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What is the difference between an
aboriginal right and a treaty right? Essentially, it depends on who
you ask. If you ask knowledgeable people what aboriginal rights
refer to, they will tell you that they refer to our unextinguished
pre-existing rights (i.e. what we had before the arrival of the
colonists). Yet, if you ask people what treaty rights are, the
definition becomes fuzzy. Do treaty rights accommodate for what
rights we had—thus clarifying our rights and title—or do they modify
our rights and title such that they become separate negotiated
rights? If our rights under section 35 of the Constitution is the
latter, then history really becomes a moot point. Conversely, if
they are the former, then history becomes critically important.
For most aboriginal cultures, our pre-existing rights and title are
only documented in our orature—which is referred to as ‘Oral
History.’ Historians have typically dismissed Oral History for being
unreliable, while continuing to rely on ancient textual evidence
that amount to social auto-biographies, as though the visible nature
of letters make the story they tell concrete. However, the Supreme
Court of Canada rightfully acknowledged Oral History as legitimate
evidence in court proceedings, stating the following in paragraph 84
of the Delgamuukw ruling:
“This appeal requires us to…adapt the laws of evidence so that the
aboriginal perspective on their practices, customs and traditions
and on their relationship with the land, are given due weight by the
courts. In practical terms, this requires the courts to come to
terms with the oral histories of aboriginal societies, which, for
many aboriginal nations, are the only record of their past.”
Thus, for the purposes of aboriginal rights and title court
proceedings and the purpose of our own documented history, the
story-telling nature of our history becomes vastly important. The
holders of our history—our Elders—evolve to become our
‘quasi-collective unconscious,’ our sole evidence in our progression
towards a treaty that accommodates and recognizes our aboriginal
rights and title.
On a recent trip to Kamloops, I met with an Elder and urban member
of the NStQ Canoe/Dog Creek Indian Band. His knowledge of
traditional Secwepemc culture dates back many years, which he
obtained from his Elders many years ago. While I sat with him in my
colleagues hotel room, the Canoe/Dog Creek Elder spoke of how the
Shuswap passed Lac La Hache during the 1860s gold rush because they
“had more important things to do than pick-up gold rocks.” He then
told me how one of my ancestors married into my lineage for a dowry
of fifty wild horses, paid to a Chief in the state of Washington. He
then spoke of the traditional ways of the Shuswap, our government,
what we were and how our culture has evolved—all of which he learnt
through the traditional Shuswap oral tradition carried on by the
Canoe Creek/Dog Creek Elders. So intrigued was I with him that I
asked him to provide the content for one of my articles for the
Lexey’em newspaper and the Williams Lake Tribune. He agreed to do so
on the condition that he remain relatively anonymous, so as to avoid
being swamped by information seekers.
First, the most pressing issue of treaty is the issue of our
traditional values and heritage. What were we before
colonialization? What were our aboriginal rights?
“The Chief was the leader of the whole band,” the Elder said. “He
had the most knowledge as it pertains to law, medicine, history, and
also the social aspects of the running and remembered that knowledge
was the most important thing in the group situation.”
Knowledge was not something to be hoarded. The Chief knew that
keeping knowledge to only himself was endangering his life and the
life of the group. It was the most important thing to the Shuswap
culture.
“Chiefs were trained from childhood… it ran in the family for
hundreds of years and the children of that family—the Chief’s
family—were trained in all aspect of running the band, meting out
justice. Everything… knowledge was the most important and oratory
skills and, because of the respect that came with [the Chief’s]
decision, people listened to him and wanted to gain that knowledge
and any person who, in the line of Chief, depending on the age, that
person could accept or pass it on to his younger brother if he
didn’t want to be Chief.”
Of course, the Chiefs did not work alone. They were helped by
Elders, who had extensive knowledge of the lands. Elders were the
stewards and knowledge holders of their portions of
‘Secwepemcul’ecw’ (our word for our traditional territory). Their
knowledge of their portions of Secwepemcul’ecw would go back
hundreds of years and was critically important for hunting, war
purposes and even medicinal purposes.
The knowledge that Shuswap people children chose to hold was
designated early in their lives.
“When you were 12, that was when you would decide which way in life
you were going to go. That’s why they had the ceremonies at 12 years
old. At 12 years old, you accumulated enough knowledge for survival
in the environment. That’s why you went through the sweats, the
fasting, and to go out on your own and survive on your own. That’s
when you heard your life vocation—from 12 to 16. At 16, you know
where you were in life—whether you were a medicine man, a chief or
one of the stewards that was designated by the Chief.”
Before the smallpox epidemic of the 1860s, there were roughly
thirty-two Secwepemc bands. Now, there are seventeen bands with
roughly fifteen extinct.
“There would’ve been 32 feathers on the flag of the Shuswap tribe...
There were large bands before the smallpox. Remember that roughly 15
bands were eliminated in the smallpox era… The South Canyon, the
Chilcotin South Canyon people survived, but they were absorbed in
Canoe Creek and Alkali Lake Bands. And, I suppose, similarly went on
through the whole Shuswap nation—small survivors where, in some
cases, there were one or two survivors that moved on to the larger
bands. Some of the Alkali Lake absorbed the South Canyon and the
North Canyon—whoever survived from there.”
Before the worst of the small pox epidemic (circa 1860), two
governments had been operating concurrently within British
Columbia—the traditional hereditary Shuswap government and the
European government.
“We lost that in 1884 when all hereditary Chiefs lost their power
because of the federal government… There was a clash between the
Euro-Western political system and the Secwepemc system and the
Europeans couldn’t understand our governing system, so they outlawed
it in 1884… We had no power after we lost the majority of our
population. We had no clout. In this way, we were controlled by the
provincial government and the federal government ever since then.
That was the idea. They didn’t understand our governing methods.”
On the grander scale, not only was our government misunderstood, but
our culture too was misunderstood to a large degree. In treaty, we
try to be forward-moving, yet when we see the immensity of what we
have lost of our governance, of our culture and of our clout, we
understand more than ever the discrepancy between our aboriginal
rights and treaty rights.
Yet, in the end, we realize how much in common we have with our
ancestors.
As the Elder put it:
“We are democratic people in Canada and what I’m trying to say is
that we were a highly socialist, almost like communist, that lived
under the First Nations banner, like the Chief system. Sharing land,
sharing what we had in our territory…that was the way it was. And,
so, sharing knowledge. That was the most important thing. No money
was involved. Knowledge was the most important—knowledge of the
environment, how we treat the territory and, eventually, the whole
planet…”
I am often careful not to label our culture as circular, as it
implies that there is such thing as a culturally linear thinking
model that is far more progressive. Yet, while several of our
methods have changed—including the way we document our history—it is
quite simply hard to ignore how so many of our values and purpose
have remain relatively unchanged. |
