Kahnawake
| Kahnawake | |||
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 Historic photo by Kahnawake (around 1860) |
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| Location in Quebec | |||
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| State : |
 Canada
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| Province : | Quebec | ||
| Administrative region : | Montérégie | ||
| MRC or equivalent : | Roussillon | ||
| Coordinates : | 45 ° 25 ′ N , 73 ° 41 ′ W | ||
| Area : | 50.41 km² | ||
| Residents : | 7330 (status: 2005) | ||
| Population density : | 145.4 inhabitants / km² | ||
| Time zone : | Eastern Time ( UTC − 5 ) | ||
| Postal code : | J0L 1B0 | ||
| Website : | www.kahnawake.com | ||
Kahnawake (Mohawk: Kahnawá: ke , "place of rapids", English earlier Caughnawaga ) is a Mohawk - reserve in Quebec , Canada . It is on the south bank of the Saint Lawrence River across from Montreal . With 7,446 inhabitants (as of 2007), Kahnawake is the largest reserve in the province.
Administration is led by the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake , headed by a Grand Chief . With the Mohawk Peacekeepers , Kahnawake has its own police force.
history
Kahnawake was founded as a settlement by Mohawk, who lived on the rapids of the Mohawk River until about 1680 and took the name of their settlement with them to the Montreal area where they converted to Catholicism. In 1719 the Jesuit mission Seigneury Sault du St. Louis was founded here, where Joseph-François Lafitau worked as a missionary and precise observer of the Iroquois culture.
During the construction of a railway bridge over the St. Lawrence River through the territory of Kahnawake in 1886, Mohawk workers stood out for their surefootedness and quickly earned a reputation as courageous and free from giddiness. As a result, many Mohawk from Kahnawake worked on building sites for bridges and high-rise buildings in North America, including the construction of the World Trade Center . Today around a quarter of the working residents of Kahnawake are involved in high-rise construction.
In 1907, 75 people, including 33 Mohawk, were killed when a bridge in Québec collapsed due to a construction failure.
During the Oka crisis around the nearby Kanesatake reserve in 1990, the Honoré Mercier freeway bridge running through Kahnawake was occupied by Mohawk.
Until the 20th century, the inhabitants of Kahnawake spoke Mohawk among themselves , only communication with outsiders took place in French. Through working in the USA and the use of English among the Mohawks in Ontario and New York, English became increasingly popular until around 1950 most children grew up speaking English. In response to the promotion of French in Québec, there was a return to the Mohawk language, which has also been used in schools since 1979.
Online gambling
In 1996 the Kahnawake Gaming Commission was set up to issue licenses for online gambling . A colocation data center set up for online casinos has created 200 jobs on the reserve. Kahnawake invokes the sovereignty of the Mohawk nation and the constitutionally recognized rights of the indigenous people. However, the Québec authorities, as well as the Canadian federal authorities, classify the games of chance held in Kahnawake as illegal.
literature
- Edmund Wilson: Atonement to the Iroquois. With a study "The Mohawks in Steel Structures" by Joseph Mitchell . Unabridged edition. Frankfurt. Berlin. Vienna: Ullstein 1977. (Anthropologie. Ed. By Wolf Lepenies and Henning Ritter). - Original English edition: Apologies to the Iroquois. With a Study of The Mohawks in High Steel. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux 1960. (Old, still interesting study of the Mohawks from Caughnawaga / Kahnawake in Canada, the USA and especially New York, Brooklyn. Mitchell's contribution is from 1949.)
Web links
- Mohawk Council of Kahnawake (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Statistiques des populations autochtones du Québec 2005
- ↑ Raymond Barfett: "An Old Spirit Rises From The Ashes" ( Memento of 17 October 2006 at the Internet Archive ).
- ↑ David Mont Horn: "Mohawk ironworkers build New York" ( Memento of 15 October 2006 at the Internet Archive ).
- ↑ Michael L. Hoover: “The Revival of the Mohawk Language in Kahnawake” ( Memento from August 9, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 163 kB).
- ^ Kahnawake - Gambling on internet casinos
- ↑ Javad Heydary: "An Overview of Online Gaming in Canada" ( Memento of October 31, 2006 in the Internet Archive ).