The birthday of poet and performer Emily Pauline Johnson was celebrated at the Chiefswood National Historic Site, her Six Nations birthplace and childhood home.
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“They call it the house that love built,” Whitlea Henry, Six Nations Tourism coordinator, said Sunday of the Ohsweken-area home built in 1856 by Chief George HM Johnson.
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“Emily, her mother, and George, her father, they were so in love. Her mother was English, her father
Haudenosaunee. Inter-racial marriages weren’t a thing back then. This is Pauline’s birth home, her two older siblings were not born here,” Henry said at the celebration.
Designated a national historic site in 1953, the house has been well preserved. Flooring was restored two years ago. Officials went to a company in England to replicate the wallpaper.
“Most of it is original,” said Henry, noting visitors come from far and wide.
“I met people from all over the world this past summer… from Ireland, from France, so many different people who came to the reserve. Some people stay at the park and they don’t even know the history, and they come in here to learn it. Once I give them a history of this house, they’re like ‘Oh wow!’
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And they want to know about their neighbors and the people who lived here.”
Pauline Johnson (1861-1913) was primarily known for her performances, said Henry.
“She would wear her Victorian outfit, then change, and she would come out in all-leather Mohawk traditional clothing,” said Henry. “That was her key factor to wow her crowd all the time.”
Sunday’s agenda included a writing workshop by Riverside Reading Series from Paris and live poetry readings.
“This year we want to do more programming. We’re trying to make the house more usable for programs, events and workshops, or renting the space. We’re trying to make it a more hands-on site. For one of (Pauline’s) birthday celebrations, there was a drum group. We like to switch things up here and there.”
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Staff at Chiefswood donated a 1937 edition Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake) book, Flint and Feather presented in an archival box to Aleria Mckay, one of Sunday’s performers.
“I have quite a few of her books – I’ve even got her first one, from 1895, The White Wampum,” said James Gibson, a member of the Chiefswood Board of Trustees, who set up a display on Sunday. “And, of course, 1903 was Canadian Born, then Legends of Vancouver in 1911 and Flint and Feather shortly after that (1912). Two were published after she passed away in 1913, The Shagganappi and (The Moccasin Maker).
“She (Johnson) performed in London, England at least twice,” Gibson noted. “And she performed all across Canada and northeast United States for about 17 years.”
Scheduled speakers Sunday included poet and playwright Aleria Mckay; spoken word artist Kahsenniyo; multi-media artist Krystal River; author and artist Fareh Malik; writer, composer and multidisciplinary artist Gary Barwin; academic and creative writer Mariam Pirbhai; Wilfrid Laurier University professor in the Department of English and Film Studies, Tanis Macdonald; author and poet Kim Fahneri; and Wilma Green, who recited Pauline Johnson’s poem The Cattle Thief in theatrical fashion, from memory, much like Johnson would have done.
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