Apologies to the Iroquois

Interesting to read, both for its testimony about the Iroquois peoples and how their culture was perceived by a curious mid-20th century white essayist.

This volume contains two works, each of which pertain to the Iroquois peoples, and each of which appeared originally in the pages of The New Yorker magazine. The first is a short essay (30 pages, or so) entitled A Study of the Mohawks in High Steel by Joseph Mitchell. It traces the history of Mohawk involvement in the construction of high steel structures, from the 1886 railroad bridge built across the St. Lawrence by the Dominion Bridge Company, through the then-present day (I believe that this was first published in 1949). It focuses on the residents of Caughnawaga (Kahnawake), and provides some very cursory background information on the history and culture of the Mohawk.

The second work, and by far the longer, is Edmund Wilson's Apologies to the Iroquois, so named because the author once informed a visitor from England that there were only a few Indians left in New York State, and that the Mohicans and the Mohawks were the same people. This work represents his efforts to correct the errors in his own knowledge and thinking, and to investigate the then-current (ca. 1957) state of the Iroquois people. It is divided into nine chapters (perhaps they were published as separate articles?), each devoted to a different nation and/or topic, and the trips that Wilson undertook to research them. These range in theme from the political to the social, and include everything from the resistance of the Tuscarora to the efforts to flood much of their land, as well as the Seneca fight against the Kinzua Dam project, to the False Face society and other cultural ceremonies and rituals.

First, let me say that I found this entire book both informative and well-written. I had been vaguely aware of Mohawk involvement in high-steel construction, having read Joseph Bruchac's children's novel n  Eagle Songn, in which the father works in steel. So Joseph Mitchell's essay was most welcome, with its discussion of the history of Mohawk participation in this industry, and the Mohawk community in Brooklyn. I only wish I could find a similar article about the contemporary Iroquois presence in NYC. I found myself wondering whether a lot of Mohawks worked on the Twin Towers, and how they felt after 9/11.**

Apologies to the Iroquois was my first foray into the work of Edmund Wilson, though I hope not my last. One cannot accept Wilson as an authority on anything he writes here, since he is essentially a beginning student, and an outsider at that, but I did find it refreshing to read a work from this period that was sympathetic to the Native American side, and whose author was willing to publicly own up to his ignorance of the topic at hand. His explorations of various cultural institutions and ceremonies made me want to read more, particularly about Handsome Lake and his spiritual revolution (I think I will have to bump n  The Death and Rebirth of the Senecan up on my list). One thing I found rather annoying, but in a somewhat poignant way, was Wilson's optimistic appraisal of the Tuscarora and Seneca campaigns to resist the then-current encroachment on their lands. He seems to assume that they will succeed, since their campaigns were founded on a rational analysis of the facts and an insistence on justice. Of course, the modern reader is well aware that neither nation was successful, and this knowledge makes the book's analysis seem somewhat anachronistic. Oh well, hindsight is 20/20, and there are worse things, I am sure, than hoping that right will prevail...

**Addendum: since writing the above, the 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York has put on a special exhibit, Skywalkers: A Portrait of Mohawk Ironworkers at the World Trade Center , which will be of interest to readers of this book. There is also the thirteen-part documentary, Mohawk Ironworkers, that looks interesting!

Interesting read from the perspective of an empathetic observer in the 1950s.

Très intéressante étude sur la place de la nation iroquoise dans l'Amérique du milieu du XXème siècle. Malheureusement, ce classique trouve encore de nos jours un écho sinistre quant au sort réservé aux autochtones (voir en ce sens l'article ci-joint http://www.lemonde.fr/m-moyen-format/... ).

Interessante saggio sulla sugli Irochesi del 1960, la loro spiritualità, le loro condizioni di vita, le loro lotte per non perdere la propria identità.

Wilson’s collections of essays from his time spent studying the culture and current events (as of the 1950s) of the Six Nations of the Iroquois were detailed and thorough. These essays mostly explored the current efforts of leaders to forge their sovereignty and push back against the ever-constant encroachment and reneging of the US government. He started by interviewing members of the Seneca Nation about their origin stories. He visited members, spent time at ceremonies and longhouse events. He was deeply immersed in these cultures and had an amazing memory for the detail of the things he witnessed. His presence as a white man, his own cultural norms and his pomposity came through in some ways. But, he preserved a lot of important details about individuals and the nations. And the clarity, balance and eruditeness he is known for is at the forefront in these essays.

This book is well-written reportage of the Iroquois nations, their dances and customs, and their struggles for recognition and efforts against Power Authorities, New York State, The Federal Government, The Canadian Government, to maintain the land that remains theirs. It often involves invoking 200 year old treaties.
Written in the late 1950s, I reflected on the current struggles, in the Dakotas particularly, for access to water, and sovereignty. The US government policies toward Native Americans has not changed since its inception.
Edmund Wilson writes in a way that clearly acknowledges his otherness, and his privilege to be at the events he witnesses. This copy included a study of Native Americans working in High Steel by Joseph Mitchell which was informative about what may give Iroquois a natural advantage to working in high locations and also how the construction cycles mimic, in a way, the ancient patterns of Indian life.

Some time on the middle of summer, 1957, the writer Edmund Wilson was asked by a visiting British writer about Native Americans (still called Indians) in New York state, and the whereabouts of the Mohicans. Wilson replied that Mohicans were Mohawks, and that there were no 'Indians' left living in NY state. I've never been sure whether this series of New Yorker articles (published in book for in 1960) is an apology to the Iroquois for his ignorance (he was wrong on both counts) or for the centuries of and on-going dispossession of New York's indigenous inhabitants. Either way, this is one of the best journalistic expositions on the modern plight and condition of First Nations people in North America: it may be fifty years old, the struggles he describes may have been taking place up to 60 years or more ago, but they are struggles that continue – and if anything the Oka/Kanesatake struggles on Iroquois land in Canada in the early 1990s show that they have intensified.

The real strengths of this collection lies in Wilson's humility – it is an apology for personal ignorance, his sympathy for the struggles against alienation of land and cultural destruction, and his recognition that there is an Iroquois world that varies in itself between the Mohawk, Seneca, Onondaga, Tuscarora, Oneida, and Cayuga peoples who make up the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederation, and furthermore that there are still cultural and political differences between those who sided with the rebellious colonists and with the British during the Revolutionary War. His writing (as would be expected from the New Yorker) is sophisticated, elegant, and engaging – but most of all the strength lies in his appreciation and sympathetic depiction of lives, experiences, and richness of the Six Nations – while showing us their struggles, some unsuccessful, some successful, some still (in 1959 and 2010) on-going. It has been about 30 years since I last read this, and it remains one of the best pieces there is about North America's indigenous peoples: what is more, it is a testament to the merits of investigative journalism.

I have a recently acquired first edition, complete with wonderful photographs and illustrations that my old paperback edition did not have, although it does have the excellent 1949 New Yorker article about Mohawks in the construction industry that was in the paperback. The hardback is worth hunting down for the pictures.