Turns out that the Mohawk and the Mohicans are two separate tribes. I did not know this. The Mohawk live in a portion of New York and Canada that to them is one place but to most of the world is separated by some strange line drawn by a couple of countries that for all intents and purposes might as well be the same fucking place.
Meanwhile the Mohicans relocated to Wisconsin.
I have a mohawk and often call myself a mohican. Notice the non-use of caps. Mohawks and Mohicans are different from mohawks and mohicans.
I did find something that makes me think becoming an honorary Mohawk might be a good way to celebrate 20 years of the mohawk.
Sounds good to me.Myth of the Iroqouis Loyalist
The myth of Iroquois loyalty is intimately tied to the person of Joseph Brant, the enigmatic Mohawk chief who left an ambiguous legacy. Brant’s adoption of many European practices and his ability to navigate English and Mohawk societies fluently has puzzled historians and caused his major biographers to question his “Indianness.” Like Brant’s Euroamerican contemporaries, many historians have accepted the image that he projected in his public dealings with Crown officials as an accurate representation of Mohawk beliefs. Brant, however, acted in accordance with Mohawk customs and consistently strove to attain chiefly authority. Among the Iroquois, chiefs’ claims to power derived from the nature and extent of their alliances, which they built and maintained through kinship, marriage, their abilities as warriors and diplomats, and by redistributing goods to followers. Brant employed these indigenous methods to gain power but extended his alliances to include members of the colonial and imperial communities. Brant was no loyalist. He accommodated colonization by attempting to create a coherent world from the diversity of the Mohawk Valley that fitted Europeans and their practices into a worldview rooted in Mohawk culture and values.
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