Mohawk-language Bible published after decades of work by Kanesatake man

Lowrie, Morgan. “Mohawk-Language Bible Published after Decades of Work by Kanesatake Man.” The Canadian Press, August 30, 2023. https://globalnews.ca/news/9928179/mohawk-language-bible-kanesatake/.

“I kept going because when you start something for the Creator, you can’t stop,” he said in a recent interview in the garden of his Kanesatake home. “It’s so interesting. Every verse is different.

The newly printed Bible has a purple cover — the colour of the Iroquois Confederacy flag — and an illustration depicting the turtle, wolf and bear clans. The title reads “Ohiatonhseratokénti” — a word Gabriel says means “holy pages.”

When asked what motivated him, Gabriel’s answer is simple: “language.”

He was once told, and believes, that translating the word of God into his language means “it can never be lost.” Already, he said, young people who are learning Mohawk have told him they are eager to use the Bible as a resource.

Gabriel, who has also written a Mohawk dictionary, is not the first member of his family to take language preservation to heart: his great-grandfather, Sosé Onasakenrat, translated the Four Gospels in the mid-1800s.