Journal #4 — Indigenous Legal Traditions

This week, the topic of discussion revolved largely around Indigenous legal traditions and challenges to revitalizing them; despite the unfortunate cancellation of class, there was still plenty to learn about this topic, which was done both by going through the readings and via the weekly class discussion forum. Reading the class forum this week was a great opportunity for peer-to-peer learning; seeing the opinions and methods of approaching the revival of Indigenous lawmaking traditions that various people outlined was both interesting and enlightening and helped me formulate my own opinions with even stronger evidence to support them. Indigenous legal traditions and by extension their method of lawmaking has historically been oppressed and outright erased in favor of the dominant Western narratives that demanded that law be handled in a primarily Eurocentric fashion.

In stark opposition to Western legal traditions, Indigenous legal traditions make use of things like wampum belts and traditional storytelling, while Western legal traditions favor more linearity and rigidity— A common theme amongst the colonial worldview, which attempts to force the world into a small box and contain it, as something to be held and dominated, rather than bother to live in harmony with the world, to understand it and its inhabitants. The same is reflected in the Western justice system at large, which takes a punitive approach that often ends up feeling and even becoming vengeful in its execution, what with the implementation of the death penalty in various places. By contrast, many Indigenous justice systems ascribe to the concept of of restorative justice, which wants less to take revenge on the perpetrators of harm and instead heal the community by placing the focus on healing both the harm done and healing the offender by rehabilitating them, thus preventing future crime; this concept is often associated with “circle justice” or sentencing circles, which is a form of trial that not only has input from a judge but also gains additional input from members of the offender’s community, thus connecting the offender with their community and allowing for more effective sentencing and eventual rehabilitation. Alongside this restorative justice system, many Indigenous communities also focus on prison abolition in order to help support the restorative justice itself, as well as faith communities.

Many of the ideas that came up in the discussion were similar, but equally valid; Indigenous legal traditions must have a lot of work put into them in order to allow them to stand on their own as equals alongside Western traditions that have tried to put them down for so long; that work could be anything from embracing language and culture, to breaking free from Canadian state power and establishing the importance of Indigenous ideas. Gordon Christie attests to the impact of colonialism on definitions of Indigenity and on Indigenous legal traditions, with them having been suppressed so thoroughly that “fundamental questions arise around colonialism and its impact on issues of identity”-- what is an Indigenous legal tradition, in its rawest form? Is it possible to know after it has been quashed for so long by the West? The key, then, is to provide supports for Indigenous legal traditions, so that they can make the journey “to the top”, as it were, thus subsequently allowing Indigenous peoples to have a better say in lawmaking and Canadian legal tradition. Indigenous peoples and their legal traditions must be given a chance to operate legally at the highest level, just as any other form of valid law. Self-determination for Indigenous peoples and their ways of thinking is crucial, particularly in matters of decolonization; if we are to reach reconciliation, every aspect of Indigenous life must be respected, but they must be allowed a legal say in their own futures above all, no matter what form that say takes.