Mohawk community evicts non-natives

The Mohawk Council of Kahnawake is ordering non-native people on the reserve to find another home.

Band council members went door-to-door Monday, issuing 26 eviction notices to those they say have no right living in the community according to Mohawk law.

Grand Chief Michael Delisle said the non-native residents have become a growing concern in the community just south of Montreal on the banks of the St. Lawrence River.

The council had no choice but to issue the evictions, the chief said.

"It's been a longstanding custom that the community of Kahnawake is for the members of Kahnawake, and according to Mohawk custom code, tradition and Mohawk law reinstituted again in 2004, people of anything other than Mohawk unless they've transferred into our membership files can't live in Kahnawake," Delisle said.

Delisle said each aboriginal reserve or territory in Canada has the right to decide who lives there.

He doesn't expect the evicted people to go quietly.

"I'm sure there will be some resistance, if you want to call it that, but obviously other external issues involving anywhere from human rights to individual rights versus the collective."

Delisle said everyone in the community is strongly encouraged to marry a Mohawk or at least someone with native blood, otherwise their partners could be evicted from the reserve.