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Volume 6, Number 1 Pages: 77 thru 93 |
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Volume 6, Number 1 Pages: 77 thru 93 |
Barbara
A. Gray (Kanatiiosh) is an Akwesasne Mohawk, has a Juris Doctorate (from Arizona
State University College of Law), and is pursuing a PhD in Justice Studies at
Arizona State University.
Pat
Lauderdale is a Professor of Justice Studies at ASU, has a PhD from Stanford
University, and his scholarly interests include sociology of law and political
deviance.
School of Justice Studies
February 11, 2002
Arizona State University
Please do not cite or reproduce without the permission
of the authors.
The Great Circle Of Justice: Restorative Justice Is
Only Half Of The Story
Introduction
For centuries, American Indian socialization practices worked to maintain
balance within their societies. Colonization and imposed western structures,
values, and beliefs, however, have displaced major indigenous political and
spiritual structures.(1) The displacement of these traditional structures,
practices, values, and beliefs has created disharmony within American Indian
communities.
Mandatory boarding schools, laws to prevent spiritual practices, and
imposed political structures were implemented to strip American Indians of their
cultural identity, their languages, their ceremonies, and other cultural values
and practices needed to maintain healthy societies.(2) With displacement of
traditional indigenous practices has come fractionalization and an increase in
crime, arrest, and incarceration of American Indians. The Bureau of Justice and
Statistics concluded that additional external controls in the form of stricter
laws, additional law enforcement officers, and funding is needed to decrease
crime.(3) Increased
funding is a necessity; however, stricter western laws and forms of enforcement
are not the answer to the prevention of crime, nor will it heal and protect the
unique character of American Indian societies. Instead, funding should be used
by American Indians to restore the Great Circle of Justice by identifying,
understanding and, where possible, recreating traditional cultural social
practices and structures to maintain social balance, diversity, and harmony
within their societies, which is the most effective approach to crime
prevention, protection and solution. (4)
In this paper, we suggest that American Indian justice is a
multidimensional Circle of Justice that contains preventative as well as
restorative mechanisms that together function to maintain justice. Today
implementation of some of these programs within Indian country focuses primarily
on the restorative aspects of justice, which are programs usually set within
imposed Eurocentric judicial systems. Restorative justice, however, is only part
of the solution to creating justice within American Indian communities. The time
has come to rediscover and implement the preventative, as well as restorative
mechanisms, so that the Circle of Justice can be restored and true healing may
take place.
Restorative Justice Is Only a Part of the Great Circle
of Justice
Many American Indian nations have created restorative justice programs.
These programs are generally reactionary. In other words, they focus on trying
to heal the offender, victim, and community only after a criminal act has
occurred.(5) While these alternative justice programs are important
components to restoring justice within American Indian communities, they are
hampered by western-imposed structures and Eurocentric concepts concerning crime
and punishment.(6) In the
United States today, approximately two million people are in jails or prisons.
Unfortunately, American Indians are becoming swept up in the expanding criminal
law, and today American Indians within the United States are reported as having
some of the highest rates of incarceration and arrest.(7)
Many American Indians challenge the legitimacy of these western-imposed
structures, and they advocate for reclamation of power over their cultural and
traditional forms of social control. Taiaiake Alfred writes:
No one can deny that our cultures have been eroded and our languages
lost, that most of our communities subsist in a state of abject economic
dependency, that our governments are weak, and that white encroachment on our
lands continues. We can, of course, choose to ignore these realities and simply
accede to the dissolution of our cultures and nations. Or we can commit
ourselves to a different path, one that honours the memory of those who
sacrificed, fought, and died to preserve the integrity of our nations. This
path, the opposite of the one we are on now, leads to renewed political and
social life based on our traditional values.(8)
Alfred’s
words may be prophetic. American Indian nations need not succumb to the
western-imposed practices and structures that are devoid of their traditional
values, nor settle for the implementation of restorative justice within a
Eurocentric justice paradigm. The western system of justice not only
compartmentalizes, but also uses prisons and the threat of incarceration as a
means of social control, which is foreign and even in opposition to American
Indian value systems.
