A 16th Century Algonquin Ancestor

People who have 1 Algonquin ancestor from the 1600s are 4 centuries or 400 years away from this ancestor. Considering that in each 100 years there are 4 generations of lineage, a person of today is approximately a 16th generation descendant of the said Algonquin ancestor. Furthermore there were 4oo years of intermarriage with other socio-cultural-ethnic-linguist peoples. This points to the reality that although you claim to be Algonquin, you are not. This is reasonable.

The Deep Love of the Brown Brothers

Thomas Brown and Robert Brown were best friends. They did everything together such as play, sing, dance, feast, and hunt. They were so close as brothers that they were married on the same day on July 1, 1779. Thomas Brown married a lovely Irish woman named Beth who became Beth Brown, and Robert Brown married a lovely Algonquin woman named Akik who became Akik Brown. Both marriages resulted in many children both boys and girls. These two families lived in the same town where every subsequent generation also had their own families who carried the Brown surname and many of them continued to live in the same town. The larger family network of cousins remained close and intact where through family folklore and stories the descendants of Thomas and Beth and the decedents of Robert and Akik all claimed that they had an Algonquin ancestor. Yet, only the descendants of Akik Brown were genuine descendants of an Algonquin woman named Brown. This conflation is un-reasonable.

The Creation of Identity Gaps and Traps

All cultures contain a dense tapestry of rituals, dance, language, and foods that sustain them physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Sadly, with the emergence of state nationalism, where nation states destroy the cultural features and inherent deep meaning people need as they move through the world, a gap is created. In its place, state nationalism offers a thin veneer of culture such as a song and a flag. It is precisely because of this gap in deep cultural meaning and identity that too many settler peoples fall into the trap of usurping Algonquin identity.

Performance as an Indigenous Way of Knowing

Performance is a traditional Anishinaabeg way of coming to know and embodying knowledge. Performance is not solely defined as an explicit and consciously constructed story for a stage play. Not at all. Everything we do daily is a performance where the inherent activities and practices of the performance shape who we are and how we think. It is through the repetitive process of performing activities and practices that moves knowledge into our bodies which thus becomes embodied. This embodied knowledge then seeps into our subconscious, seeps into our hearts, and seeps into our dreams where through this embodiment we further become who we think we are. Today there are many settler people who, due to an identity gap created through state nationalism, have mistakenly stepped into administrative and leadership activities and practices of being Algonquin, where consequently they now think and feel and dream that they are genuinely Algonquin when they are not. The power of performance and embodied knowledge in these situations has become the trap many settler people are entangled in so much so that reason fails them.

​A Meandering Story: Truth, Evidence, and the Lack of Evidence
 
Prior to contact the Anishinaabeg had a traditional practice of learning about people, who they were, and their integrity. Essentially we told each other stories about who we were. We told people our names, who are family members and relatives were, and we told them our clan. This practice provided us with the beginning of what could be or would be a trustworthy relationship. We had this ancient tradition because it spoke to the integrity of the person. In the modern context we now want to know what kind of education and training a person has, what they do for employment, and how they have lived their lives. This is reasonable.
 
The Anishinaabeg tradition has always respected the greatest gift that Creator bestowed humans: our minds and our very ability to reason. Reasoning ability was respected and nurtured in our methods of parenting, teaching, and training. What I mean by this is parents and teachers value that individuals needed to develop their own ability to reason from within their being so much so that our methods of teaching are never didactic. Rather we always left room for the person to think through issues on their own. Respecting and nurturing an individual’s ability to reason was our way.
 
European Enlightenment brought forward the idea and methodology of positivism, that truth is rooted in evidence such as scientific positivism where knowledge and truth is rooted in atoms and molecules, historical positivism where knowledge and truth is rooted in artifacts and archival documents, and legal positivism where knowledge and truth is rooted in evidence.
 
In terms of legal positivism, when there is an absence of evidence judges use their training and minds and reason in their process of making a determination. This is what happened in Gehl v Canada. There was a lack of evidence and the judge reasoned through the community and family context of my father’s existence to determine he was and I was, like his mother, an Indian. This speaks to the need for critical thinking, and appreciation that the lack of evidence must be reasoned through.
 
