A vision sent Mohawk woman on 22-year quest

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Ann Jack is a Mohawk from the Akwasasini Nation in Ontario. Her Mohawk name is Karonaihnoron - "the sky is expensive" - and she's from the Bear Clan.

A mother of 15 children and 39 grandchildren , in June 1968 at the age of 37, Anne had a vision which sent her on a 22-year quest to deliver a message to all people. After she received the vision, Jack was invited to an elders' conference in Oklahoma. It was the first conference she'd ever been invited to speak at. There were 106 Indian Nations attending the meeting and speeches lasted for eight days.

Jack remembers the time and her experience so vividly because she was visited by a spirit - a spirit that was about to change her life forever.

"It was on the seventh night. I was very tired and went to bed very early."

Unable to sleep, Jack heard a noise in the early morning that sounded like "paper crumbling." She looked about the tipi she was resting in but saw nothing.

"Then suddenly I say a man standing before me. He was tall and wearing a buckskin outfit. On his head he wore three eagle feathers. He stood silently for awhile and then he spoke."

Jack says the tall man spoke in her Mohawk tongue.

"He told me I was to go home and back to my way of life, back to the longhouse and to my people's ceremonies. He said the life I had been living was not for me and that I was following a foreign religion."

She says the spirit told her she was carrying a crucifix that was too heavy for her.

"He said the crucifix was not mine and that it belonged to Christopher Columbus and his children. He said it was not meant for my Indian people."

Jack says the spirit talked to her in a quiet manner, telling her she had a huge responsibility ahead of her. She said the spirit told her she now had to find a way to teach very young Indian children about their tradition and culture "so the children would never get hurt or destroyed."

"He said I must tell the people to come back to the traditional way of life before it became too late. He said he would always be there to guide me," she says.

The spirit told her to "teach all people about the beautiful way of life and our (Indian )law of the land."

While the spirit spoke, Jack noticed everything around him sparkled and was like a blinding light.

"I rubbed my eyes and finally got enough courage to say something. I said to him, 'Let me get out of this bed and we'll sit and talk.' When I did get off the bed, he disappeared."

John searched inside and outside the tipi but to no avail. The spirit was gone. She says everything the spirit said to her is now outlined in her life.

"Ever since that night 22 years ago not for a second has that bright star (spirit) left me. Sometimes my eyes hurt from the time he was standing there. Now I try to tell all people the message the spirit gave to me."

She has repeated that message over and over again at conferences, around camp fires at powwows and everywhere she has traveled.

She says the message is clear and she is now at the tail end of her journey.

"I was told to tell people our time is running out and that changes must be made. That is why I am on a vision quest, traveling through the United States and Canada to tell people we must change our ways before it is too late as the vision I saw told me."

To many people Anne Jack is a gifted lady and her vision just may be a sin of things to come. She does not take her vision quest lightly and believes in herself when she says, "The vision of the man I saw stands before me, a warning of hard times ahead if we do not change our ways.

"Already for Indian people things have begun to happen. We must prepare ourselves and our children. His words were to tell the people to go back to the way of life that once was in the natural world before it is too late."