Tim Johnson’s immediate response this week to the death of Canadian musician Robbie Robertson was gut-level disbelief.
“The last time we saw him he was so vibrant, so energetic,” Johnson said, grief compounded by regret that he would never work with Robertson again.
As the hours went by, Johnson’s sadness gave way to an even more overwhelming emotion that he said swept across the Six Nations of the Grand River territory – a community from every nation of the Haudenosaunee in Southern Ontario, about 70 miles from Niagara Falls.
“Mostly we’re just grateful, hugely grateful, for the contributions he made and the joy Robbie brought into people’s lives,” Johnson said.
Johnson’s father was a Mohawk, raised at Six Nations, who worked at the old Hooker Chemical in Niagara Falls. Johnson, who grew up in North Tonawanda, would soon play a key role in the monumental creation of the Haudenosaunee flag when he was a student at the University at Buffalo.
Years later, he returned to Six Nations after retiring as associate director at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian.
Tim Johnson had a flash of pained boyhood memory as he watched the national debate over whether to stand for the flag, during the national anthem. Johnson is a Mohawk, a member of the Six Nations, raised in North Tonawanda. He remembers, as a child in public schools, standing for the Pledge of Allegiance and feeling…
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