There is more to consider with the idea that truth is rooted in tangible evidence. Evidence, like truth, is shaped by assumptions about the world such as patriarchy and colonization and thus power where people with more power foremost become the producers of what is evidence. This means that critical thinking is required when considering what is evidence and what is not evidence. For example, people with power can and will create or manufacture evidence according to their own selfish needs. What is more, people with power can and will destroy evidence, and disturbingly some will even work hard to ensure that as they do corrupt things there is no evidence to be found. This speaks to the need for critical thinking, and appreciation that the presence of evidence and the lack of evidence must be reasoned through.
 
As I say this no one should interpret me as saying that judges rooted in colonial law are able to determine truth. Clearly their assumptions are an issue. Most judges cannot come to a genuine and moral truth because Canada’s legal history emerges from the racist and genocidal Doctrine of Discovery. Again power mediates evidence, the lack of evidence, and truth.
 
All this said, no one should interpret that I am suggesting that in the absence of evidence we just accept the person as Indigenous. Not at all because after all the very absence of evidence can itself be manufactured. What is more, when this so-called absence of evidence exists within a broader context where there is the creation of fraudulent archival documents doubt is reasonable. Again, Creator gave us the ability to reason, and Canada’s court system also relies on the ability to reason.
 
The issue with the excuse that a person lacks evidence of who they are as an Indigenous person is limited. Canada began conducting census-taking as early as the year 1666 and it was as early as the year 1765 when Canada began recording if a family was Indigenous. Also, it was in 1871 when Canada began to take census every ten years. Another source is the Jesuit Relations beginning in 1631 through 1673.
 
If you cannot prove you are Algonquin, you should not be enrolled in the land claims process. You should not be shaping the process in a leadership role and you should not be afforded the right or responsibility to vote on the final agreement. Rather, harness your integrity and walk away. When the time comes and the agreement is final you can then submit a community application and that community can rely on their own criteria set to determine if you are to be accepted as a member.
 
This is easy to reason. Creator bestowed you with this skill within your being.

​© Lynn Gehl, Ph.D. is an Algonquin Anishinaabe-Ikwe from the Ottawa River Valley. She is a member of Pikwàkanàgan First Nation She is a published author of Claiming Anishinaabe: Decolonizing the Human Spirit and The Truth that Wampum Tells: My Debwewin on the Algonquin Land Claims Process.  Her most recent book is titled Gehl v Canada: Challenging Sex Discrimination in the Indian Act. You can reach her and see more of her work at www.lynngehl.com. Bare with me as I troubleshoot a new tool disseminating my blogs.

Check out this interview with Steve Paikin of the Agenda. I am receiving loads of good responses . . .

So great! I received my box of Gehl v Canada today.

From the back cover: "A follow-up to Claiming Anishinaabe, Gehl v Canada is the story of Lynn Gehl’s lifelong journey of survival against the nation-state’s constant genocidal assault against her existence. While Canada set up its colonial powers—including the Supreme Court, House of Commons, Senate Chamber, and the Residences of the Prime Minister and Governor General—on her traditional Algonquin territory, usurping the riches and resources of the land, she was pushed to the margins, exiled to a life of poverty in Toronto’s inner-city. With only beads in her pocket, Gehl spent her entire life fighting back, and now shares an insider analysis of Indian Act litigation, the narrow remedies the court imposes, and of obfuscating parliamentary discourse, as well as an important critique of the methodology of legal positivism. Drawing on social identity and Indigenous theories, the author presents Disenfranchised Spirit Theory, revealing insights into the identity struggles facing Indigenous Peoples to this day."
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To order click this link: https://uofrpress.ca/Books/G/Gehl-v-Canada

© Lynn Gehl, Ph.D. is an Algonquin Anishinaabe-kwe from the Ottawa River Valley. ​

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​© Lynn Gehl, Ph.D. is an Algonquin Anishinaabe-kwe from the Ottawa River Valley. Her most recent book Gehl v Canada is now available for pre-orders:

https://uofrpress.ca/Books/G/Gehl-v-Canada​

My Algonquin Anishinaabe identity flows through my father, his mother, and her parents (my great-grandparents). Through learning who I am I can also link myself to the people who lived at the Lake of Two Mountains and thus to pre-contact relatives. Me saying that I can link to the historic community of the Lake of Two Mountains and pre-contact relatives does not mean my Algonquin identity, that I claim, merely comes from an ancestor that lived in the 1700s. Not at all. I am clear about my identity coming from my father. Please do not misunderstand what I am saying or cherry pick back to pre-contact times.

