AKWESASNE — The Saint Regis Mohawk Tribal Courts unveiled a new logo that better reflects the Tribe’s judicial branch of the tribal government. The winning design and artist were introduced during an afternoon unveiling event that was held at the Tribal Court Building located at 882 State Route 37 on Thursday, Kenténha/October 6, 2022.
Beginning in the early-1990, efforts were undertaken to development and implement a judicial system in the southern portion of the Akwesasne community. Initially created through the Tribal Procedures Act of 1994, the Tribal Courts first administered a Traffic Court that oversaw traffic matters. Judge Lois Terrance and Judge Steven Cook presided over traffic cases in the beginning, with Rosebud Cook serving as the Court Clerk.
Since that time, the Tribal Courts has expanded to include the Iohahiio Iakwarakwas Healing to Wellness Court and it has been working to expand its Family Court to include custody and child neglect matters. The Court currently exercises general civil jurisdiction to hear civil disputes, land disputes, child support, contracts, torts, and probate matters.
A variation of the tribal logo was previously utilized to depict the Tribal Courts. As progress is being made to expand its jurisdiction involving certain Family Law matters, as well as the construction of a new Justice Building and the recent launch of a SRMT Justice Needs Assessment, the Tribal Courts believes it was time to update its logo to reflect the Court’s evolution and expansion of its inherent and coordinated jurisdiction.
In March 2022, the Tribal Courts conducted a three-month callout for interested Akwesasne artists to submit a design for consideration. Specifications for submitting a logo design were provided and included their own original work, must contain five (5) colors maximum, must be easily reproducible, provided with a resolution of at least 300dpi in vector or EPS format, and must contain the words “Saint Regis Mohawk Tribal Courts.”
The deadline to submit a logo design was June 1st and resulted in 17 submissions from local artists, with some artists submitting more than one entry. To help select the winning design a review committee was assembled that was comprised of staff from the Tribal Courts and Communications Department, as well as Tribal Sub-Chiefs Benjamin Herne and Sub-Chief Agnes “Sweets” Jacobs.
The selection committee is proud to announce that Mohawk artist Brue Boots provided the winning logo design, which earned him a monetary prize of $1,000 (U.S.). Judge Lois Terrance, the longest serving judge of the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribal Court expressed that, “the logo is very clean and professional and beautiful in appearance.” The winning design includes the scales of justice to represent the fairness provided to all court cases. There are two sides to every story and each side of the case must be heard.
Surrounding the scales is an inner circle to represent Earth, which rests upon it the Mohawk motif for the Sky Dome (also known as Sky World) that is a central part of our culture and represents where all life came from. Within the Sky World are two (2) spirals to represent the two (2) twins for good and evil and the struggle that often exists in everyone.
Our culture is then surrounded by our People, who are united and working together. This is further enclosed within an outer circle to signify how everything contained within the assorted spheres all work in unison for the betterment of the Akwesasne community.
The new logo will be used on the Tribal Court’s website, social media platforms, business cards, letterhead, posters, advertisements, and for other purposes to represent the tribe’s judicial system.
