Kanatawakhon-Maracle has been teaching the language at Western for six years at the Centre for Research and Teaching of Canadian Native Languages in the Anthropology Department, Faculty of Social Science. The course, which has been available through cassette and textbook formats, has opened up new possibilities for instruction through the new medium. He found the textual aspects of the language easy to organize because they were already packaged in the textbooks. Kanatawakhon-Maracle first began teaching Mohawk in the early seventies at the elementary school level at the Tyendinaga reserve near Kingston. As I got older I came to the conclusion that everyone was as messed up as I thought my people were and I began to embrace Mohawk again.
Language is an identity marker.
It helps us identify ourselves as members of a group. The ironic thing is that so many people dwell on the idea of majority languages as the most important, but majority language can change in a generation. It could suddenly be decided that it isn't economically viable to speak English. Humans are very pragmatic when it comes to language. 240 hours of instruction Native language instruction has existed institutionally only since the late sixties.