What is more, while through Gehl v Canada today I am a registered status Indian I really do not have a community where I feel I am embraced. For one thing, I cannot go and live at Pikwakanagan First Nation as there is not enough space and, even if there was, I am not sure I would be welcomed by the people. What I have become, through Gehl v Canada, is a name on a membership list versus existing within a community. It is clear to me that my father’s, grandmother’s, and great-grandparents’ community has been greatly harmed by colonization and genocide. This is why I do the work that I do. My allegiance is with my kin relations.

I, though, am “fortunate” in the sense that the land where some of my extended kin relations now exist was not relocated or flooded, and that my great-grandmother with her mother (my great-great-grandmother) opted to move to a reserve. But the reality is that not all Algonquins in Ontario and Quebec wanted to go to reserve communities, and mixed bloods were not welcomed, or for that matter were pushed out of the community when they “married-out”. This was part of the genocide process. My point here is that just as DNA and a blood line have limitations, community essentialism also has many limitations. Identity is more than about being welcomed to a community or having a community. This is especially so when we appreciate that through colonization many communities and community relationships have been destroyed. What I have are kin relations with a particular community. I always had these kin relations as my father made sure he passed on to me these kinship stories, best known in the language as “gi-nwendaagininaanig dbaajimowinan”. Now that I have status registration as per the Indian Act things are not that much different. While the kin relations are there I would not say I belong to a community. Genocide happened; and genocide continues to happen such as through the land claims process.

Certainly the struggle Indigenous people are having regarding identity is difficult and heart breaking. Well, it is heart breaking for me. What is making it worse is all the settler academics and people jumping on board with who, and what is, in vogue. In doing this, settlers interfere with the Indigenous process of figuring it out; well, hopefully working it out. All this is not to say that I am not appreciative of the needed critical analysis of settlers claiming to be metis for the sole purpose of gaining Indigenous rights, and also appreciative of the needed critical analysis of settlers claiming to be Algonquin for the purpose of gaining rights through the land claims process – a land claims process that will only serve to extinguish Algonquin land and resource rights.

It is important for us to remember that historically, prior to contact, Indigenous nations adopted, assimilated, kidnapped, and nurtured new members into our communities. Through rituals such as initiations, dancing, ceremony, feasting, and loving kindness we socialized people into being new citizens of our Indigenous nations. While belonging was a blood process, we also valued the medicine of genetic diversity, and we also understood that belonging was very much a social process that was more about loyalty to the nation. Through genocidal laws, policies, and practices the nation state of Canada took all these inclusive processes of establishing our citizenries away from us; yet at the same time Canada appropriated the cultural process of socializing new citizens into their nation.

What I mean by this is that by usurping Indigenous land and resources Canada is able to embrace refugees and immigrants as new citizens of its nation. In this process Canada relies on Indigenous land and resources to socialize its new citizens into being good, obliging, loving, and loyal Canadians. Minister Maryam Monsef is one such celebrated Canadian citizen that the current prime minister likes to hold up as a success story. The socio-cultural processes and rituals that Canada relies on consist of such things as manipulating their minds by controlling the school curriculum and filling their hearts through the daily ritual of singing O Canada. Other mechanisms used to socialize new citizens of the Canadian nation consist of skewing media stories, offering national awards to accommodating people, creating provincial and national parks, filling national museums with state propaganda, and, to ensure the completion of hegemony, the ongoing creation and manipulation of national symbols and icons such as the Canadian flag and creating national monuments of acceptable heroes.

As Canada does this, creating new citizens of the state, Indigenous people fight about DNA and blood essentialism, fight about community belonging essentialism, and for that matter fight about cultural continuity essentialism, all the while forgetting about their own practices of inclusion. I know that DNA and blood, community belonging, and for that matter that even cultural continuity all have limitations. What is more important is kinship connections, loyalty, and allegiance.

Lastly, sadly Canada has pushed Indigenous people to the point where we have forgotten that in its anthropomorphic form, and after the human spirit has moved through the heart, morality, inclusive of loving kindness, takes that same heart pathway.