For example, the Hollow Water Ojibway Community, who created a community
holistic circle healing program, wrote of prisons and incarceration:
The use of judgment and punishment actually works against the healing
process. An already unbalanced person is moved further out of balance. What the
threat of incarceration does do is keep people from coming forward and taking
responsibility for the hurt they are causing. It reinforces the silence, and
therefore promotes, rather than breaks, the cycle of violence that exists. In
reality, rather than making the community a safer place, the threat of jail
places the community more at risk.(9)
The
imposed Eurocentric justice paradigm furthers imbalance and disrespect, for it
does not seek to restore or heal the offender, the immediate family, friends who
are also victims, or the entire society that is forced out of balance by the
transgression. Ada Pecos Melton writes of restorative justice principles:
The
victim is the focal point, and the goal is to heal and renew the victim’s
physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual wellbeing. It also involves
deliberate acts by the offender to regain dignity and trust, and to return to a
healthy physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual state. (10)
Today, even where American Indians have alternative justice programs, the
individual is often reintroduced to a community that is absent indigenous
structures, practices, and traditional teachings that for so long a time acted
to prevent injustice. Restorative justice is only part of the Circle of Justice.
Focusing only on the restorative justice mechanisms, without
re-implementing the preventative mechanisms of indigenous justice, impedes
community healing and the preservation of culture.
The Great Circle of Justice
What is American Indian indigenous justice? It is living in accordance
with the traditional teachings and retaining balance by respecting and
protecting each other and the rest of the Natural World. The goal of indigenous
justice is to promote peace, heal the network of relationships, and eradicate
political, spiritual, and emotional injustices.(11)
The traditional teachings and original instructions contain the blueprint
on how humans can obtain justice with each other and the rest of the Natural
World. The displacement, through colonization, and the failure to respect the
traditional teachings has created social imbalance and disrespect. Katsi Cook
(an Akwesasne Mohawk) writes:
Many fundamental problems facing our communities today, including the
disempowerment of Native women and the dissolution of family ways, result from
our failure to give proper respect to our original instructions and our
traditional teachings. Proper respect of our ceremonies, our original
instructions, our language and our traditional teachings are essential to guide
our path to the future.(12)
The Great Circle of Justice consists of interrelated socialization
structures and practices that provide a traditional, multidimensional system of
checks and balances that work in unison to retain diversity and harmony within
American Indian societies.(13) The
preventative mechanisms are found within the traditional teachings (e.g.,
ceremonies, songs, dances, stories, kinship relations, and healing and military
societies). They function to create solidarity and teach society members
appropriate behavior.
Justice Robert Yazzie in speaking about Navajo traditional teachings,
emphasizes how it plants in the minds of the people what is acceptable and not
acceptable in Navajo society, “and how things ought to be done, or not to be
done.”(14) In Navajo society, for there to be Hozho (harmony and balance) the
fundamental forces of K’e and K’ei must be maintained. K’e contains the
concepts of “compassion, cooperation, friendliness, unselfishness,
peacefulness, and all other positive values which create an intense, diffuse,
and enduring solidarity.”(15) K’ei is more complex and includes the values
and beliefs found in K’e, but also refers to the socialization structure and
practices related to the interconnectedness of the clan system and one’s
relationship with the entire universe.(16)
Haudenosaunee traditional teachings, found within the Kaienerekowa (Great
Law of Peace), speak of Karihwiio (The Good Mind/Message), Ka’shatstensera
(The Power), and Skennen (The Peace). These concepts of the good mind, power,
and peace were given to the people by Skennenrehowi (the Peacemaker) to prevent
war and promote unity among the people and the rest of the Natural World.(17)
The teachings of the Great Law of Peace plant within the minds of the
people the concepts of love, unity, peace, equity, coexistence, cooperation,
power, respect, generosity, and reciprocity.(18) Within
the Great Law of Peace are socialization structures and practices, reaffirmation
of the clan system, duties, ceremonies, and societies that promote Karihwiio,
the good mind, which is necessary to heal the body, the spirit, and to maintain
diversity and harmony. Haudenosaunee traditional teachings mandate that peace is
maintained by preventing injustices to the Natural World and by protecting the
future generations yet unborn.(19)
Restorative justice is dependent on the foundational traditional
preventative structures and practices that work together to create justice and
prevent injustice. Merely focusing on the restorative aspects of justice without
incorporating the preventative mechanisms creates injustice, for it breaks the
Circle of Justice and leaves individuals and the community without the necessary
cultural foundational structures to heal and prevent crime. Colonization has,
for many American Indian nations, destroyed or displaced these essential and
foundational traditional teachings. American Indian nations need to re-establish
the Great Circle of Justice within their communities to eradicate injustices,
preserve their culture, and to work towards a healing of mind, body, and spirit.
