In the final phases of writing Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone, I had the serendipitous honor of meeting kahentinetha bear, an eighty-two-year-old Mohawk activist, who was more than helpful in supplying me with cultural details, as well as Eva Fadden, the Mohawk-language consultant to the Outlander TV show. Eva and her family are the curators of the Six Nations Iroquois Cultural Center (www.6nicc.com). Both these ladies gave me fascinating information—some of which was at odds with historical accounts (all written by non-Mohawk people) that I’d used in previous books. So I used these ladies’ helpful information to the greatest extent possible, and will continue to apply it (and whatever further advice they and other people give me) in future books.
As a brief example, here is kahentinetha’sfn3 description of naming, which doesn’t agree with the naming of Ian Murray’s son in the novels. One could argue that the circumstances were quite different and that the people involved were connected with Joseph Brant and thus not living entirely within the normal cultural environment, and I think that’s valid. But I did want to provide kahentinetha’s information, just as illustration (and in thanks for her very elegant commentary):
Prayed—we don’t pray like Christians. We gather together in our clan and describe the dream. We do not interpret the dream. We are to wait for the next dream and a sign that will give the meaning to the initial dream. Also the name is given by the people and the baby is presented to all the clans in the longhouse. When the person dies, the last night before he is buried, there is a ceremony to take back the name so he or she leaves without it. Now somebody else can use it. No two persons in the world can have the same name. The oldest person with the name can keep it but the younger person has to go back to the longhouse, wear new clothes and receive a new name.
—KAHENTINETHA BEAR (quoted by permission)