The Right to Exist limits the Power of any one
group in Creation, for example, removing the Authority of
the People to Destroy any other group of existing groups.
Nature’s Laws builds into it limits…limits for humans.
Limits for animals, limits for plants. Similarly there are
limits to an one person’s power within the group. In fact in
traditional systems, very stringent curbs were placed on
individual actions that might have impacted upon the
community. For example, women had a strong hand in terms of
agreements that had anything to do with the group as a
whole:
To comprehend the role of women is to understand the
limits placed upon the Chiefs in the negotiation of the
treaty. The Chiefs did not go to the treaty table with
unlimited authority to negotiate with the representatives of
the Crown. Just as the Queen's commissioner was limited by
the Crown's legislative authority, so too were the Chiefs
limited. The Chiefs who entered into treaty only had the
authority to share the lands, never to sell or surrender it.
Sharon Venne, Understanding Treaty 6, p.191.
You are looking for a place to start and it's right in
front of you. Natural law is about limits. No one can go
beyond that limit. The insects, plants the four-legged and
the humans know that. You never over-populate so that
another species dies off. Keep themselves within that limit
so they can sustain that life. Native People had that
belief. They had their boundaries and they were not to go
over the limit. They were within limits and that's why the
tribes could co-exist, but that does not exist anymore. The
European's don't know the limits. There are 6 billion people
on this planet. Centuries ago there were probably only one
billion. "All things in moderation." Constantine Auger,
Bigstone Cree, April 2003.
The same limitation was placed upon the authority to
carry out justice. There was the acceptance that the
community had the power to condemn one to death, but such
actions were frowned upon, because doing so destroyed
community balance. Consensus was certainly necessary in such
a case. Rather there was a measured approach to justice:
Chief Standing Bear: "The way of the tribe in dealing
with an offender was simple and dignified. There was no
violence such as whipping, no taking away of personal
effects nor personal liberties, no hounding to persecuting,
and no pompous show of authority. When it became necessary
for the band to protect itself it did so by merely ignoring
and ostracizing the violator. Conversations, games,
councils, and ceremonies were carried on as if the
disfavored one were not about. This sort of punishment was
usually sufficient to make the offender change his habits.
If the offense was a minor one, such as bragging or
strutting, then ridicule and laughter sufficed to put a stop
to it, but the boaster was usually quickly detected and his
glory short lived, for he was as quickly resented as he was
detected. On the other hand, if a man’s offense were
serious, say if he were a murderer, his exclusion from the
band would be permanent. He would suffer neither for food
nor clothing, but he would not be welcome at the tipis of
others and no one would visit his tipi. In time of sickness
he would be cared for by near relatives, but he was never
again accepted as a credible member of his band … but cases
of this kind among the Lakota were very rare, and in all my
life I have known only two or three. There is no word in the
Lakota language which can be translated literally into the
word ‘justice’; nevertheless, there was the certain practice
of it as evidence in the phrase wowa un silaI, ‘a heart full
of pity for all’" (qtd Bunge 109)
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