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Local elder :r""'J3Ket'·Thomas dead at age76 • 1 '\ ' ' ,...~ ~ ·' ' • 1 ConliMed/romfronlpage .--; :..·, , , . r_. .._i,--1 ,..: Nations elder capable of speaking five of the six Iroquoian languages (Tuscarora was the only language he did not feel comfortable using, he has said). In 1984 Thomas completed course work to earn a Native lan- guage Instructor's Diploma spon- sored by Lakehead University and the University of Western Ontario. In 1992 he was appointed to the Board of Governors of McMaster University. In 1994, Michael K. Foster, Curator Emeritus at the Canadian Museum of Civilization, and a friend and collaborator of the late chief, wrote, "underlying Chief Thomas's many involvcmcnL<; is a spc1:ial concern thm the Iroquoian traditions somehow be passed on to younger Iroquois, fewer and fewer of whom speak the· original languages that arc the vehicles of those traditions. For him it is not enough to dictate texts to anthro- pologists and linguists for the sake of scholarship and posterity: urgent steps need to be taken to insure the widest possible dissemi- nation of the old culture." One o( those urgent steps, and one that has caused controversy bet wee_n 1:b..2111as _ _jD.d.. o_rthodox Longhouse traditionalists, was a decision in 1992 to recite the Great Law in English. Thomas gave his first five-day recitation of the Great Law in English at the community hall in Ohswekcn in January of 1992, and a nine-day recitation eight months later in September at his home. Two years later, in June of 1994, he gave a similar l 2~day recitation, also in English and also in a tent in front of his home. "I get a lot of cr11ici s in for reciting the Great Law in English," Thomas told the Tckawcnnakc at the time. "But few of our people know their tra- ditional language !sol you try your best." The Great Law, known as the Kaianercnko'wa in the Mohawk language, is the cornerstone of Iroquoian society, setting out the rules of interaction among mem- ber nations, clans and individuals. Some traditionalists then, as now, resented what they believed to be Thomas's attempt to "popu- larize" the Great Law beyond the confines of the Iroquoian people, both by presenting the story in English and by allowing non- natives to observe, causing a rift within the Longhouse that persists to this day. But Thomas met his chal- lengers in 1994 as he had those before and since; with his well- known mixture of honesty, prag- matism, and wry humour. "Many non-Natives arc looking for spiri- tual guidance," he observed sim- ply. "We all need it." Foster would later write that Thomas told him, "I think the white man needs to understand. IL isn't that he's going to take the Law and use it'himsclf.. . Th ey already did!" Thomas' joke refers · 10 the widely held Iroquoian belief that core tenants I ikc peace and security contai-ncd in the Great Law formed the framework of the 13 US colonies' Constitution. "So what- should we be afraid of?" Foster recounts Thomas say- ing during the conversation. "If they want to learn it they have a right to . That should have been done 500 years ago, to study and respect the Confederacy. Maybe we wouldn't have the problems we have today if they would have studied our people, [and would] now understand and horiour and respec~ [us]." Thomas kept up his schedule of reciting the Great Law, present- ing it at the Six Nations tourism centre in '96 and right up to the present, _literally until the day he died. Bill Woodworth is an archi- . tect by training, a student of Jake Thomas' by choice, and a friend, he thinks, by divine intervention. Over the weekend he accompanied Jake and Yvonne to Ganondagon, NY, a Seneca cultural site located . south of Rochester. He had planned a... film collaboration with the Thomas's and was with them to scout possible locations. "He had just finished an abbreviated version of the Great Law to about 60 young people, for their leadership and ciders gather- ing," recalls Woodworth. "He finished on Sunday with the last part of the Great Law and there was a brief ceremony where two people sang, stirring ashes into him. Then they formed a cir- cle and shook his hand and thanked him. And that really was hi~ last teaching." Woodworth had been plan- ning a filming" of the Great Law in Mohawk, in a traditional setting, possible at the Kanata Village in Brantford, complete with simulta- neous tmnslation into English and the other Iroquoian languages "so people from every nation could hear it in their own way," he says. The project was to be funded by the Centre for Spiritual Democracy. They arc still interest- ed in going forward with the pro- ject, says Woodworth, although obviously now in an altered form. Woodworth said Thomas spoke of death on Sunday. "He had a sense that all the work he was doing was shortening his ·life. But he was quite willing to contin- ue for the sake of our culture ... For that reason he was sacrificing him- self, in a way, for the people." Woodworth described Thomas's mood that day as a state of "equanimity, of completely being g i vcn over to the Good Mind, and that's the feeling I had when being around him ."