Intertribal Life Newspaper -

In 1957, Harvey Gabriel heard scripture read out loud in Kanien'kéha for the first time.

When he got home, he asked his mother why Kanien'kehá:ka didn't have a Bible in their own language. "Oh, that's a big project," she replied. "And who's going to translate it?"

Those words stuck with him, but it wasn't until 1974, as he was firing up his lawnmower after supper one day, that the idea finally came to him.

"When I retire, I'm going to translate the Bible," he told himself.

"What was I thinking?" he wonders now. "I had no theology training, and I'm going to translate the Bible? But that word fr...