Restoring
the Great Circle of Justice
There seems to be a Eurocentric tendency to generalize American Indian
indigenous justice and cultures into one assimilative paradigm. One only needs
to look to the application of federal Indian law in the United States for
evidence of how laws and precedence are held to apply to all American Indian
nations regardless of each nation’s unique relationship with the government.
We are not advocating a single universal paradigm. Instead, we advocate and
embrace diversity. We acknowledge that each nation needs to identify and restore
their unique traditional teachings (i.e., the foundational structures,
practices, and essential norms) in an attempt to restore the Great Circle of
Justice and protect their culture. In this section of the paper, we offer some
places where research may take place to uncover or rediscover the various
preventative mechanisms, and to see how they work together with restorative
justice mechanisms to maintain harmony.
The complex history and diverse effects of colonization on American
Indian nations will make it more difficult for some nations to identify and
appreciate the traditional practices and structures, than for others. However,
this should not stop nations from trying to strengthen their culture and
complete their Circle of Justice. We suggest that as nations search and research
their traditional teachings, they will uncover, for example, a Venn-like diagram
of interconnected structures, practices, duties, ceremonies, and prayers that
work together as a preventative and restorative mechanism to maintain the Great
Circle of Justice.
Research should include in-depth interviews of traditional elders,
medicine people, headmen, clan mothers, faith keepers, and other keepers of
knowledge in the communities. Justice Yazzie writes of the naat’aanii, which
is a Navajo keeper of traditional knowledge:
The traditional teachings are preserved in, to use the words of Canadian
philosopher Marshal MacLuhan, a “tribal encyclopedia” which is maintained by
“keepers of the tribal encyclopedia.” The Keeper, who is a traditional civil
leader, is called a naat’aanii. The word describes some one who speaks wisely
and well, and a naat’aanii is someone who is respected for his ability to
solve problems.(20)
The
keepers of knowledge should be able to help identify and provide invaluable
insights concerning the traditional teachings found within ceremony, prayer, and
in the foundational narratives and stories. Particularly the importance of
narratives within American Indian society cannot be understated. Frank
Pommersheim writes of the importance of narratives, “Narratives and stories
are not extrinsic niceties, but are basic life forces needed to establish and to
preserve communities and develop a common culture of shared understandings, and
deeper, more vital ethics.”(21)
Narratives
serve as more than just entertainment, as they preserve cultural teachings and
history, and transmit knowledge of communities’ norms and values.(22)
The foundational narratives, for many American Indian nations, contain
the traditional teachings on how humans are to live with each other and the rest
of the Natural World. They also contain a blueprint that provides the
communities’ structures (e.g., political and spiritual forms of governance,
kinship relations, and societies that have specific duties and responsibilities
in maintaining justice within the community). The narratives also teach the
listener that everyone has a duty to self and to the community to prevent
injustice. In other words, individuals and groups learn acceptable behaviors and
duties through participation in narrative events and membership.
