Why Mohawk disguises, sounds, and songs during the events of the Boston Tea Party?
Perhaps it was a way of signifying the colonists’ dawning awareness regarding the ingeniousness of the Iroquois Confederacy as a form of government and model to inspire the shaping of a new government amongst the colonies. Perhaps it was a way of signaling a key message to the Mohawk/Iroquois Nation regarding future alliances beyond British rule. Perhaps it was a kind of post-traumatic effort to display and reenact – in a different direction — the melee of events of exploration, invasion, wars, and raids which had been enacted over the previous two hundred years. And perhaps it was a way these activist seamen, traders, civic leaders, dock workers – demonstrated on the docks a growing sense of their power as a collaborating people from diverse cultures and nations, joining together to move through and beyond horrific histories of empire with hopes toward a different future. All this, with wide open doors, hosted by a people and place very dear to all of us – the Old South Meeting House.
