Mikmaw Tenure in Atlantic Canada

The Supreme Court of Canada has characterized aboriginal title to land as a sui generis legal interest. This essay describes the sui generis interest of Mikmaw tenure in Atlantic Canada from a Mikmaq linguistic perspective. The author argues the prerogative treaties and legislation of the eighteenth century suggest it is a reserved and protected tenure, which in Eurocentric law might be reconceptualized as allodial tenure

Contrary Jurisprudence: Tribal Interests in Navigable Waterways Before and After Montana v. United States

In 1974 the Crow Tribal Council enacted a resolution restricting reservation hunting and fishing to tribal members. No distinction was made between lands owned by the tribe or its members and the nearly thirty percent of the reservation area held in fee simple by non-members and the State of Montana. The resolution also purported to govern the Big Horn River, the bed of which the tribe claimed under its 1868 treaty with the United States. The State of Montana refused to recognize the tribe\u27s jurisdiction to enact and enforce this restriction and continued to license non-member hunting and fishing within the reservation. As record owner of Indian land on the Crow reservation in trust for the tribe, the United States filed suit in 1975 to quiet title to the riverbed and to establish exclusively federal and tribal authority to regulate hunting and fishing on the reservation. Crow claims to the bed of the Big Horn River were first considered in 1976 in United States v. Finch. The Ninth Cicuit upheld federal title to the riverbed in trust for the Crows, but its judgment was vacated by the Supreme Court on unrelated grounds the following year. When the same issues of title were renewed in United States v. Montana, the Ninth Circuit reaffirmed its holding in Finch. Both Ninth Circuit decisions noted similarities to the Supreme Court\u27s 1970 opinion in Choctaw Nation v. Oklahoma. Like the Choctaws, the Crows relied on a treaty that described their territory in metes and bounds enclosing the contested waterway. The United States promised the Choctaws virtually complete sovereignty over their territory; the Crows were to enjoy absolute and undisturbed use and occupation of theirs. If anything, the Crows\u27 case was stronger. The Choctaws emigrated from the southeast to resettle on lands patented to them in fee by the United States, while the Crows\u27 territory was original and never had been subject to the power of the United States to dispose of lands by patent. The Choctaws\u27 treaty subjected their government to federal preemption, while the Crows relinquished legislative jurisdiction only over the allotment of lands in severalty to consenting tribal members

Postcolonial Indigenous Legal Consciousness

Indigenous lawyers face some difficult challenges in confronting the existing injustice created by colonization and racism for the Aboriginal peoples of Canada. In the Canadian justice system that is failing Aboriginal peoples, they have to challenge the existing colonial ideology of contrived superiority of European law and humanity and the psychology of cultural and racial inferiority of Aboriginal peoples. They must revitalize the justice system, decolonize the judicial precedents and renew respect for ecological and human diversity. These multifaceted tasks require not only the establishment of an innovative postcolonial Indigenous legal consciousness based on Aboriginal teaching and law, but also require them to dream and articulate impossible visions to create a postcolonial Canada

Mikmaw Tenure in Atlantic Canada

The Supreme Court of Canada has characterized aboriginal title to land as a sui generis legal interest. This essay describes the sui generis interest of Mikmaw tenure in Atlantic Canada from a Mikmaq linguistic perspective. The author argues the prerogative treaties and legislation of the eighteenth century suggest it is a reserved and protected tenure, which in Eurocentric law might be reconceptualized as allodial tenure

Insights on First Nations Humanities

Abstract The question of what is humanity and how it is expressed has endless and dynamic answers. My paper is an attempt to construct and explain the answer based on the insights Indigenous humanity expressed in the continent called North America. The four fundamental insights are organised around the concept of creation as ecology, the insights of embodied spirits, the implicate order, and transformation. These complementary insights inform the depth of Indigenous worldview. These insights are replicated and revealed in structure and meaning of Indigenous languages, ceremonies and stories. These cognitive insights suggest a starting point for reflecting about whatever is most significant in Indigenous humanities in curriculum

Protecting indigenous knowledge and heritage : a global challenge

Due to copyright restrictions, this item cannot be sharedThere are approximately 500 million Indigenous Peoples in the world. Wherever their homeland, they have endured a similar fate at the hands of colonizing powers. That fate has included assaults on their language and culture, commercialization of their art, and use of their plant knowledge in the development of medicine, all without consent or benefit to them. And the assault continues. In discussing these issues, the authors review how legislative schemes in countries with Indigenous populations along with the work of the United Nations and other international bodies impact on Indigenous Peoples. The authors also illustrate why current legal regimes are inadequate to protect Indigenous heritage, language and knowledge and put forward ideas for reform. Some of the specific topics covered in this book include: Eurocentric views on what constitutes cultural and intellectual property; what constitutes Indigenous knowledge and who may use it; the importance of preserving Indigenous languages; the relationship between Indigenous languages and culture; how knowledge is transmitted in Indigenous communities; issues in performing arts and artwork; and proposals for creating a legal regime that will help revive and protect Indigenous knowledge and require consent for its use