by WAYNE HILTZ

Have you ever wondered what places on the island and region of Montreal were called before the Europeans came, saw and conquered? Well, an independent geography researcher, dozens of McGill student-volunteers and 30 Kahnawake elders have been working for several years to recover over 100 place-names for villages, rivers and mountains and have finally put together the First Nations Place-Name project.

"All of the names are descriptive of the ecology, human relations and relations with the land," says Doug Jack, the researcher and ecologist who helped lead the project. "In that sense, there's a wealth of understanding that started by understanding the place-names."

For the Kanien'kehaka (the People of the Flint, or Mohawk), the whole Montreal region was known as Tiohtiake, which means the "place where the nations and their rivers unite and divide." Besides the Iroquois Mohawk, it was also home to the Wendat (Huron), Algonquin and smaller nations who lived, traded and travelled through the area.

Those ecologically descriptive place-names are remarkably different from European nomenclature, Jack notes. When native peoples were driven off the Montreal and Laval islands during the late 17th century, the markers of their way of life as well as their place-names were erased, except in the collective memory passed down by the elders.

Jack believes that understanding languages can lead to everybody being treated more equally. "When we both use descriptions for places, I don't have to bow to your language and we can develop a bridge between our languages," he says.

As more of these native place-names become re-discovered - the project has only gathered about one-10th of those possible - Jack hopes that his place-names project can lead to both ecological sustainability and cultural integration and reconciliation.

Knowing the place-names "opens the door" to the traditional knowledge and wisdom that's inherent in them, Jack says. "They tell us about each location, the fertility of the soil, the plants that grow there, how to access the natural ecological productivity, how to live where we are in respecting the land and how can we live together," he says.

Their model of sustainable agriculture - having nut-bearing trees surrounded by corn, beans and squash (the so-called Three Sisters) - is still far more ecologically sound than today's genetically modified crops and most agricultural research, he asserts.

Their previous communal way of life could also provide a model for bridging the gaps between generations and different peoples, and can help us understand and respect each other, he believes. First Nations have an expression: "We are the Earth speaking," Jack says. "When we encourage that voice of the Earth in each one of us, in all our diversity, then we're really allowing the Earth to speak."

After having been helped to survive in the early days of colonization, Europeans have never really asked the Mohawks for any traditional knowledge. This project could be an excellent starting point to help reconcile the two cultures, Jack says. "We really could take this and create a profound heritage for all people and go forward in this place sustainably."

For more on the project, visit http://cbed.geog.mcgill.ca/atlasPages/history/article.htm