Iron Thunderhorse Nominated for Medal of Honor
by Ruth Thunderhorse, August, 2005
The Quinnipiac Tribal Council has just been informed that Iron Thunderhorse, Quinnipiac Grand Sachem, has been nominated for the American Medal of Honor for his numerous contributions in the past quarter century to the preservation of Algonquian language, lore, and religion.
The nomination was made initially by Dr. Frank Waabu O’Brien, Linguist and Historical Consultant of the Aquidneck Indian Council in Newport, Rhode Island. Dr. O’Brien and Julianne Jennings (Strong Woman) have themselves contributed extensively to the N-Dialect Massachusett Language Revival Project, which includes a Massachusett Language Book and Understanding Algonquian Indian Words (New England). In the PREFACE, Waabu and Strong Woman explained: “There exists today an elite band of scholars who work in this subset of a subset of theoretical and applied linguistics … [where] a great deal of painstaking work and cooperation among Native American Indian language experts … Indians and language scholars are beginning to work together on this revival project.” Iron Thunderhorse and his work was part of this revival project.
Iron Thunderhorse founded ACLI (Algonquian Confederacies Language Institute), a group at the forefront of this revival. Iron is credited with resurrecting the archaic ancestral R-dialect of the WAMPANO (Renapi) Confederacy, which once spanned across the northeastern woodlands. He also resurrected the Mik'maq hieroglyphic writing system for the Center for Algonquian Culture. Possibly his greater achievement is Graphical Writing Systems, a textbook on the aboriginal writing system of America, accepted for publication by a 20-member intertribal editorial board of the Council for Indian Education in Billings, MT.
Dr. Jack (Wanakia) Dempsey, in a recent interview with Ann Pohl, Canadian Director for the International Support League, recently gave his views about the lifelong commitment of Iron Thunderhorse to the preservation of the language and culture. Professor Dempsey stated that as a scholar of aboriginal New England, Iron Thunderhorse has accomplished three things no other scholar could. He took a dead dialect and made a living language out of it … because he is a linguist trained in the science of languages and a Native speaker of Algonquian. Iron spoke six (6) languages by the age of twelve. Another milestone Dr. Dempsey points to is Iron’s painstaking work in assembling a grammar of pictograms used throughout New England, including cultural, religious, and totemic (i.e. family, clan, band, and nation) motifs used by the Algonquian people.
Iron Thunderhorse did all this in the face of extreme adversity and under conditions of horrendous obstacles and disadvantage, without funding. That’s commitment and that, says Dempsey, is scholarship. Iron’s work inspired hundreds to press forward, following in his footsteps.
Coincidently, Ruth Mahweeyeuh (Little Owl) Thunderhorse, Iron’s wife, has recently completed her authorized biography of Iron. In her book titled Walking in the Footprints of a Stone Giant: the Life and Times of Iron Thunderhorse, Quinnipiac Grand Sachem (soon to be released by SageWriters), she lovingly chronicles his life’s story.
Many people who don’t know him have trouble understanding, even comprehending, this man and his achievements. They say, “How can this be the same man who has suffered so much, yet seems to be oblivious to all the hardships?”
Iron is a powwamanitomp — a ceremonial leader, hereditary grand sachem, and legal sovereign — for ACQTC. Not only has Iron resurrected the language, culture, and ceremonies of his people, he walks his talk. He lives by his words as an example and inspiration to others. He explains:
Our ancestors taught that a sachem had to have skin seven layers thick in order to withstand all of life’s obstacles. Our ancient thanksgiving orations (speeches), given at the commencement of any gathering of our maweomi (central council fire), always said how happy they were to greet everyone because there were natural disasters, diseases from Europeans, and treachery behind every tree, for every village. My skin is now 12 layers thick [he laughs] and I counsel people in distress to think about what our ancestors had to endure every single day to survive.
At the end of the ACQTC Newsletter for Summer 2005, Iron wrote:
THINK ON THESE THINGS: Summer/Nepun is a time of blue skies, clam fritters, lazy walks along the ancient Indian trails, hearing the voices of the catbird, fishhawk, and wild turkeys. It’s a time of sharing, caring, warm feelings for another season that Kehtanit, our Creator, has seen us through — another year of survival on Turtle Island. Each day at dawn and dusk, let us send our voices to the Creator, thanking him for the few blessings we do have, and let’s not dwell on the hardships we all face.
These are words of wisdom from an elder who is legally blind, disabled, and suffers constant pain, but still he refuses to become another victim of what is negative in life.
Dr. O’Brien will be joined now, no doubt, by other scholars who have witnessed Iron’s amazing ability to overcome all obstacles in order to leave a living legacy to his people for the next seven generations to come.
In her response to Dr. O’Brien’s nomination, Little Owl said: “I cannot think of anything you could have done that would have given him [Iron] such renewed courage to continue his struggles for our people …[this] surely will bring a smile to his heart.”
