ALTENSTEIG, Germany - "Mohawk Madness" in Germany Opens Doors For Reconciliation

18 August 2010

Jonathan "Maracle Out On Main Street" in Canada,USA - Or Anywhere

By PATRICK BUTLER
ResonateNews.com

    He has been described as the “tip of the spear” when it comes to the cutting edge of the reconciliation movement between European and First Nation cultures. Whatever one thinks of singer Jonathan Maracle and the message of his Mohawk band, Broken Walls, it is clear Maracle is a history maker, not observer.
    When Maracle met the mayor of Haiterbach, Germany in early August and performed at the Altensteig Cultural Center, he was just doing what he does best – building bridges of understanding.
    When he spearheaded the Sing to the Mountains Music Festival in June 12 miles from where Colonel’s George Custer and Nelson Miles were once stationed – Maracle made history by birthing the nation’s first Native American and First Nation festival dedicated to “the Jesus Way.”
  “I’m just being myself,” the 58-year-old Maracle said. The Mohawk First Nation Member who lives on the  Cheif Tyendinaga Territory reservation near Ontario, Canada, had a moment to talk between sets at the festival’s idyllic setting in the Wichita Mountains, Okla. The concert site was significanlty laid out near the end of the historic Trail of Tears. The Native song and dance fest was his idea.
    “I’m seeing more openness to Native cultures now than I have for years,” he said. “Broken Walls will be in Germany soon and the people there are just crazy about Mohawks. It's amazing. They even have Mohawk clubs throughout the country."
  Maracle's message no matter where he is?   “Forgive.” That’s something easy to say and much harder to do, said Maracle, the son of a full-blood Mohawk father and a Scottish woman.
  “I grew up with the message that our Mohawk culture was somehow unacceptable, that European culture was right. I began to resent that and here I was, half European.”
   His way out of resentment and bitterness was becoming a follower of “the Jesus Way,” Maracle said. There was an emotional conflict in the idea of "accepting a white man’s religion," he said.  
   “We are the only culture that was told we could not come to Christ the way we were,” he said. “If you walk into a Hispanic church with your eyes closed, you can tell you are in a Hispanic church. Or an African-American Church. Or even an Asian-church. But if you are in a Native American church, chances are you won’t be able to tell you’re in where you are. Our sounds, our culture, even our language, were prohibited."

But Christ didn't conqueor his culture, Maracle said.

"The message is that Christ came to conquer sin, he didn’t come to conquer culture. God did not make a mistake when he made Native peoples.”
  And First Nation people are perfectly poised to take the message of true reconciliation - the Jesus Way - around the world, he said.
  “That’s because we are loved everywhere,” he said. “Everyone knows our story. When First Nation people embrace forgiveness, everyone in the world knows we mean it because we have warrior hearts of forgiveness.”

   The Canadian-based Broken Walls completed  their International Tour that included Switzerland,  with an American play-date in Phoneix, Ariz. on Friday. 

Visit the Web at wwww.brokenwalls.com to hear samples of the band's music and for information.