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Subject: [Q-R] Excerpt of History
Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2003 21:59:01 EDT
...............Fulford Place, Brockville, Ontario.................still
visible on the cliff below, is an ancient Indian pictograph, one of few in all of
Ontario. The aboriginal artists using red ochre paint, had drawn a symbolic
canoe with five passengers. According to Mohawk legend, the painting marks the
site of a tragedy which occurred over 250 years ago, when France and England
were locked in a struggle to control the St. Lawrence River.
The Indians of the area of that time, called the Thousand
Islands area, "Manitonna", which means "Garden of the Great Spirit" because of its
beauty. Here they believed the Great Spirit came to find joy and rest. The
rock painting commemorates the Great Spirit's revenge on an Indian war party
which desecrated his beautiful garden, significantly, the symbolic canoe faces
the Three Sisters Island, which guard the exit to the Garden of the Great
Spirit.
A group of Indian warriors was conveying two captured British
officers downstream to Montreal. Suddenly a violent thunderstorm arose. To
pacify the Storm God, the warriors hurled their bound prisoners into the sacred
waters. The Storm God was not appeased. The hurricane increased in fury, lashing
waves swamped the canoe and the entire party perished, their death shrieks
mingling with the claps of thunder. A distinguished chief was among the victims.
The Great Sprit was angry because the prisoners had been drowned in his
Garden, instead of being taken downstream and burned at the stake.
Until the 19th century, groups of Mohawks made yearly pilgrimages
to the site, to renew the sacred red ochre paint and wail in
incantation".......................
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