Comment
February 3rd 2010
Aboriginal leadership and its responsibility to the environment
Younger generations must learn traditional knowledge in order to thrive
As an aboriginal scholar, I feel lucky to have been taught by some of the great aboriginal leaders and elders of the past generation.
I was able to hear Cree and Ojibwa leaders such as Peter O’Chiese and Art Solomon. Most importantly, there was Jacob Thomas, a traditional hereditary chief from the Cayuga Nation whom I named my son after and who would go on to teach me about the Great Law of Peace.
Jacob would be most influential in my life in teaching me about our political system and what it takes to be a leader. He never asked for payment to do so.
There were also Ovide Mercredi, a former chief of the Assembly of First Nations, a colleague of mine for a year who once again is chief of his community. Also, Mayan elder Hunbatz Man, Aztec leader Mazalt Golindo, Hawaiian elders Hale Makua and Lyons Ka’pi’iohn Naone 111 and Oneida academic Pamela Colorado, director of the Indigenous Science Network.
What these leaders tried to teach was that protecting our traditional lands and the environment was of the utmost importance.
While researching for my dissertation, I was provided a ceremony by Jacob Thomas and then proceeded to walk to every place that was significant in the story of how my people learned to govern themselves. It took over a month. I had to earn the right to not only understand the story but to be able to tell it.
In order to do so, I needed to know the lands and environment of where my people came from. I would later follow up by going back and learning traditional survival skills with Abenaki educator Jim Bruchac. This led to several trips to Yellowstone National Park to learn about grizzly bears, black bears and wolf tracking from Jim Halfpenny.
Finally, with the help of Cayuga Elder Norma General, I would subsequently bring our people back to their homelands, following the story of the Peacemaker, the one who brought us our traditional forms of government so that our future leaders would become better people.
Aboriginal leaders need to infuse these traditional teachings into the upbringing of future generations. Simply teaching aboriginal students to be the next bureaucrats running a flawed band council system won’t help nepotism and corruption. In fact, it will only exacerbate the situation by giving them the tools to better get away with it.
But teaching a future leader to go hungry on a four-day fast with nothing but the clothes on their backs might help to create character. Students need to learn modern day accounting and management skills, but these won’t help if they are taught from a flawed value system.
Our leaders today are emulating the same system that resulted in the sponsorship scandal by the Liberals and the autocratic approach to governance by the Conservatives.
Instead, our leaders need to be accountable to their communities. Only then can they earn the right to be leaders. It is only though our values, which are rooted in the traditions that come from the environments our ancestors lived in, that we will be better able to manage the affairs of our people.
Brian Rice is an associate professor of education at the University of Winnipeg.
This article appeared in Volume 64, Number 18 of The Uniter, published February 4th 2010.