The Haudenosaunee, for example, look to the following narratives as
containing foundational principles, norms, practices, and structures: (1)The Tsi
kiontonhwentsison (Creation story), (2) the story about the creation of clans,
(3) the Ohen:ton Kariwatekon (Thanksgiving Address), and (4) the Kaienerekowa
(Great Law of Peace).(23) The Great
Law of Peace contains traditional laws, political and spiritual principles, and
the spiritual/political structure of the Haudenosaunee confederacy. The duties
and responsibilities of each person in the society is given and reaffirmed every
time the people come together for ceremonies and social activities. In addition,
the Great Law of Peace reaffirms the sacred ceremonies, songs, and dances and
the clan system.(24) In this way,
the Great Law of Peace ties together previous structures and practices (e.g.,
the Ohen:ton Kariwatekon and the creation of clans works in a holistic way to
strengthen the prevention of injustices from occurring and restores balance when
an act of transgression occurs).(25) The Great Law of Peace, then, is a system
of checks and balances that depends not only on people not wanting to commit a
transgression, but on people understanding and having the will to prevent others
from breeching the peace.
The clan system is one example of an important structure that contains
duties, protocols, and practices that function to maintain justice. As such, the
clan system or similar kinship systems can be researched. Chief Tom Porter
writes of clans:
The clans are extremely important, and in fact without the clans we would
have almost nothing as a society of people. Like the human body, the bones are
what gives the body structure and the ability to function, so the clans serve
the same purpose in the societies of the Rotinonhson:ni (Haudenosaunee)
people.(26)
The
clan system functions to maintain justice in many ways. Kanienkahake
Doug George-Kanentiio writes:
A clan in former times took care of all of its members from the time they
were born until they died. Housing, food, health care, education, and employment
were administered by the clans. Criminal acts and family disputes were also
adjudicated by the clan elders. Clans controlled marriages and ceremonial
activities, and they selected political representatives.(27)
Kinship
relations or the clan system creates solidarity by uniting the people through a
common bond. In addition, for those nations that have clan animals or elements
such as the sun and wind, there exists a unity with the rest of the Natural
World. Unfortunately, in today’s society, the feeling of belonging has become
endangered. Many feel as if they are alone instead of feeling connected to the
environment and their community. People commit crimes without thinking about the
shame they bring to their clan, community, nation, and self. In other words,
they act as if they have no relatives, or at least have no respect for them.
The clan system plants within the mind of the people that they are not
alone, and what they do affects the community’s balance.
In essence, the function of the clan structure is to provide solidarity
and to maintain balance by preventing injustices.
John Mohawk suggests that in former times, there was very little domestic
violence because of these preventative and restorative structures and
practices.(28)
There are many practices that might account for the absence of this type
of internal violence in traditional clan societies. For the Haudenosaunee, the
practice of the new husband moving to live in the house of his ever watchful and
present mother-in-law was a practical deterrent to committing domestic violence.
Not only were there clan members present to make sure things were done in a good
way, but the people knew that if they did commit a violent act, they would be
asked to leave the safety of the long house, which in the 1600s, could have been
a grave sentence.(29)
Many American Indian nations had wedding ceremonies where young couples
were instructed in the importance of marriage to the nation, as well as the
acceptable behavior, which included not abusing each other.(30)
Amongst the Haudenosaunee, traditional marriages, which still occur
today, are more than the combining of two people, for they bring together clans
and extended families. During the wedding celebration all present at the joining
of the couple are reminded of these acceptable norms and their duty in making
sure that they are not broken.
As
one can see, American Indian indigenous justice is multidimensional and a
balancing process that contains and is dependent on numerous practices and
structures that function as both preventative and restorative mechanisms in the
maintenance of justice. Therefore it is crucial to restore the Great Circle of
Justice in Native societies.
Working Towards Community Healing & Cultural
Preservation
Colonization: Western-imposed forms of government and laws, the loss of
lands, and policies to assimilate the American Indian, have caused many of the
traditional indigenous justice mechanisms to become lost or damaged.(31) Today there remain numerous tribal courts that merely
replicate the western-imposed beliefs and practices of an adversarial system of
justice, instead of using traditional indigenous justice methods and values. We
suggest that such tribal courts and forms of governance may be a form of
internalized colonialism. These types of courts continue assimilation and cause
disharmony within the community, as they do not preserve cultural traditions,
nor do they heal the community.
