residential schools. These relationships were not categorized as “traditional food.” Regarding food, Beverly stated, “I remember before I went to residential school, we had cow’s milk.” While she was aware that her family consumed corn, beans, and squash, as well as other healthy foods from the garden, forest, and their farm, Beverly did not have a conceptualization of traditional Haudenosaunee foods. Many of the survivors, though they also sometimes lacked a conceptualization of traditional foods, shared the important social and familial values that were central in their homes before being placed in residential school. Beverly remembers, for example, that, as a child, the dinner table was so important within her family, and she explained that this value continued to resonate into her adulthood as she established her own family:

Because a lot of people, they eat in front of the TV. And I think, well, if you have a table, you should get together and eat. See, when we were at home that’s what we did with my mom. Like even before I went to the residential school. And so, to me what’s the use of having a table if you don’t use it? So, I think that stayed with me.

Even though attendees were children, they were still able to draw on previous memories of what a healthy food environment entailed and had an innate sense of the horrific nature of the food environment within the Mohawk Institute.

During and After Indian Residential School

The children attending the Mohawk Institute had the worst possible food environment.¹³ The name “Mush Hole” was a moniker used by the children survivors to refer to the residential school because of the mushy oatmeal they were served. Beverly recounts the “mush” she ate: “The only thing I remember is oatmeal. Yeah. And that was even—not even thick, it was watery.” In addition, Beverly remembers that much of the food that was served was plain and did not have any seasoning or spices added to it. Also, “no healthy fruit or vegetables.” She remembers that the boys and girls were always segregated and were not allowed to interact during mealtimes, except on Sundays. “On Sundays they . . . would let us eat, um, dinner together.” Beverly compares the food she had prior to being in the Mush Hole—for example, fresh cow’s milk—to what she was served while in residential school: “When we had milk, it was powdered milk mixed with water. . . . There was nobody that was fat when we were in residential school. We were all thin. Like even with cows [at the Mush Hole], I don’t remember them even giving us cow’s milk or anything.”

Mealtime for children survivors was very rigid and strict. Beverly remembered that “when we had to go to the meals, we had to be like the military, in a straight line and you had to be straight. They used to put books on our head to make sure we walked straight.” During meals children were expected to eat a certain way, chew their food a specific number of times, and eat slowly. Beverly shares that they were not allowed to talk to other children, even their own siblings, while sitting for a meal, or they would be yelled at or punished:

All I remember is, they told us that we had to count our food. They usually say about fifty or sixty [times]. Yeah, so . . . take your time. . . . During meals we weren’t even allowed to talk to each other. Like even with my brothers, even though we saw them, we never talked across the table or anything because we’d get hollered at. We’re supposed to be there to eat.

Though Beverly had positive memories of the dinner table with her family before residential school, her experience at the Mush Hole was not good, and it left a lasting impression. She expresses how this affected her: “I think too with how they were saying that you couldn’t even associate with anybody? To me that’s not a mealtime. It’s not a happy time to eat. And, like I said with us being so thin, to me I felt like this wasn’t a good time.”

Beverly and her fellow residential school survivors were treated according to the old adage that “children are to be seen and not heard.” Children in residential school were not to question what they were given to eat at mealtime, regardless of whether they wanted to eat what they were given. Beverly shares this experience:

Like I said with residential school, they just gave it to us because we’re children and we’re not supposed to argue or talk back and say, “I don’t want that.” Because I remember, um, some children if they didn’t go eat their oatmeal, they would save it for the next meal and make them eat it then. See, that’s forcing people to do that even though they don’t want to eat it. They stand there and make sure you eat it, and I don’t think that’s right either.

For Beverly, the dominant theme of punishment was related to her food environment and continued after her time at the Mush Hole. While in foster care she was still exposed to authoritarian figures who used food as a weapon, whether by withholding food or by forcing foods that she did not want to eat. Even trying to eat those foods today brings her reminders of when food was used as a punishment: “The only thing I won’t eat now is when I was in foster care, how they used to punish us. They’d say, ‘Go to your room.’ But, they would withhold food from us. And one thing that I think they forced us to eat was mushroom soup. I won’t eat mushroom soup. . . . I tried to eat mushrooms, but I still can’t. It just seems to come back to me.”

