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“This dispute is characterized is as if there’s a dichotomy between the hereditary and elected chiefs,” said Val Napoleon, the University of Victoria’s Law Foundation professor of Aboriginal justice and governance and co-founder of the school’s new Indigenous law program, in a phone interview Wednesday. “That’s a problematic oversimplification.
“There’s no sharp line within the Wet’suwet’en people. Some of the people on the band council are also hereditary chiefs. You’re talking about the same families, house groups and clans, all people linked by history, family and being part of a historic society that has its own legal order that’s been undermined.”
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“If you look at the Delgamuukw court case … it was clear the hereditary chiefs have authority over the traditional territories and band councils have authority over the reserves.”
Asked about how Wet’suwet’en chiefs are chosen, Mills said the ancient system isn’t passed down through parentage — like the British royal family, whose leader remains Canada’s head of state — but rather by being bestowed in public with the previous chief’s name and regalia.
Each Wet’suwet’en house is headed by a hereditary chief, chosen “based on their nature, their comportment and their knowledge and skills.” Those are the same chiefs who collectively represent their clan.
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https://www.thestar.com/vancouver/20...derground.html
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There is a tendency to dismiss the hereditary chiefs as just a group of opponents, in contrast to the 20 First Nations that have approved the pipeline. This is deeply misleading.
The plaintiffs in the landmark Delgamuukw case before the Supreme Court were the hereditary chiefs, not the band councils. The court accepted detailed evidence of the Wet’suwet’en hereditary governance system and confirmed that the Wet’suwet’en never surrendered title to their ancestral lands.
The hereditary chiefs are not merely a group of disgruntled opponents; they represent the Wet’suwet’en system of law and governance.
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Horgan’s insistence on the “rule of law” fails to acknowledge that the relevant law includes not just the injunction order and regulatory approvals but the Constitution, Supreme Court decisions, and — crucially — Wet’suwet’en laws and institutions.
The hereditary chiefs embody those laws and institutions and enjoy an authority that predates the arrival of the British and the creation of the Canadian state. This authority is entitled to respect.
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By Stepan Wood, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Law, Society & Sustainability, University of British Columbia;
Gordon Christie, Professor of Law, University of British Columbia; and
Jocelyn Stacey, Assistant Professor, University of British Columbia.
http://theconversation.com/coastal-g...-matter-130870
Food for thought because statements like:
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It’s funny how the Left who are so quick to mock Christian religious tradition sign on to any superstitious belief when it comes from somebody indigenous. Why is “my grandfather’s spirit is in that whale” any less ridiculous than “Jesus rose from the dead”
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are neither constructive nor helpful in understanding this clearly complex situation.
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