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Énigme de vie – VI

This poem tells how a medicine man, the grandfather of the Mohawk-Oneida women’s rights pioneer Mary Two Axe Earley, saved my grandfather Frederick C. Grant’s life in 1893, in Wisconsin. The story was told to me by my grandfather, and subsequently by Mary Two Axe Earley in 1984, at her home in Kahnawake, near Montreal. Mary’s mother Juliette Smith Two Axe was an Oneida nurse, Juliette’s father may have been Jacob (Doc) Smith, the Oneida medicine man mentioned above, while Mary’s father Dominic Two Axe and her paternal grandfather Martin Two Axe were Mohawk medicine men.