Mohawk Nation News 'High Steel'

HIGH STEEL

Posted on June 28, 2013

MNN. June 26, 2013. The Haudenosaunee ironworkers “Ratiristakehron” worked on nearly all the big structures of greater New York: Empire State Building, George Washington Bridge, Chrysler Building, World Trade Center, Triborough Bridge, Verrazano Bridge, Pulaski Skyway and West Side Highway. They worked all over the world, even helping to rivet the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and the Panama Canal. Mohawks were sent to California to teach ironworkers how to erect with a guy derek. 

Ratiskerakete, our men.

In 1886 Dominion Bridge of Montreal was building a cantilevered bridge over the St. Lawrence for the Canadian Pacific Railroad. It was partly set on the Kahnawake Mohawk community on the south shore. The Mohawks demanded jobs. Dominion Bridge agreed – assuming they would unload box cars and do other menial tasks. The Indians climbed all over the bridge, “as agile as goats”. They wanted to try riveting. As the work progressed, the Mohawks were found to be at ease at great heights. 

Keepers of the Eastern Door of Great Turtle Island.

Riveting is difficult and dangerous. Rivets were heated until they were red-hot, tossed thirty to forty feet through the air, then caught and forced through steel beams with a pneumatic riveting gun, all standing on a narrow beam 500 feet or more above the ground. 
Soon 70 iron and steel riveters were working projects throughout Canada. Men from all Six Nations joined. Mohawks worked 10 years before the international Iron Workers Union was formed. They had always adapted to highly skilled building trades. They were guides for fur trappers, rode rafts for lumber companies, shot the rapids, circus performers and even ‘snake oil’ salesmen. 
In 1907 the Quebec Bridge collapsed, killing 96 workers, 35 of them Mohawks. Instead of quitting, Mohawk boys became even more determined to become steelworkers. Construction companies preferred Iroquois iron workers.

Haudenosaunee hands in NYC skyline.

By the 1910s they arrived in New York. In the 1930s over 700 Mohawks lived in the old North Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn. Local Italian grocers carried their favorite cornmeal. They hung out at the Spar Bar and the Wigwam Bars. It is said there was a sign, “The Greatest Iron Workers in the World Pass Thru These Doors”. 
Their ties to their families and communities were very strong. On Friday nights the steel workers made the twelve-hour trip home to a joyous reception and drove all night back to the city on Sunday nights to be on the job on Monday morning. 

Eagles at the top of Tree of Peace.

Their skill remains a mystery. Some thought it was genetic. Others said they knew how to deal with fear. By the late 1960s riveting had all but disappeared. The Brooklyn community dissolved. The lure of high steel did not disappear. The graves of men who died on the job are marked with steel girders. By the 1990s 20 to 25 percent of Mohawk men were in steel work again. Men who want to do it are rare and men who can do it are even rarer. 
As Joni Mitchell sang, “Little Indian kids on a bridge up in Canada, They can balance and they can climb, Like their fathers before them, They’ll walk the girders of the Manhattan skyline … Song for Sharon.
MNN Mohawk Nation News kahentinetha2@yahoo.com Thahoketoteh@hotmail.com For more news, books, workshops, to donate and sign up for MNN newsletters, go to www.mohawknationnews.com  More stories at MNN Archives.  Address:  Box 991, Kahnawake [Quebec, Canada] J0L 1B0. Download free Mohawk music at Thahoketoteh.

Mohawk Nation News 'Mohawks Strike Terror'

MOHAWKS STRIKE TERROR
By Mohawk Nation News
http://www.mohawknationnews.com

MNN.  8 May 2012.  An expensive amateur propaganda and slick video by APTN,  “Canada Will Get No Warning Next Time We Strike”, Says [one] Mohawk’, is a joke!  We have no guns, bombs, armies, nor threaten anybody.  We advocate peace and non-violence.

Our truth is terrifying the world’s corporate rulers.  To them we are scarier than Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, Tamil Tigers, Hezbollah, Islamic terrorists, even Quebec Separatists, Lone Wolf operatives like the underwear bomber, multi issue extremists, environmentalists, anti-capitalists and animal rights activists.   

We are called ‘Aboriginal extremists’ because we have always defended ourselves when attacked, at Oka in 1990, Caledonia land reclamation at Six Nations,Tyendinaga Quarry and wouldn’t let border guards carry weapons in Akwesasne.

Self-defense is called terrorism.  When the masses understand us, the British divide and conquer card is trumped.       

The masses want answers from the bankers and their foot soldiers.  Where’s the money?  Democracy?  Our future?  How did you become so filthy rich while we have hardly anything?

We’re hitting the Canadian economy, which is based on theft of our land, resources and genocide.  The liars’ club includes CSIS, RCMP, CBSA, Public Safety, DND, CBC, CTV [the thought police]and others. 

The program is called “Ordo ab chao”, order out of chaos.  It’s not working anymore.     

Strangers enter our communities, saying they’re vaguely related to us.  They answer to outside handlers. The elders who ask questions are discredited. Radical rhetoric and actions are started to create confusion and division.  We get targeted.        

The Mohawks can revitalize the Iroquois Confederacy.  In 1784 Deseronto, settled in Tyendinaga.   Joseph Brant left Tyendinaga with17 families to start Brantsford on the banks of the Grand River, Six Nations. 

Both took orders from the European oligarchy, bankers and mind controllers.  Mohawks constantly resist.  To further try to divide us, an“imaginary line” called the border was put between the corporations of “Canada”and “US”. 

Their ultimate prize is for every person on earth to bend to their will, to kill off 75% and to decide who lives and dies. 

Thirty years ago Che Quevara, a true warrior, said, “I envy you North American Indians.  You’re living in the belly of the beast.  Your greatest fight is yet to come”.  

The evil system brought to Great Turtle Island in 1492 is shutting down.  In “Masters of War” Bob Dylan said:  “And I hope that you die and your death will come soon.  I’ll follow your casket in the pale afternoon.  And I’ll watch while you’re lowered down to your deathbed.  And I’ll stand over your grave til I’m sure that you’re dead”. 

Deception always has to hide in darkness. Truth can withstand the scrutiny of daytime and light.  Unlike corporate tyranny, Mohawks have nothing to hide. 

Corporatism of 51% is finished.  The Kaianerehkowa of one mind shall lead the way.   

[See: http://aptn.ca/pages/news/2012/02/18/canada-will-get-no-warning-next-time/].   

MNN Mohawk Nation News Kahentinetha2@yahoo.com  For more news, books, workshops, to donate and to sign up for MNN newsletters go to www.mohawknationnews.com  More stories at MNN Archives.   Address:  Box 991, Kahnawake [Quebec, Canada] J0L 1B0