As Beverly shared her experiences in the Mush Hole with her children, her daughter Elizabeth iterates similar experiences to those of her mom at the Mush Hole, describing her relationship with food as one of deprivation as she thinks back to the poverty she experienced growing up with her mother and grandmother. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission reports many similar survivor accounts of seeing foods that were not available to the children in residential school.¹⁴ Elizabeth remembers her mother talking about the food she rarely, if ever, had,

[or] stuff she couldn’t have. There were apples there, but I couldn’t have that, or I would get an orange at Christmas, but just that one time. And she hated certain foods. Like, she couldn’t eat Jello, or she didn’t like oatmeal, or like mushy foods. She didn’t know how to cook with spices and didn’t seem to have any cooking experience really. And didn’t find joy in preparing food. It was kind of like a dead zone for her.

Beverly was hesitant to share her residential school experiences with her children. She remembers talking with her adult son about what she went through and explaining that she could not use her name and instead had to refer to herself by the number she was assigned. She said that her son was shocked and told his mother it was like she was in jail. In her interview, Beverly recounts in her words the conversation she had with her son:

Beverly’s son: Mom, you know what? You were in jail. You couldn’t use your name, you had to use your number.

Beverly: I’ve never been to jail.

Beverly’s son: That’s how a jail is, they will go by a number. That’s how you were, but you were children.

Beverly: I never thought about it like that. I never thought about it like being in jail and having to use that number. It’s true. That’s why it’s good to get other people that listen to you and get their feedback.

Beverly’s sense-making of her experiences, along with her son’s interjections, highlight the legacy of wrongdoing that occurred within the Mohawk Institute and the ways in which survivors and their families are re-traumatized when recounting their experiences at the Mohawk Institute.

Legacy of Indian Residential School

Today’s Indigenous people carry the historical legacy, shame, and pain of their parents’, grandparents’, and their own experiences regarding the psychological trauma inflicted upon them through residential schools. Children as young as two years of age were forcefully taken away or hesitantly given up by their families because of government policies that indicated that First Nations children were to be civilized and assimilated into non-Indigenous culture.¹⁵ The system was, as Vine Deloria Jr. and Clifford Lytle have observed, “one of the major weapons of forced assimilation since the establishment of colonies.”¹⁶

Brad McKenzie and Vern Morrissette identify three forms of trauma experienced by former students of residential schools.¹⁷ The first is the lack of love, which damages a child’s self-esteem. The second form of trauma is the stripping away of cultural expression through language, clothing, hair, ceremonies, and food, which relates to the establishment of identity. The third trauma is the loss of family and the collective experience as a people. This last type of trauma inhibits a child’s ability to connect and establish important kinship relationships. Adult residential school survivors would often turn their negative experiences inward, therefore affecting their self-esteem. Many adult children reported an inability to walk in either their Haudenosaunee or non-Indigenous worlds.

This loss of culture had a great impact not only on Indigenous families, but also on the whole community.¹⁸ Haudenosaunee communities who lost their children to residential schools also experienced this sense of loss. When those children returned home to their communities and became parents, they transferred what was taught to them in residential school to their children. As a result, subsequent generations of Haudenosaunee children were doomed to experience what their parents and grandparents experienced, not at the hands of nuns and clergy, but from their own mothers and fathers.

It is not surprising that this experience would have lifelong impacts in terms of survivors’ and intergenerational survivors’ relationship with food. Beverly’s daughter Elizabeth shares some of her observations from her childhood of her mother’s relationship with food: “She’s not connected to it very much other than processed food or easy food, or a lot of takeout. She seems to enjoy food when she goes to gatherings, but she hoards. I noticed that she’ll take home like plates and plates of food and then doesn’t really eat it. But, she has to have it. So, yeah, there’s a big hoarding piece that’s been in my childhood.” Elizabeth also realizes how her mother’s experience with lack of food has contributed to her overproduction of food and the centrality of food at gatherings, rather than enjoying the relationships of family: “I over-nurture . . . I make too much food. I realize that we don’t seem to do things outside of food. I think about our holidays and our events and our family gatherings. I think food should be there, but I notice . . . I think food is the centre versus it being present. And I worry about that sometimes.” The centrality of food and the disconnect from family and friends stems from Beverly’s experiences of mealtime during her time at residential school. She shares what it was like: “You had to sit up or you’d get punished if you didn’t. And when I say punished, I mean the belt. So that’s why, um—like to me that’s extreme. Because when you have a meal, you’re supposed to enjoy yourself. Enjoy your foods.”

