ABSTRACT
I am of the Mohawk Nation and Turtle clan of the Hodinohso:n' People of the Six Nations of the Grand River in southwestern Ontario. I was born in 1953 and raised on the Six Nations reserve, the oldest daughter of four children born to Harry and Virginia. When I was about five years old, my great-grandmother, who was blind, told me I was given the name "Ga nah don yohs" meaning "calling her people". I can remember my totah smiling and caressing my face with her soft hands as she whispered my name to me. Both my parents spoke our Hodinohso:ni' language, and it was quite comical to hear them bicker back and forth, chiding each other for mispronouncing a word or mixing Mohawk and Cayuga. They spoke mostly Mohawk to us, but when we started our education, Mohawk seemed to be spoken less frequently at home. At school, the language of instruction was English, and as I continued in school, I listened less and less when our First Nations languages were spoken.
