Aboriginal Law & Indigenous Laws

Members of Eli Baxter's generation are the last of the hunting and gathering societies living on Turtle Island. They are also among the last fluent speakers of the Anishinaabay language known as Anishinaabaymowin. Aki-wayn-zih is a story about the land and its spiritual relationship with the Anishinaabayg, from the beginning of their life on Miss-koh-tay-sih Minis (Turtle Island) to the present day. Baxter writes about Anishinaabay life before European contact, his childhood memories of trapping, hunting, and fishing with his family on traditional lands in Treaty 9 territory, and his personal experience surviving the residential school system. Examining how Anishinaabay Kih-kayn-daa-soh-win (knowledge) is an elemental concept embedded in the Anishinaabay language, Aki-wayn-zih explores history, science, math, education, philosophy, law, and spiritual teachings, outlining the cultural significance of language to Anishinaabay identity. Recounting traditional Ojibway legends in their original language, fables in which moral virtues double as survival techniques, and detailed guidelines for expertly trapping or ensnaring animals, Baxter reveals how the residential school system shaped him as an individual, transformed his family, and forever disrupted his reserve community and those like it. Through spiritual teachings, historical accounts, and autobiographical anecdotes, Aki-wayn-zih offers a new form of storytelling from the Anishinaabay point of view.

The Anishinabek legal summary in this package is based on an analysis of Anishinabek
stories and oral histories. The analytical work with the stories of a particular Indigenous
society must be contextualized by basic information about that society. In other words,
the stories themselves are cut from the political structure (e.g., decentralized), legal
order (e.g., non-hierarchical or kinship based), and history of a people. This context
informs the analysis. The context enables one to see the story’s internal logic and to get a
sense of the aspirations of law. These aspirations are illustrated by the norms contained
in the patterns and incongruities that are created by the stories. The intention of this
basic primer is to provide enough context to enable a deeper reflection about the stories
and their place in the intellectual life of that society – past, present and future.

This groundbreaking anthology features twenty-four contributors who utilize creative and critical approaches to propose that this people’s stories carry dynamic answers to questions posed within Anishinaabeg communities, nations, and the world at large. Examining a range of stories and storytellers across time and space, each contributor explores how narratives form a cultural, political, and historical foundation for Anishinaabeg Studies.

Denied her Indigenous status, Lynn Gehl has been fighting her entire life to reclaim mino-pimadiziwin--the good life. Exploring Anishinaabeg philosophy and Anishinaabeg conceptions of truth, Gehl shows how she came to locate her spirit and decolonize her identity, thereby becoming, in her words, "fully human." Gehl provides a harsh critique of Canada and takes on important anti-colonial battles, including sex discrimination in the Indian Act and the destruction of sacred places. Also available in print.

This book includes a Welcoming Address, the Anishinaabe Creation Story, the Seven-Star System, and the Clans of the Anishinaabe People, as well as three contemporary perspectives.

An indigenized, de-colonized world view for Indigenous leaders and academics seeking a path to reconciliation. Indigenization within the academy and the idea of truth and reconciliation within Canada have been seen as the remedy to correct the relationship between Indigenous Peoples and Canadian society. While honourable, these actions are difficult to achieve given the Western nature of institutions in Canada and the collective memory of its citizens, and the burden of proof has always been the responsibility of Anishinabeg. Authors makwa ogimaa (Jerry Fontaine) and ka-pi-ta-aht (Don McCaskill) tell their di-bah-ji-mo-wi-nan (personal stories) to understand the cultural, political, social, and academic events in the past fifty years of Ojibway-Anishinabe resistance in Canada. They suggest that Ojibway-Anishinabe i-zhi-gay-win zhigo kayn-dah-so-win (Anishinabe ways of doing and knowing) can provide an alternative way of living sustainably in the world. This distinctive world view as well as values, language, and ceremonial practices can provide an alternative to Western political and academic institutions and peel away the layers of colonialism, violence, and injustice, speaking truth and leading to true reconciliation

Combining socio-legal and ethnohistorical studies, this book presents the history of doodem, or clan identification markings, left by Anishinaabe on treaties and other legal documents from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries. These doodems reflected fundamental principles behind Anishinaabe governance that were often ignored by Europeans, who referred to Indigenous polities in terms of tribe, nation, band, or village – classifications that failed to fully encompass longstanding cultural traditions of political authority within Anishinaabe society. Making creative use of natural history, treaty pictographs, and the Ojibwe language as an analytical tool, Doodem and Council Fire delivers groundbreaking insights into Anishinaabe law. The author asks not only what these doodem markings indicate, but what they may also reveal through their exclusions. The book also outlines the continuities, changes, and innovations in Anishinaabe governance through the concept of council fires and the alliances between them.

