10/12/2026
Join us on Thursday, October 15 at 7:00 PM for a Live! Folklife Concert with Kontiwennenhá:wi / Akwesasne Women Singers in the CLM Community Room.
A second performance will take place on Friday, October 16 at our partner’s site, the Historic Salem Courthouse in Salem, NY. Both concerts are free and start at 7:00 PM, with doors opening at 6:30 PM.
Kontiwennenhá:wi, which is translated as Carriers of the Words, is a women’s singing group that originated from the Mohawk Nation at Ahkwesashsne. Kontiwennenhá:wi is made up of young women, mothers, aunties and grandmothers, who all work full time as teachers, social workers, students, and retirees.
Kontiwennenhá:wi hail from Ahkwesahsne, a Kanien’kehá:ka Territory that straddles the St. Lawrence River and incorporates portions of northern New York and southern Ontario and Quebec. In Ahkwesahsne, as in other Kanien’kehá:ka communities, women’s singing societies have always functioned to help community members in time of need. When Kontiwennenhá:wi performs outside of their community, they do not call themselves a singing society. That title is reserved for their work within their Territory and other Haudenosaunee communities. But they continue many of the same functions: the funds their performances generate are always directed back toward their community. While men and women sometimes have different singing repertoires and their songs serve different functions, women always take care to learn the men’s songs as well, so that the Mohawk way of life can be preserved even in times of crisis.
In the spirit of this traditional role, Kontiwennenhá:wi, the Carriers of the Words, have embraced the “duty to help our language survive.... We believe that if our language dies, so will we as a Nation. Without our language we will have no culture.
Live! Folklife Concerts are produced by the Folklife Center at Crandall Public Library, made possible in part by a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Governor's Office and the New York State Legislature.
