Keeping Their Word

[Andre Cramblit]

Keeping Their Word

By Andrew Metz STAFF CORRESPONDENT

 Akwesasne Mohawk Territory, N.Y. --   There's a small school in the far
north of New York where English is a foreign language. The tongue taught
here is Mohawk.

 And though the 64 students at the Akwesasne Freedom School learn math and
history and reading, their real purpose is their people's cultural
survival.

 "My grandmothers and aunts got spanked if they talked Mohawk at school.
That's how we lost our language," said a 12-year-old pupil, whose name is a
thicket of letters  --  Tehrenhniserakhas, pronounced De Lon Ni Zeh Lakas
--  that means "He Puts Two Days into One."

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/state/ny-mohawk1109,0,6803089.story?coll=ny-statenews-headlines