This replication of imposed laws, practices, and ideas has seeped into
many aspects of American Indian government. For example, many tribal codes are
merely restatements of federal and state law and devoid of indigenous knowledge,
values, and norms.(32) Such
tribal codes make evident the urgent need to restore the Great Circle of Justice
within American Indian communities. For the system to work properly, for there
to be justice, nations cannot fail to assert their power by redefining and
redesigning all the imposed structures with traditional structures and
practices.
The traditional teachings, socialization practices and structures that
once worked to prevent social injustices can be replanted. As realists, we
recognize that there are practices that probably cannot be replicated, such as
living in a long house with one’s entire matrilineal extended family.
In addition, we are not suggesting that American Indian nations should
remain stuck in the proverbial past. However,
we suggest that our traditional teachings do contain the seeds to how American
Indians can live once again in skennen (peace) or Hozho (balance and harmony).
The traditional laws, cultural values and beliefs, and structures and practices
can be replanted and strengthened within indigenous communities and made to work
towards maintaining justice by healing the society.
Conclusion
American Indian nations can guard against losing their traditional
teachings and re-establish and/or strengthen the socialization practices that
worked to maintain social diversity and harmony. We suggest that bringing back
traditional indigenous justice requires an holistic approach in that
preventative, as well as restorative mechanisms and practices need to be
re-established throughout the community for there to be healing and justice.
Such an approach provides the entire community with a structure based on
traditional teachings, rather than imposed colonial structures that are based on
non-Native American practices, values, and norms. We hope that this paper will
inspire American Indian nations, as well as indigenous peoples from around the
world, faced with similar problems and decisions, to become aware and to take a
critical look at their communities, the absence of traditional teachings, and
the disharmony that imposed structures create, and then actively change the
present system. A new approach to justice is imperative, but it will come only
after the status quo is challenged. Taiaiake Alfred writes:
The goals that flow from our traditions demand an approach based on
undermining the intellectual and moral foundations of colonialism and exposing
the internal contradictions of states and societies that promise justice and
practice oppression. Non-indigenous people need to be brought to the realization
that their notion of power and its extension over indigenous peoples is wrong by
any moral standard. This approach holds the greatest promise for the freedom of
indigenous people.(33)
We
hope that readers will agree that the time has come to replant the traditional
teachings. In doing so, Native American culture can be maintained and lived, the
Great Circle of Justice can be restored, and the community can work toward a
true healing of mind, body, and spirit.
Notes
1.
See Gerald R. Alfred, Heeding the Voices of Our Ancestors: Kahnawake
Mohawk Politics and the Rise of Native Nationalism (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1995).
2.
See generally, Frederick E. Hoxie, A Final Promise: The Campaign to
Assimilate the 3. Indians, 188–1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1984); see also, Rupert Ross, Returning to the Teachings: Exploring
Aboriginal Justice (Toronto: Penguin, 1996).
3.
Lawrence A. Greenfeld and Steven K. Smith, American Indians and Crime
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs,
Bureau of Justice Statistics, NCJ 173386, 1999, February, Rev. June 18).
4.
See, John Mohawk, “Oratory Coming to Wholeness: Native Culture As Safe
Place,” Akwekon Journal 10, no. 4 (1993): 31–36.
5.
"Restorative justice" is a global social movement that
relatively recently began establishing a foothold in both academic and public
policy arenas. In 2000, The United
Nations Crime Congress conducted an ancillary meeting on the standards for
restorative justice in Vienna, Austria. One of the main moral entrepreneurs in
this global movement, John Braithwaite, has extended his seminal work on
restoration in Crime, Shame and Reintegration to include additional
international examples, including many from indigenous cultures. John
Braithwaite, Crime, Shame and Reintegration (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1989). His work
suggests that some restorative models are capable of repairing relations among
victims, offenders, and communities. Those
models based on the precision and autonomy embedded in indigenous practices have
significant potential; however, as the global movement of restoration expands,
other models often include compromises that erode precision and autonomy, or are
co-opted by lawyers or the state in the from of licensing of mediators, as is
evident in the majority of dispute management centers.
