Yesterday I received an email that took me back to my early days as a lawyer working on indigenous rights. It was a request from Ron Lameman of the Saddle Lake Cree Nation in the Treaty Six area of Canada (Alberta and Saskatchewan), whom I hadn’t heard from since 1984. In June of that year, I was on an international jury of lawyers and historians looking into how the Saddle Lake Cree interpreted the treaty of 1876 between their nation and the British Crown government and how the treaty was and continues to be violated to this day. We heard the testimony of forty Cree elders over a five-day period in June, 1984, mostly in Cree with English translation. It was an amazing and important experience. The final report we created was used by the Saddle Lake Cree Nation in the political and legal battles with the successor Canadian government. The videos of the elders' testimony created an unmatched record of the trbal history regarding the treay and how the people lived a hundred years ago.
Ron asked if I had a copy of the Final Report, as every other copy has been lost or destroyed by fire over the intervening fort years. Surprisingly, despite five moves, two marriages, three careers and so many other dynamics of life, I actually kept the report. I am sending it up to Ron in Edmonton today to be included in the Tribal historical files.
I reread the report just now, reflecting on how my life has evolved over the years. I was honored to be able to be on that jury, to write the first Native American Clean Air Act, to redesign two Tribal constitutions after facilitating a dozen community gatherings to try and decolonize the constitutions and have them reflect the social and political will of the governed, to fight large-scale cyanide heap leach gold mining and hazardous waste sites on Indian lands, to work with the elders of Pine Ridge when they took over the Tribal Offices to protest corruption and malfeasance by their elected leaders and BIA employees, and more. The lessons I learned and the skills honed in court and in the public sphere served and continue to serve me as a lawyer/development worker/entrepreneur and even now as an author.
Unfortunately, another take-away from this is never ever throw anything away, as a visit to my basement, garage and most closets in the house will attest.
Comments