The Anishinabek Nation's legal traditions are deeply embedded in many aspects of customary life. John Borrows (Kegedonce) juxtaposes Canadian legal policy and practice with the more broadly defined Anishinabek perception of law as it applies to community life, nature, and individuals. This innovative work combines fictional and non-fictional elements in a series of connected short stories that symbolize different ways of Anishinabek engagement with the world. Drawing on oral traditions, pictographic scrolls, dreams, common law case analysis, and philosophical reflection, Borrows' narrative explores issues of pressing importance to the future of indigenous law and offers readers new ways to think about the direction of Canadian law.

This book examines the revitalization of Indigenous peoples' relationship to their own laws and, in so doing, attempts to enrich Canadian constitutional law more generally. Organized around the seven Anishinaabe grandmother and grandfather teachings of love, truth, bravery, humility, wisdom, honesty, and respect, this book explores ethics in relation to Aboriginal issues including title, treaties, legal education, and residential schools. With characteristic depth and sensitivity, John Borrows brings insights drawn from philosophy, law, and political science to bear on some of the most pressing issues that arise in contemplating the interaction between Canadian state law and Indigenous legal traditions. In the course of a wide-ranging but accessible inquiry, he discusses such topics as Indigenous agency, self-determination, legal pluralism, and power.

Dr. Borrows makes use of the Anishinaabe tradition of storytelling to explore how the work in Indigenous language revitalization can inform the emerging field of Indigenous legal revitalization. Also available in print.

Jerry Fontaine recounts the stories of three Ota'wa, Shawnee, and Ojibway-Anishinabe leaders who challenged aggressive colonial expansion - Obwandiac, Tecumtha, and Shingwauk. He weaves Ojibwaymowin language and knowledge with conversations with elders and descendants of the three leaders. The result is a book that reframes the history of Manitou Aki, sharing a vision of how Anishinabe spiritual, cultural, legal, and political principles will support the leaders of today and tomorrow.

Most Canadians know only a tiny part of the Ipperwash story - the 1995 police shooting of Dudley George. Our Long Struggle for Home recounts the history as told by George's sister, cousins, and others from the Stoney Point Reserve, which was turned into an army training camp in the Second World War. They describe their decades-long efforts to reclaim their ancestral homeland, Aazhoodena, both before and after the police action culminating in George's death, and offer insights into Nishnaabeg lifeways and treaty traditions in a way that brings history vividly alive. It is a compelling lesson on colonialism and the power of resistance.

Baskatawang envisions a hopeful future for Indigenous nations where their traditional laws are formally recognized and affirmed by the governments of Canada. Baskatawang thereby details the efforts being made in Treaty #3 territory to revitalize and codify the Anishinaabe education law, kinamaadiwin inaakonigewin.

Incorporating an analysis of traditional symbolic literacy known as wampum diplomacy, Lynn Gehl argues that despite Canada's constitutional beginnings first codified in the 1763 Royal Proclamation and ratified during the 1764 Treaty at Niagara, Canada continues to deny the Algonquin Anishinaabeg their right to land and resources, their right to live as a sovereign nation, and consequently their ability to live mino-pimadiziwin (the good life). Gehl moves beyond Western scholarly approaches rooted in the historical archives, academic literature and the interview method. She also moves beyond discussions of Indigenous methodologies, offering an analysis through her debwewin journey: a wholistic Anishinaabeg way of knowing that incorporates both mind knowledge.

In Algonquian folklore, the wetiko is a cannibal monster or spirit that possesses a person, rendering them monstrous. In The Wetiko Legal Principles, Hadley Friedland explores how the concept of a wetiko can be used to address the unspeakable happenings that endanger the lives of many Indigenous children.