American Indian Culture and Research Journal

Despite the reprieve offered by a narrow ”No” vote in the October 30, 1995 referendum on Quebec sovereignty, the political geography of Canada, and indeed the idea of Canada as a nation-state, are still far from settled. Scholars and politicians have forecast everything from Yugoslav-style chaos, to the birth of a uniquely decentralized society which other multiethnic states might do well to emulate. It seems to many bewildered and frustrated Canadians that their country is falling prey to competing ethnonationalisms. The Parti Quebecois remains committed to negotiating independence from Canada. Aboriginal peoples, who comprise a majority in half the territory claimed by Quebec, have stressed publicly that they will not leave Canada willingly. The Acadians of Canada’s Maritimes region are debating whether to seek their own independence, attach themselves to Quebec, or remain part of Canada. In Arctic Canada, two new Provinces may soon be created, one in the central Arctic where Inuit are a large majority (Nunavut), and the other in the west, where Inuit and Indians comprise just under one-third of the population. In British Columbia, Indian claims to land and local autonomy are in negotiation under the auspices of a provincial Treaty Commission, and a national-level Royal Commission has tabled a report describing Aboriginal peoples as “partners in confederation.’’

I. INTRODUCTION The island of Kiska lies at the western end of the Aleutian Islands -a chain of islands lying in an almost perfect arc between the northern Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea. Evidence of ancient communities and more recent conflict can be found here in the form of 8,000 year old stone tools lying next to sunken World War II (WWII) battleships. One thing is certain: the native communities that have inhabited these islands for thousands of years have always relied on marine resources for their survival. Further, for the native villages on Kiska and the many other Aleutian Islands, subsistence fishing practices represent not only their livelihood, but their spirit. Aleutian populations lived in relative isolation from the rest of the world until the 1800’s. Since that time, Aleuts have struggled to maintain their communities though faced with continued exploitation of marine resources and intrusion by Russian and United States governments. In the face of adversity, Aleutian villages have been able to maintain their cultures and communities through, among other things, the practice of subsistence. However, as fish stocks world wide continue to decline and the world’s industrial nations attempt to address the issue through specific fishery management decisions, Aleutian culture and communities may be at risk.

INTRODUCTION From the beginning, observers have remarked about the special relationship American Indian people seemed to have with the spoken word. All the powerful and fantastic tribal stories-that spoke of the origins of the earth, culture heroes, and crafty tricksters-were transmitted exclusively by oral communication in America’s native cultures, making the spoken word appear to carry even greater power. And ever since anthropologists at the turn of the century brought cultural pluralism to their profession, they and others have seen tribal myths, folktales, and legends as worthy of scholarly attention, as well as personal interest. Over the past decade and a half, a new generation of scholars has again begun to give prominence to the words of American Indians. Perhaps even more than their predecessors, this new group-composed primarily of literature scholars-has emphasized the importance of native oral texts of different types, and has suggested their value for modern America. This group’s work has even caught the attention of the public in some cases, in arguing for the “strength,” “richness,” ”wisdom,” and ”cosmic balance’’ of American Indian oral literature. Brian Swam, one member of this group, has argued that in contrast to those influenced by western culture, American Indians have a ”truly sacramental sense of language” in which object and word are fused together in a uniquely creative process.

Over the last few decades more than 100 US Indian tribes have established their own tribal courts and, consequently, have produced (and continue to revise) their own law codes. This paper examines the place of the individual, and individual rights, within several of these communities and, ultimately, within their codes and constitutions. In creating their own legal systems, small scale Indian societies face a different set of problems than those faced by the vastly larger, and differently organized mainstream society. Foremost among these problems is the threat of domination of tribal life by large, powerful, extended families which can potentially erode the circumstances of individuals, other families, and ultimately, the tribe. Extended families, however, remain core cultural and social institutions. As a consequence the problems encountered in creating tribal code are not simply those of balancing two domains (the individual and the collective), but, rather, three: the individual, the kin group, and the tribe. The debate about rights can best focus on the legal relations between both individuals and the larger tribal community and extended families and the tribal community. In considering this topic the relevant issue is not whether western notions of individualism and Indian communalism are compatible when considering tribal code, but rather, how Indian conceptions of individualism and collectivism are related. The argument here is that they are compatible, and, ultimately, inseparable. Scholars have pointed to the significance of the individual within contemporary Indian societies in various ways, but I wish to relate the concept to current issues of community legal development by exploring epistemological issue. This paper points to the importance of accounting for the differences between Indian communities in cosmology, epistemology, and traditions of justice in understanding the individual and the collective.

