Mohawk people

"Mohawk language and culture didn’t disappear on their own. , the government policy to deal with the so-called Indian problem, shipped Mohawk children to the barracks at , where the school's avowed mission was "Kill the Indian to Save the Man." [...] Despite Carlisle, despite exile, despite a siege four hundred years long, there is something, some heart of living stone, that will not surrender. I don't know just what sustained the people, but I believe it was carried in words. Pockets of the language survived among those who stayed rooted to place. Among those remaining, the Thanksgiving Address was spoken to greet the day: "Let us put our minds together as one and send greetings and thanks to our Mother Earth, who sustains our lives with her many gifts." Grateful reciprocity with the world, as solid as a stone, sustained them when all else was stripped away."