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Treaties are a means to establish permanent
Relationships between Peoples.
Non-Indigenous people often think the treaties were a
European tradition, given their long history. Some think the
treaties were "imposed" upon the Indigenous people in lieu
of war. In fact, treaty-making has a long and distinguished
history among peoples in the Americas…all of them stressing
groups of people making agreements for many different
purposes. Of fundamental significance, of course, is peace:
Aboriginal treaties are often described in legal terms as
creating a trust relationship, one that invests the
trustee with superior power and greater ethical
responsibilities. For Aboriginal people, treaties created a
relationship of mutual trust which was sacred and
enduring. The bond created was like that of brothers who
might have different gifts and follow different paths, but
who could be counted on to render assistance to one other in
times of need. Georges Erasmus, Vancouver, 2002.
The terms and the understandings were not kept to a few.
They had to be conveyed to all parties involved. Therefore,
much discussion attended each point made, and this has been
passed on in oral tradition.
In an attempt to find out what the Indigenous peoples
understood by the treaties, some native organizations have
interviewed older people who could be expected to have some
information from parents or grandparents. One body of such
material was made available for purposes of this paper by
the Treaty and Aboriginal Rights Research (T.A.R.R.) wing of
the Indian Association of Alberta. Considerable numbers of
elders throughout the province were interviewed in their own
language over the last few years and their testimony
recorded. It was later translated into English and typed.
Since the treaties were made a century ago, none of the
interviewees were eyewitnesses, except in the case of Treaty
Eight, made in 1899 and 1900. The use of evidence that is
not first-hand testimony poses problems which cannot be
solved by an examination of the evidential material alone.
Does the interviewees' testimony represent an oral tradition
from the time of the treaty making, or does it originate
from some more recent time? This question can perhaps be
partly answered by research into Indian-government relations
during the past one hundred years and into the history of
the Indian associations and other political activity. A
thorough evaluation of the testimony would require further
research. All that can be attempted here is to outline the
general answers to the questions raised as derived from the
oral testimony and to see how they compare with the archival
material.
Information obtained through the oral testimony in the
Treaty Six region concentrated on the questions of what the
Indians gave up or did not give up and what they were to
receive in return. The understanding which runs through all
of the testimony is that the Indians gave up limited rights
in the land, namely, the surface rights. This was explained
as being land required for farming. It is most often
expressed in terms of depth, informants varying on the
actual depth, from six inches to two feet. In a summary of
the interviews with elders, Lynn Hickey has explanation
based on language:
The almost universal occurrence in the Treaty 6 area of
the idea that only the surface of the land was sold may stem
from a linguistic problem. The fact that all interviews so
far are from Cree speakers may lend support to the idea that
the word "land" may not translate into Cree with the same
meaning as it does in English. There is evidence that "land"
is usually used with various prefixes which must be added in
order to specify more precise meanings. Thus, if the prefix
indicating "surface" land were used to explain what settlers
needed for farming, Cree-speakers may have understood they
were being asked for something entirely different from
"land" with some other prefix attached. Since we cannot know
which Cree word for "land" was used in translating at Treaty
6 negotiations, and since Cree requires great precision in
the use of prefixes, there are innumerable possibilities for
misunderstandings to have occurred simply over this one issue.
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