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One of the basic differences in relational law has to do
with the very concept of law and relationships with what
English identifies as "others." In Nature's Laws, there are
no hard and fast division between the sacred and the
profane, nor the divine and the human, as operates in the
Western understanding of law. A flavor of this can be
gleaned from the following famous speech by Chief Joseph of
the Nee Me Poo of Nez Perce (b. 1840 - d. 1904). Joseph is
appealing to a basic respect for the law residing in all
people, including the white man; it has universal
expression:
There has been too much talking by men who had no
right to talk. Too many misrepresentations have been
made, too many misunderstandings have come up between
the white men about the Indians. If the white man wants
to live in peace with the Indian he can live in peace.
There need be no trouble.
Treat all men alike. Give them all the same law.
Give them all an even chance to live and grow. All men
were made by the Chief. They are all brothers. ...
You might as well expect the rivers to run
backward as that any man who was born free should be
contented penned up and denied liberty to go where he
pleases. ...
Let me be a free man-free to travel, free to stop,
free to work, free to trade, where I choose, free to
choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of
my fathers, free to think and talk and act for
myself-and I will obey every law, or submit to the
penalty.1
Moreover, the way one relates to "others" is not
built upon a fixed group of values or narrowly defined 'facts.'
In current ethical jargon, Indigenous law implies a
significantly situational ethical process. One result of
such a concept is that the 'cause' of any particular
action may not relate to the immediately available 'facts.’
Both the past history and the future potentiality of a
person have to be evaluated before a particular event can
become determinative in deciding what should happen to an
individual. As an example we could take the matter of
determining why a young man had 'taken' someone's
rifle and subsequently shot another person. The 'why' may
well be related to a distant quarrel between families, or
even because inkoze or some sacred responsibility was laid
upon the 'offender.' In some ways, then, no 'taking'
and no 'killing' was done, in and of itself. The act
related primarily to a distant responsibility to bring back
into balance within the larger community (which includes the
past community and the present) by righting a particular
wrong. At the very least, then, one has to know the
ancestral story to be able to account for all the actions.
From the point of view of Indigenous people, then,
Nature’s Laws are the consciousness of all the elements that
was involved in a community being a healthy, well-rounded
community. Nature’s Laws are what keep the community
thriving. In effect, then, justice can only be done when all
the details from all perspectives have been weighed and
given an appropriate place. Thus, an 'event' cannot be
comprehended nor defined until the larger context is known.
Judgment can only be rendered when this information is known
and discussed.
This is why proper judgment can only be give by a group
of knowledgeable people from the community who accept that
each of them might know some of the connections of the
event; the perspective offered by each of them is required
to present a balanced total picture. Such a view is the
basis of the sentencing circle or the notion of fire justice
(that is, the elders who sit around the main fire of the
camp). At bottom, then, such a conception demonstrates that
Nature's Law operates within quite different parameters
than, say, our reliance on a criminal charge of murder,
defined by the act of killing someone at that moment at that
time.
Furthermore, it implies a system that puts much greater
weight on community knowledge and understanding. The rules
are not imposed upon someone who is unaware of the
importance of obedience to a protocol…from childhood, the
social and cultural forms of Indigenous society are
discussed, debated, wrestled with and acknowledged, so that
everyone within a community knows the boundaries of proper
behaviour. The most trenchant example of this area of
knowledge relates to kinship.
Finally, it should be noted that kinship is larger than
the living blood relations in one's immediate family. From
the Indigenous perspective, "all my relations" means
indeed "all:" ancestors, neighbours, adopted
individuals, people belonging to the animals of one group of
clans, family members both alive now and in the future,
greater-than-human beings, tricksters and indeed anyone with
whom one has a special relationship.
Obviously, then, the English word "family" and "kin
group" does not encompass the entire range of relational
law. For purposes of this account, we have limited the
discussion primarily to marriage and kinship, but it should
be cautioned that doing so seriously restricts the notion of
relational law.
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