Pat Lauderdale, “Indigenous North American Jurisprudence,” International
Journal of Comparative Sociology 38 (1997):131-148.
Moreover, part of the emphasis on restoration focuses narrowly on the
rights of victims and does not include the indigenous practices of prevention
that we outline in this paper. See,
e.g., John Braithwaite,
“Restorative Justice and Social Justice,” Saskatchewan Law Review 63
(2000): 194.
6.
We believe that Emma LaRocque, is correct when she questions whether
healing circles are employing American Indian traditional methods of justice.
She writes, “Have they, in fact, fallen prey to contemporary, white,
leftist/liberal, Christian, and even New Age notions of ‘healing,’
‘forgiveness,’ and offender ‘rehabilitation’?” Emma LaRocque,
“Re-Examining Culturally Appropriate Models in Criminal in Justice
Applications,” in Aboriginal and treaty Rights in Canada: Essays on Law,
Equity, and Respect for difference, ed.
Michael Asch (Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia
Press, 1997), 85. We believe
that the tendency of indigenous mediation programs, within Eurocentric imposed
systems of justice, is to create assimilative restorative models.
However, such programs are not conducive to protecting each culture’s
traditional laws and practices and in effect causes further social imbalance.
However, unlike LaRocque, we believe that traditional laws and practices
that once worked to protect women and children from domestic violence can be
restored. In fact, we believe that
they need to be restored to heal our communities and protect individual victims,
as well as, the community.
7.
See, Stewart Wakeling et. al.,
Policing on American Indian Reservations (Washington, D.C.: U.S.
Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National Institute of
Justice, July 2001); See, Lawrence A. Greenfeld and Steven K. Smith, American
Indians and Crime.
8.
See, Taiaiake Alfred, Peace, Power, & Righteousness: An Indian
Manifesto (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), XII.
9.
Rupert Ross, “Aboriginal Community Healing in Action: The Hollow Water
Approach,” (an excerpt from Rupert Ross’s paper Dueling Paradigms?
Western Criminal Justice versus Aboriginal Community Healing), Justice as
Healing: A Newsletter on Aboriginal Concepts of Justice Native Law Centre (Spring
1995); available from http://www.usask.ca/nativelaw/jah_ross.html.
10.
See Ada Pecos Melton, “Indigenous Justice Systems and Tribal Society,” Judicature
79, no. 3 (1995): 127.
11.
Oren Lyons, “The American Indian in the Past,” in Exiled in the
Land of the Free: Democracy, Indian Nations, and the U.S. Constitution,
ed. Oren Lyons et al., foreword by Peter Matthiessen, preface by Daniel K.
Imouye (Santa Fe, N.M.: Clear Light Publications, 1992), 38.
12.
Katsi Cook, “Grandmother Moon,” in Words That Come Before All
Else: Environmental Philosophies of the Haudenosaunee, (Mohawk
Nation: Haudenosaunee Environmental
Task Force, 2000), 142.
13.
Audrey Shenandoah, “Everything Has To Be In Balance,” Indian Roots of
American Democracy, Northeast Indian Quarterly, Cornell University
(1987): 4-7.
14.
Robert Yazzie, “Hozho Nahasdlii—We Are Now in Good Relations: Navajo
Restorative Justice,” Saint Thomas Law Review 9 (1997): 120.
15.
Philmer Bluehouse and James W. Zion, “Hozhooji Naat’aanii: The Navajo
Justice and Harmony Ceremony,” Mediation Quarterly 10, no. 4 (1993):
329.
16.
Ibid., 329–330.
17.
Doug George-Kanentiio, Iroquois Culture & Commentary (Santa
Fe, N.M.: Clear Light Publishing, 2000), 10.
18.
