Akwesasne ties run deep in Marvel superhero series episode

When Doug George-Kanentiioheard his late wife's voice ringing out on a recent Marvel superheroseries, he wasoverwhelmed.

"It was very moving. We'd been married for 30 years," said thewriter and journalist from Akwesasne, a Kanienkeh:ka (Mohawk) community near Cornwall, Ont., that straddles the Ontario, Quebecand New York borders.

"To see and hear that oh man, it's almost too much for me to even talk about."

George-Kanentiioand his wife Joanne Shenandoah, an acclaimed Grammy-winning musicianfrom the Oneida Nation who died in 2021, were instrumental in creating the superhero character Kahhori for an episode of theanimated Marvel seriesWhat If?.

The series delves into alternate reality versions of the Marvel universe. In the episode What If... Kahhori Reshaped the World?, the power-bestowing Tesseract falls to Earth and lands in the territory of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy just as European colonizers show up.

It's a rare half-hour of televisionwhere Kanien'kha(the Mohawk language) is heard throughout, with Kahhori and other Indigenous characters all speaking it.

Kahhori also strongly resembles a younger Shenandoah, whose music is woven throughout the episode.

"What we wanted to show, what was so important to me personally, was the integrity of Native music, the power in our voices," George-Kanentiiotold CBC Radio's All In A Day.

"And when Marvel said, OK, we'll do this, that's what kept Joanne going, even though she was very physically ill in the last few months of her life."

Language 'imperilled'

George-Kanentiioand Shenandoah worked closely with writer Ryan Little to craft the episode, which began streaming on Disney Plus inDecember.

"There was a little bit of hesitation on our part, because media has not been kind to Indigenous people," George-Kanentiio said.

"But Ryan had a different approach to it entirely. He would work with us. He would respect our heritage, our stories."

It all took about four years to put together, Little told All In A Day a"ridiculously long time" in the world of television.

Part of thegoal, he said,was to "elevate" theKanienkeh:ka community, something he felt couldn't be done without putting their language frontand centre.

"You learn so fast about all the resilience and all the work that's been done to maintain their culture, to keep their heads high, to live with dignity and honour," he said.

"Very quickly [it turns] to conversations about the language the language that, just 50 or 60 years ago, was imperilled."

With just a few thousand speakers who grew up with the language, however,Kanien'kharemains in perilin the eyes of the United Nations, which has classified it as an endangered language.

Accordingto 2021 census data, onlyabout 1,400 people in Canadasaid they could speak Kanien'kha, although Statistics Canada notes the language is "primarily associated with incompletely enumerated reserves and settlements."

HearingKanien'kha was 'astounding'

The episode's Akwesasne connections are strong, with locallongtimeKanien'khateacher Cecelia King also providing the translations.

For King, who was asked by Shenandoah to work on the project, hearing Kanien'kha on screen was "awesome" and something she hoped could spark interest in the language among younger viewers.

"When I saw [the episode]I realized right then that the young children are loving this so much. I think it's going to be easier to teach them the language," she toldAll In A Day.

"I've heard about children copying and saying the words [in the episode]."

George-Kanentiio said hearingKanien'khaon screen was something he'd experienced just once before: on the classic television seriesThe Lone Ranger, in brief interjections from the hero's companion Tonto.

"I think it's absolutely astounding. It's revolutionary," he said of the Marvel episode. "It's never been tried before in any media that I know of."

All in a Day15:53The Marvel Mohawk superheroine Kahhori and her ties to Akwesasne

Alan talks to Cecelia King of Akwesasne, who translated the "What If" episode into Kanien'keha, Doug George-Kanentiio who helped create the character, and Marvel's Ryan Little who wrote the episode