Beverly’s account of a military-style food environment refers back to how her prior mealtimes before residential school occurred; she knew that mealtimes were supposed to be a time where you enjoy your food and spend time with your family. Both Beverly and Elizabeth discussed the value they place on returning to food sharing as a repudiation of the idea of food being used as a weapon in favour of seeing food as the way to live a good life.

Return to Food Sharing

If education and food can be used as a weapon, to take away culture, to harm people, then the opposite must be true: education and food can also be used to relearn the good way, to live a good life.

Chandra Maracle¹⁹

Chandra Maracle’s reflections as part of the Earth to Table Legacies project are embodied in the way Beverly has reflected on her personal experiences and how this has influenced her adult life and her interactions with her own children and grandchildren, with an emphasis on eating together as a family, being allowed to choose their own foods, and talk at the dinner table. She iterates, “Now that I’m older, I’ve changed that with my children. . . . They used to say, ‘children should be seen and not heard.’ When I had children, I let them talk to me whenever they can. That’s why they’re assertive, and my grandchildren are more [so]. That’s because I didn’t tell them to be quiet all the time.” Elizabeth spoke about her observations of her mother in ceremony as having a “tiny” voice after being taught to sing some songs. “I know she has a booming voice . . . but I noticed how hard it was for her to express, and I realized—to me that represented [that] someone had taken her voice.” Elizabeth further acknowledged how thankful she was for the resistance her mother showed in not continuing the dysfunctional cycle of “children should only be seen and not heard,” as she had the freedom to always express herself, and this healthier way of being was also passed on to her children.

In the return to food sharing both Beverly and Elizabeth recounted family- and community-focused food environments, which include the food you grow yourself and share with others in the community. Beverly talked about how she had opportunities to learn from friends and grow food in their gardens. Elizabeth shared how her mom would take her and her siblings to the homes of family members who had hobby farms so they would get a better understanding of where food comes from, in addition to community gatherings where food would be talked about in a more holistic manner. Since they lived primarily in urban areas, Friendship Centres were also an important site for learning about traditional foods. Elizabeth stated, “I know that white corn was ours. . . . Growing up mom would buy the white corn that was shaped like a round disk (cornbread).”

The importance of seeds and their relation to Indigenous food sovereignty was also highlighted by both Beverly and Elizabeth. Beverly had strong opinions on seeds and a non-GMO standpoint that stemmed from the knowledge passed down to her by her family: “When we grew up, we always had seeds. How are you going to make things if you have no seeds? And now the government tried to tell you how to grow your seeds and what you put in it.” She shared how sustainable seeds are and how this benefits the community, and, recognizing that not everyone has knowledge of seed keeping and growing, she emphasized the importance of seeking out those who have this community knowledge. Elizabeth discussed how her mom gathers seeds and understands their importance. “We need to keep our seeds because there’s sovereignty in that.”

Elizabeth talked about relearning after participating in a predominantly Western food system that is disconnected from the land. She talked about her struggles with gardening and not knowing how the whole cycle is interconnected but iterated how gardening resulted in her feeling “joyous and happy” when she produced some of her own foods and herbs. She explained further how not having land in the community of Six Nations was a barrier for gardening. Elizabeth learned a lot about canning from her husband’s family, in particular his grandmother, who is “Oneida and lived off-reserve, but she had land and they gardened.” She talked about how she learned about cycles of food within ceremonies.

