Treaty Communication
By Ray Marilyn Hamm ( rmhamm@icloud.com)
Suppose you had to make an agreement about a contract that was written in another language. The stakes are high.
In the Russian alphabet, 3 is the English Z, B is English V, C is S and more - same symbols but different sounds and meanings.
"Watch out for flying bats." Are you at a ball game or in a cave? Same words. very different meanings.
It is hard to translate some words or concepts from one language to another. Apparently there is not an easy French word for 'snack,' or 'confusing,' and others.
A large ship needs at least a mile to turn around. To turn a treaty ship around will take time and effort. Treaties have not worked out very well for the people who were here before us, and part of that is due to poor communication, and lopsided interpretation.
Fasten your time belt and jump to 1871 to the Stone Fort (today we call it Lower Fort Garry).
The British Government, the new colonial government - Canada (1867), and the new province of Manitoba (1870), wanted to make a treaty with the Anishinabe people living in present day southern Manitoba.
For the English, treaty was a written agreement, signed and done, finished. For the Anishinabe, treaty was a working agreement, to be evaluated and updated regularly.
When the English spoke of Queen Mother, their emphasis was on Queen, the law; the Anishinabe heard Mother, caring and family.
Of course the treaty was written in English, assuming British understandings. There does not appear to have been any attempt to record Anishinabe understandings. However, there was formal (written) acknowledgement of 'outside promises,' but somehow these were not written and therefore not quite real or binding.
The Anishinabe grandfathers say their intent was to live side by side as nations and cultures, to share the land, to share the wealth of the land, not to give up he land.
There were words from the English about consultation, but this never happened. The Indian Act was passed in the Canadian Parliament in 1876, and the First Nations people have been treated like children, as wards of the state, rather than as welcoming neighbours. For the longest time British/colonial understandings have determined laws and court rulings. This has begun to change but it is a long road and slow going.
