This diagram is a teaching tool for Six Miles Deep. It overlays three different inheritance systems—Mohawk customary law, the Indian Act, and the United Empire Loyalist Mark of Honour—onto a single stylized family tree, to show where they reinforce each other and where they clash.
At the very top is the original United Empire Loyalist (UEL) ancestor, shown with the wampum icon and British flag. From that one ancestor, dotted lines trace down through several generations. Every person whose lineage can be proven back to that ancestor is marked with a gold “UE”. This represents Lord Dorchester’s 1789 Mark of Honour, which explicitly passes to “all their children and their descendants by either sex.” In other words, once a UEL ancestor is established, every descendant—male or female—carries the Loyalist mark.
The pink dots on certain heads represent the matrilineal Mohawk clan line, following the mother in the customary way. This is how our people have traditionally known who we are: you inherit your clan from your mother, and she from her mother, back through the longhouse of time. When you follow the pink heads down the tree, you can see the female line carrying the nation and clan even when the Crown and Canada ignore it.
The red figures show where Indian Act (INAC) status has been passed through the paternal line. Under the old status rules, a man could pass his status to his children, even if he married “out,” while a woman could lose her status by marrying a non-status man, and her children could be cut off as well. In practice, this meant that a colonial paternal rule could cancel the matrilineal Mohawk line, overriding the very system that grounded our clans and nations. The red figures make that distortion visible: they highlight descendants who are recognized on paper by Ottawa, but only through a rule set that undermines our own.
The black figures are intentionally left as “Unknown Lineage”. They represent people in the family where the genealogical work has not been completed or documented. They are a reminder that our picture is still incomplete—and that proper research, verification, and community memory are needed to replace guesswork with clarity.
Taken together, the colours and labels show three realities all at once:
Pink dot – Matrilineal (Customary) → Mohawk clan line (mother’s line).
Black figure – Unknown lineage → we haven’t done the genealogy yet.
Red figure – Paternal (INAC Status) → status flowing through the male line under the Indian Act rules.
Gold “UE” – Mark of Honour (UE) → United Empire Loyalist descent by either sex.
Six Miles Deep uses this diagram to explain why identity and title on the Haldimand Tract cannot be reduced to a single list or statute. Real people sit at the crossroads of clan law and Crown law, while Indian Act rules often cut across both. Our work is to rebuild accurate hereditary records—respecting the matrilineal clan, documenting Loyalist posterity, and exposing where the paternal status system has erased or confused the female line—so that when we talk about “posterity forever,” we know exactly who that means.
Leave a Reply