Elizabeth shared a personal experience of attending a community project taught by Elder Jan Longboat specifically for residential school survivors and with a focus on the intergenerational impacts on their children. She participated in a lot of circles with her mother there and was exposed to a lot of the traditions, such as Rite of Passage, that have been lost. “I decided to do a Rite of Passage as an adult and then I decided I was going to raise my kids with that.” Elizabeth described this as an emotional endeavour as her mom “cried” when watching Elizabeth and her grandchildren participating in ceremonies. Elizabeth reflected on this, feeling that this is something her mom would have wanted—that is, to have a relationship to ceremony as a Haudenosaunee woman “and to have her power.”

Elizabeth recounts her ongoing learning about women’s social representation within Haudenosaunee culture, in particular with respect to food. She described hearing the Kaianere’kó:wa / Great Law of Peace at Akwesasne and how the totality of culture was embedded in how traditional foods were served: “That it was getting our cultural content, our languages, knowing the wampums, our creation . . . like our stories of how our Confederacy is and how it came to be. But, food was present too, and people were engaging. And all different levels of that, so that was something I found really, really powerful.”

Conclusion

This case study is the first to use a Haudenosaunee food-based lens to investigate the historical and contemporary vulnerabilities and resiliencies related to food, farming, and gardening experienced by those who attended the Mohawk Institute. In Beverly’s words, “I don’t really know anybody who talks about what kind of food they had there . . . so, it’s good that people are finding out. . . . It’s important that you know about it. Like I said, with you doing this [study] about residential schools, you’re probably learning a lot too.” Beverly was correct. The stories that were gathered during this study informed and confirmed what many of us as family members and as a community have experienced through the loss of our children to residential schools. We as researchers learned a lot from the individuals and family members that participated in this study. While this research assumes a community-based focus, it holds to account Indigenous epistemologies as well as the relationality of the participants as collaborators. It is our responsibility not only as researchers but more importantly as Haudenosaunee women to share what we learned in ways that are meaningful and relevant.

Since Ian Mosby published his research on nutritional testing in residential schools, Canadians have been informed of the unethical food-based practices that occurred in some Canadian Indian Residential Schools.²⁰ Every aspect of Indigenous life and livelihood has been affected by the colonial history of Canada.²¹ Settlers have attempted to implement policies, such as residential schools, to remove Indigenous hunting, fishing, and gathering narratives under the notion of terra nullius that persists within the “monocultures of the mind.”²² This strategy has fragmented the complex systems of Indigenous biocultural heritage regarding the land and food systems in North America.²³ Food has become one of the tools of colonialism,²⁴ and Indigenous people have been resisting and fighting for their sovereign rights to continue to connect and maintain their spiritual relationship with what sustains them as a people and as a nation. An Indigenous Knowledge Keeper once shared that “what we do today will have an impact on our next seven generations.”²⁵ Therefore, Indigenous people must be food sovereign in order to be sovereign as nations. According to Oneida scholar Leni Sunseri, “For true liberation from colonial oppression to occur for all members of the nation, decolonizing governance practices must be inclusive and should follow the traditional principles of governance found in the Great Law of Peace: peace, power, and righteousness.”²⁶ In doing so, we must ultimately uphold our long-standing sacred responsibilities to nurture our own health and well-being, and carry on with our relationships with land, plants, and animals.²⁷ The same Knowledge Keeper also shared that “the earth, plants, and animals have a role and responsibility and can exist without humans; however, humans cannot exist without the earth, plants, and animals. Therefore, our creator has provided us with knowledge, teachings, and practices to honour our relationships with the natural world.”²⁸ Indigenous food sovereignty is a tool to protect Indigenous food systems that have specifically evolved in different communities and therefore depend on a community’s own social, political, historical, and cultural context. As such, it is best defined by the community itself.²⁹

Notes to Chapter 9

1. 1 Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Calls to Action (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015), 8, https://ehprnh2mwo3.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Calls_to_Action_English2.pdf.

2. 2 First Nations Food, Nutrition and Environment Study, Summary of Key Findings for Eight Assembly of First Nations Regions 2008–2018 (University of Ottawa, Université de Montréal, Assembly of First Nations, 2019).

