Gerald F. Reid - Böcker

Today Kahnawà:ke ("at the rapids") is a community of approximately seventy-two hundred Mohawks, located on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River near Montreal. One of the largest Mohawk communities, it is known in the modern era for its activism—a traditionalist, energetic impulse with a long history. Kahnawà:ke examines the development of traditionalism and nationalism in this Kanien'keká:ka (Mohawk) community from 1870 to 1940. The core of Kahnawà:ke's cultural and political revitalization involved efforts to revive and refashion the community's traditional political institutions, reforge ties to and identification with the Iroquois Confederacy, and reestablish the traditional longhouse within the community. Gerald F. Reid interprets these developments as the result of the community's efforts to deal with internal ecological, economic, and political pressures and the external pressures for assimilation, particularly as they stemmed from Canadian Indian policy. Factionalism was a consequence of these pressures and an important ingredient in the development of traditionalist and nationalist responses within the community. These responses within Kahnawà:ke also contributed to and were supported by similar processes of revitalization in other Iroquois communities.Drawing on primary documents and numerous oral histories, Kahnawà:ke provides a detailed ethnohistory of a major Kanien'keká:ka community at a turbulent and transformative time in its history and the history of the Iroquois Confederacy. It not only makes an important contribution to the understanding of this vital but little studied community but also sheds new light on recent Iroquois history and Native political and cultural revitalization.

On June 11, 1950, the Cleveland Plain Dealer published an obituary under the bold headline 'Chief Thunderwater, Famous in Cleveland 50 Years, Dies.' And there, it seems, the consensus on Thunderwater ends. Was he, as many say, a con artist and an imposter posing as an Indian who lead a political movement that was a cruel hoax? Or was he a Native activist who worked tirelessly and successfully to promote Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois, sovereignty in Canada? The truth about this enigmatic figure, so long obscured by vying historical narratives, emerges clearly in Gerald F. Reid's biography, Chief Thunderwater-the first full portrait of a central character in twentieth-century Iroquois history.Searching out Thunderwater's true identity, Reid documents Thunderwater's life from his birth in 1865, as Oghema Niagara, through his turns as a performer of Indian identity and, alternately, as a dedicated advocate of Indian rights. After nearly a decade as an entertainer in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, Thunderwater became progressively more engaged in Haudenosaunee political affairs-first in New York and then in Quebec and Ontario. As Reid shows, Thunderwater's advocacy for Haudenosaunee sovereignty sparked alarm within Canada's Department of Indian Affairs, which moved forcefully to discredit Thunderwater and dismantle his movement.Self-promoter, political activist, entrepreneur: Reid's critical study reveals Thunderwater in all his contradictions and complexity-a complicated man whose story expands our understanding of Native life in the early modern era, and whose movement represents a key moment in the development of modern Haudenosaunee nationalism.