"Quebec Won't Accept Mohawk Longhouse Documents"

MONTREAL (CP) - For Deidre Diome of the Kahnawake reserve, federal policy that doesn't recognize the longhouse as a legitimate religion means her two-year-old son doesn't exist in the eyes of the Indian Affairs Department.

Diome, 22, is a Mohawk traditionalist who follows the longhouse religion as her parents and grandparents did before her.

She maintains that her own longhouse birth certificate and her parents' longhouse marriage certificate were never questioned by anyone in the past.

But since last October, documents such as birth certificates that were previously handled locally by the band council must be sent to the department's regional office in Quebec City.

Registrar Sandra Ginnish, who works in the section of Indian Affairs responsible for registering natives, said federal policy has always dictated that birth certificates must be produced as evidence of a child's birth so he or she can be registered as a status Indian.

Ginnish said if the provincial documents aren't available, the department will accept baptismal certificates from "recognized churches," but the longhouse doesn't fall into this category.

Every status Indian must be registered with the department, and then receives a number, to benefit from federal services offered to native Canadians.