3. 3 Tania M. Ngapo, Pauline Bilodeau, Yves Arcand, Marie Thérèse Charles, Axel Diederichsen, Isabelle Germain, et al., “Historical Indigenous Food Preparation Using Produce of the Three Sisters Intercropping System,” Foods 10, no. 3 (2021): 524.

4. 4 “13 Moons Turtle Island,” Oneida Language and Cultural Centre, accessed 13 May 2025, https://oneidalanguage.ca/oneida-culture/oneidalanguage-symbols/13-moons-turtle-island/.

5. 5 Kathleen Absolon King, Kaandossiwin How We Come to Know (Fernwood Publishing, 2011); Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples (St. Martin’s Press, 1999); Margaret Kovach, Indigenous Methodologies: Characteristics, Conversations, and Contexts (University of Toronto Press, 2009); Sandra A. Juutilainen, Melanie Jeffrey, and Suzanne Stewart, “Methodology Matters: Designing a Pilot Study Guided by Indigenous Epistemologies,” Human Biology 91, no. 3 (2020): 141–51, https://doi.org/10.13110/humanbiology.91.3.06; Shawn Wilson, Research Is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods (Fernwood Publishing, 2008); Vanessa Watts, “Indigenous Place-Thought and Agency Amongst Humans And Non-Humans (First Woman and Sky Woman Go on a European World Tour!),” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society 2, no. 1 (2013): 20–34.

6. 6 Bonnie M. Freeman, “The Spirit of Haudenosaunee Youth: The Transformation of Identity and Well-Being Through Culture-Based Activism” (PhD diss., Wilfrid Laurier University, 2015), https://scholars.wlu.ca/etd/1697/.

7. 7 Richard W. Hill and Daniel Coleman, “The Two Row Wampum-Covenant Chain Tradition as a Guide for Indigenous-University Research Partnerships,” Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies 19, no. 5 (2019): 339–59, https://doi.org/10.1177/1532708618809138.

8. 8 Freeman, “The Spirit of Haudenosaunee Youth.

9. 9 Freeman; Hill and Coleman, “The Two Row Wampum-Covenant Chain”; Bonnie Freeman and Trish Van Katwyk, “Navigating the Waters: Understanding Allied Relationships Through a Tekéni Teyohà: ke Kahswénhtake Two Row Research Paradigm,” Journal of Indigenous Social Development 9, no. 1 (2020): 60–76.

10. 10 Mackenzie Deschambault, “An Exploration of the Colonial Impacts of the Indian Act on Indigenous Women in Canada” (PhD diss., Carleton University, 2020).

11. 11 Amy Bombay, Kimberly Matheson, and Hymie Anisman, “The Intergenerational Effects of Indian Residential Schools: Implications for the Concept of Historical Trauma,” Transcultural Psychiatry 51, no. 3 (2014): 320–38, https://doi.org/10.1177/1363461513503380; Amy Bombay, Kimberly Matheson, and Hymie Anisman, “Appraisals of Discriminatory Events Among Adult Offspring of Indian Residential School Survivors: The Influences of Identity Centrality and Past Perceptions of Discrimination,” Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology 20, no. 1 (2014): 75–86, https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/a0033352; A. Bombay, R. J. McQuaid, F. Schwartz, A. Thomas, H. Anisman, and K. Matheson, “Suicidal Thoughts and Attempts in First Nations Communities: Links to Parental Indian Residential School Attendance Across Development,” Journal of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease 10, no. 1 (2019): 123–31, https://doi.org/10.1017/S2040174418000405; Donna L. Feir, “The Intergenerational Effects of Residential Schools on Children’s Educational Experiences in Ontario and Canada’s Western Provinces,” International Indigenous Policy Journal 7, no. 3, (2016) https://doi.org/10.18584/iipj.2016.7.3.5; Kimberly Matheson, Amy Bombay, Kaylyn Dixon, and Hymie Anisman, “Intergenerational Communication Regarding Indian Residential Schools: Implications for Cultural Identity, Perceived Discrimination, and Depressive Symptoms,” Transcultural Psychiatry 57, no. 2 (2020): 304–20.

