"...I like to sing", says Eva Maracle, "and I'll sing 'til the day I die". A hundred years of Native North American history emerges from the lives of fifteen Elders of Tyendinaga, in conversation with Mohawk writer Beth Brant. School teachers, domestic workers, miners, civil servants and factory workers people these accounts with the grist and joy of everyday lives spanning the 20th century. From farming and canning to a chemist who unknowingly worked to develop the atom bomb, the Elders speak history in the first person present. A history that, like the Elders themselves, transcends colonial oppression, arriving strong and generous, grounded in land and community.
"...I like to sing", says Eva Maracle, "and I'll sing 'til the day I die". A hundred years of Native North American history emerges from the lives of fifteen Elders of Tyendinaga, in conversation with Mohawk writer Beth Brant. School teachers, domestic workers, miners, civil servants and factory workers people these accounts with the grist and joy of everyday lives spanning the 20th century. From farming and canning to a chemist who unknowingly worked to develop the atom bomb, the Elders speak history in the first person present. A history that, like the Elders themselves, transcends colonial oppression, arriving strong and generous, grounded in land and community.