Aboriginal Law & Indigenous Laws

Also available in print at Stauffer PS508.I5 C46 2013 and Education Library PS508.I5 C46 2013.
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.

Also available in print at E78.C2 G44 2017 LAW.
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 also 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.

A collaboration exploring the importance of the Ojibway-Anishinabe worldview, use of ceremony, and language in living a good life, attaining true reconciliation, and resisting the notions of indigenization and colonialization inherent in Western institutions. 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 (Stories of personal experience) to provide insight into the cultural, political, social, and academic events of the past fifty years of Ojibway-Anishinabe resistance in Canada. They suggest that Ojibway-Anishinabe i-zhi-chi-gay-win zhigo kayn-dah-so-win (Ways of doing and knowing) can provide an alternative way of living and thriving in the world. This distinctive worldview -- as well as Ojibway-Anishinabe 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.

In Our Hearts Are as One Fire, 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.

This book offers something for everyone: an analysis of Algonquin contact history, a first ever insider analysis of the land claims process, an examination of Algonquin agency, and an analysis of the continuing colonial project. It does this through valuing traditional ways of knowing and being such as wampum diplomacy, as well as valuing the role of both the heart and mind as repositories, and creators, of 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.