12. 12 “Cant” is a phrase Haudenosaunee use when we speak about someone who has passed on.

13. 13 Elizabeth Graham, The Mush Hole: Life at Two Indian Residential Schools (Heffle Publishing, 1997), 7–40; Arja Rautio, Ruby Miller, Sandra A. Juutilainen, and Lydia Heikkilä, “Structural Racism and Indigenous Health: What Indigenous Perspectives of Residential School and Boarding School Tell Us? A Case Study of Canada and Finland,” International Indigenous Policy Journal 5, no. 3 (2014): 1–18, https://doi.org/10.18584/iipj.2014.5.3.3. See also Alison Norman, “‘Our Strength Comes from the Land’: the Hybrid Culinary Traditions of the Six Nations of Grand River in the Early Twentieth Century,” Cuizine 6, no. 2 (2015), https://doi.org/10.7202/1033506ar.

14. 14 Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, The Survivors Speak: A Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015), https://nctr.ca/records/reports/#highlighted-reports.

15. 15 Robert Gary Miller, “Mush Hole Remembered: R. G.,” Woodland Cultural Art Exhibit, 2008; J. S. Milloy, A National Crime: The Canadian government and the Residential School System (University of Manitoba Press, 2017).

16. 16 Clifford M. Lytle and Vine Deloria Jr., American Indians, American Justice (University of Texas Press, 1983), 240.

17. 17 Vern Morrissette and Brad McKenzie, “Social Work Practice with Canadians of Aboriginal Background: Guidelines for Respectful Social Work,” Envision: The Manitoba Journal of Child Welfare 2, no. 1 (2003): 13–39.

18. 18 Bill Lee, “Colonialization and Community: Implications for First Nations Development,” Community Development Journal 27, no. 3 (1992): 211–19.

19. 19 Chandra Maracle and Ian Mosby, “The Mush Hole: Colonial Food Legacies Among the Haudenosaunee,” Earth to Tables Legacies, accessed 6 June 2021, https://earthtotables.org/essays/mush-hole/.

20. 20 Ian Mosby, “Administering Colonial Science: Nutrition Research and Human Biomedical Experimentation in Aboriginal Communities and Residential Schools,” Histoire sociale / Social History 46, no 1 (2013): 145–72, https://doi.org/10.1353/his.2013.0015.

21. 21 Priscilla Settee and Shailesh Shukla, “Introduction,” in Indigenous Food Systems: Concepts, Cases, and Conversations, ed. Shailesh Shukla and Priscilla Settee (Canadian Scholars, 2020), 6–13.

22. 22 Vandana Shiva, “Monocultures of the Mind—Understanding the Threats to Biological and Cultural Diversity,” Indian Journal of Public Administration 39, no. 3 (July 1993): 237–48, https://doi.org/10.1177/0019556119930304.

23. 23 Dawn Morrison, “Reflections and Realities: Expressions of Food Sovereignty in the Fourth World,” in Indigenous Food Systems: Concepts, Cases, and Conversations, ed. Shailesh Shukla and Priscilla Settee (Canadian Scholars, 2020), 17–38.

24. 24 James Daschuk, Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation and the Loss of Indigenous Life (University of Regina Press, 2019); Ian Mosby, “Administering Colonial Science,” 145–72.

25. 25 John L. Cayer (Indigenous Knowledge Keeper and grandfather) in discussion with author Bonnie Freeman, February 1979.

26. 26 Lina Sunseri, Being Again of One Mind: Oneida Women and the Struggle for Decolonization (UBC Press, 2011), 2–3.

27. 27 Dawn Morrison, “Indigenous Food Sovereignty: A Model for Social Learning,” in Food Sovereignty in Canada: Creating Just and Sustainable Food Systems, ed. H. Wittman, N. Wiebe, and A. A. Desmararais (Fernwood Publishing, 2011), 97–113.

28. 28 Harvey Longboat (Six Nations Knowledge Keeper) in discussion with author Bonnie Freeman, October 1995.

29. 29 Settee and Shukla, “Introduction,” 6–13.