Today is the birthday of Jake Swamp, Mohawk sub-chief and founder of the Great Tree of Peace Society. Jake died last year and was buried on his birthday.
“To be a human being is an honor, and we offer thanksgiving for all the gifts of life…” ~Jake Swamp
Jake Swamp, A Man of Roots
Tekaronianeken, or Jake Swamp as he was commonly known, was born at Akwesasne in 1941. He was of the generation born under the old dispensation of colonial shame but arriving to the 1960s and ’70s with a sense of purpose and a strong, proud voice. As a young man, he had been taught by Christian priests in St. Regis to consider the Longhouse a Pagan menace. So often the case with the Haudenosaunee (“People of the Longhouse”), a woman made short work of that. His wife Judy gradually brought him around, and so one year during Strawberry Festival time he went to the Longhouse and listened, out of curiosity. That decision changed his life.
Jake Swamp dedicated his life thereafter to the message of the Peacemaker, as he understood it. The story of the Peacemaker, and the origins of the Five Nations Confederacy, is something I heard as a child. It is, to phrase matters in the most terse way possible, a story of people on the edge of self-extinction being brought to their senses. The Peacemaker was able to impress upon the Cayuga, Mohawks, Onondaga, Oneida, and Seneca the literal dead-end of warfare, and the result was a consensus based and highly complex system of self-governance which has persisted to this day. Jake on more than one occasion noted that the dark times of the Peacemaker were not unlike our own, a hopeful and practical and terrifying observation, all at the same time.
TO READ THE ABOVE ARTICLE IN ITS ENTIRETY, CLICK HERE
FOR VIDEO OF JAKE SWAMP, CLICK HERE
“Mother Earth, we thank you for giving us everything we need.”~Jake Swamp
“In the beginning, when our Creator made humans, everything needed to survive was provided. Our Creator asked only one thing: Never forget to appreciate the gifts of Mother Earth. Our people were instructed how to be grateful and how to survive.” ~Jake Swamp
MORE ABOUT JAKE SWAMP:
http://blog.leeandlow.com/2010/10/15/tekaronianeken-jake-swamp-remembered/
http://www.betterworldheroes.com/swamp.htm