During the late 18th and 19th centuries, a body of United States law developed which not only treated Native Americans differently than U.S. citizens, but also differentiated them from all other aliens. After Congress’ 1891 creation of what is now the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), the new agency faced questions of policy and procedure regarding the unique immigration and nationality status of North American Indians. Not until 1950 were all questions of the Indians’ status resolved in a manner that preserved their singular rights under American immigration law. The exceptional immigration status of North American Indians rests, obviously, on their being the only peoples of the world who did not immigrate to North America after Europeans laid claim to the continent. The difference of American Indians in this regard was recognized by the Jay Treaty, negotiated between the United States and Great Britain and signed November 19,1794. Article III of the agreement guaranteed the right of British subjects, American citizens, and “also the Indians dwelling on either side of the said boundary line” to freely cross and recross the U.S.-Canadian Border. While the right of British (Canadian) and American citizens to freely pass the border was annihilated by the War of 1812, the right of American Indians to do so under the Jay Treaty was not. Thus since 1794, for immigration purposes, Native Americans have not had to recognize the political line separating the United States and Canada.

After the Revolutionary war, agrarian capitalism expanded throughout the Southeastern sector of North America, including the Appalachian Mountains where the Cherokees resided. Between 1800-1838, the Cherokees constructed a centralized government based on dispersed farming and patrilineal families. Because of their outward quiescence toward the white ”civilization program,” the Cherokees have been described by many scholars as the most acculturated of the Southeastern Indian nations. However, the Cherokee cultural transformation was neither as homogeneous nor as pervasive as previously thought. Historically, agrarian capitalism (a) has shifted control of households, land, and the means of production to men; (b) has triggered public policies that disempower women; and (c) has engendered a new ”cult of domesticity’’ to rationalize the inequitable treatment of wives. Using archival sources and statistical analysis of 1809-1835 censuses, this article will investigate how those three historical processes impacted post-Revolutionary Cherokee women. Moreover, this research will examine the strategies through which Cherokee women resisted the cultural, economic and political changes that threatened their matrilineal powers and rights.

”There are those who think they pay me a compliment in saying that I am just like a white woman. My aim, my joy, my pride is to sing the glories of my own people. ours is the race that taught the world that avarice veiled by any name is crime. ours are the people of the blue air and the green woods, and ours the faith that taught men and women to live without greed and die without fear.”’ These are the words of Emily Pauline Johnson, Mohawk writer and actor. Born of an English mother and Mohawk father, Pauline Johnson began a movement that has proved unstoppable in its momentum - the movement of First Nations women to write down our stories of history, of revolution, of sorrow, of love. The Song My Paddle Sings August is laughing across the sky Laughing while paddle, canoe and I Drift, drift Where the hills uplift On either side of the current swift.

[W]ith a good story there is no end to the possibilities. -Leslie Marmon Silko I. THE AUTHOR AND HER WORKS The publication of Ceremony [5] in 1977, nine years after N. Scott Momaday’s House Made of Dawn won the Pulitzer Prize, marked the appearance of the first novel by an American Indian woman, Leslie Marmon Silko, at a time when American Indian literature (if not its literary criticism) had entered what Kenneth Lincoln [Native 137] called a renaissance. Within two years of Ceremony’s publication, American Indian Quarterly devoted an entire symposium issue to it, edited by Kathleen M. Sands [178,179], immediately laying a foundation of critical analysis of substantial breadth.

DEMONS AND FLICKERING CANDLES While browsing through the stacks of my favorite bookstore I came across a title which caught my attention, not to mention my imagination. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (1995), is the latest work by Carl Sagan, probably the most widely read and respected popular scientist of our time. Sagan, a professor of astronomy and space sciences at Cornell University, is perhaps best known for his book Cosmos (1980), and for the immensely popular and educational television series of the same name. He also wrote The Cosmic Connection (1973), The Dragons of Eden (1977), and Broca’s Brain (1979), to name just a few of his better known works. Intrigued by the title, and admittedly a long-time Carl Sagan fan myself, I eagerly took up The Demon-Haunted World, and with only the slightest wince of pain at the price, handed over the $29.95 (plus tax) to the cashier.