hide

You are viewing an archived web page, collected at the request of University of Alberta using Archive-It. This page was captured on 16:12:53 Dec 08, 2010, and is part of the HCF Alberta Online Encyclopedia collection. The information on this web page may be out of date. See All versions of this archived page.

Heritage Community Foundation Presents
Alberta Online Encyclopedia

Oral Traditions and Treaty 8

Article Feature By Tom Flanagan

Lubicon Cree, Lubicon Land

Celebrating the Legacy

Context and Understandings

The Successful Pursuance of That Human and Generous Policy

Oral Traditions and Treaty 8

The Fraudulent Treaty

They Think They Own the Land

Bishop Emile Grouard and Treaty 8

Comments on Interpretations of 'Entitlement Land'

Protecting Their Inheritance

Treaty and Scrip in 1899

Taking Treaty 8 Scrip, 1899-1900

The Indian Agents of Fort Chipewyan

katy sanderson, photo courtesy terry garvin

Aboriginal oral traditions are of increasing importance in land-claims litigation involving Treaty 8 and the other Numbered Treaties. Aboriginal litigants now routinely argue that the true meaning of treaties is to be found not in the written text but in the oral traditions passed down in Aboriginal communities. Although the Delgamuukw decision dealt with aboriginal rather than treaty rights, its favourable view of oral traditions may well be extended to treaty litigation. Oral traditions, however, cannot be accepted uncritically; they should be subjected to the same process of critical analysis that is applied to other forms of evidence. The provenance of oral traditions must be investigated; and their logical coherence must be tested, as well as their consistency with other sources of information. If the critical process is omitted, the use of oral traditions will interfere with the search for truth in both historiography and the judicial process.

For more information on Treaty 8 Revisited: Selected Papers on the 1999 Centennial Conference, visit the Lobstick website.

Reprinted from with permission from Lobstick: An Interdisciplinary Journal.