Jacob Thomas, “The White Roots of Peace: Reading of the Great Law of Peace”
(Brantford, Ontario: Iroquoian Institute, 1992); John Arthur Gibson,
Concerning the League: The Iroquois League Tradition as Dictated in Onondaga
ed. John Arthur Gibson and trans. Hanni Woodbury (Winnipeg: Algonquian and
Iroquoian Linguistics, 1992).
19.
We are keenly aware that many of the attempts to reveal, rediscover,
and/or suggest the importance of traditional indigenous life are met with severe
criticisms. See, e.g., Shepard Krech III, The Ecological Indian: Myth
and History (New York: W.W.
Norton,1999). Krech uses apt
and isolated secondary sources and only two Indian primary sources in an attempt
to generalize to all North American Indians.
He claims that new ecological terms simply don't fit the mindset of early
Indians and that, for the most part, Indians abused the environment, at least,
as much as "modern" humans. Even
if his sources were correct, his argument is an attempt to prove the rule by a
few exceptions. Traditional
American Indians did not and still do not separate themselves from nature and
the fact stands in direct contrast to his argument.
It would create a great imbalance, if not a form of mass suicide, for
American Indians not to be ecologically minded.
Their lives and spiritual relations depended on the health and propriety
of nature. Traditional restoration
also might be obscured by revisionist social science fiction or ignoring many of
the unique facts of American Indian life prior to 1942.
It seems absurd to ignore the fact that anthropologist and archaeologists
still are searching for indigenous prisons or jails.
The absence of prisons is a primary source, one that speaks loud and
clear without the machinations of "wordsmiths".
Restoration of human animals and all their relatives was and is a central
indigenous concept and practice. It
seems directly relevant to new concepts such as ecological balance, including
ideas and practices concerning our relationship to nature, including, of course,
traditional American Indian peoples and Mother Earth.
20.
Robert Yazzie, “Hozho Nahasdlii,” 121–22.
21.
Frank Pommershiem, Braid of Feathers, (California:
University of California Press, 1995), 109.
22.
However, we recognize the scholarly debate as to the legitimacy of oral
traditions; thus, some caution needs to be used when researching such sources.
See, e.g., David Henige, “Can a Myth Be Astronomically Dated?” American
Indian Culture and Research Journal 23, no. 4 (1999): 127–57.
Of course written sources could be used, in addition to oral accounts,
and they should be, but a caveat also applies to written sources that might
contain Eurocentric misunderstandings and biases.
23.
Tsi kiontonhwentsison actually means “When the Earth Was Made,”
Ohen:ton Kariwatekon translates to “The Words Before All Else,” and the
Kaienerekowa translates to mean “The Great Binding Law.”
24.
Doug George-Kanentiio, Iroquois Culture, 23–24.
25.
The order of the foundational narratives is as follows: Creation,
creations of clans by Ro’nikonhrowa:nen (He Who Has Great Ideas), Thanksgiving
address, and the Great Law of Peace. In the Great Law of Peace, Skennenrahawi
(The Peacemaker), strengthened the clans and gave them a new duty within the new
political and spiritual structure.
26.
Tom Porter, Clanology (New York: Native North American Traveling
College, 1993), 7.
27.
Doug George-Kanentiio, Iroquois Culture, 70–71.
28.
John Mohawk, “Oratory,” 31–36; see James Zion and E. Zion,
“Hozho’ Sokee’—Stay Together Nicely: Domestic Violence Under Navajo
Common Law,” Arizona States Law Journal 25.. (1993): 415–17.
29.
John Mohawk, “Oratory,” 31–36.
30.
Ibid., 31–36; see James Zion and E. Zion, “Hozho’ Sokee’,” 415–17.
31.
See Carey N. Vicenti, “The Reemergence of Tribal Society and Traditional
Justice Systems,” Judicature 79, no. 3 (1995): 135.
32.
There are numerous codes that are mere regurgitations of state and
federal law and devoid of traditional laws and values. See, e.g., Navajo Nation
Solid Waste Code (1990); Navajo Nation Water Code, Title 22, Navajo Tribal Code,
Chapter 7 (1984). In contrast, the following tribal code incorporates
traditional knowledge, law, and; thus, is protective of the culture.
See Mille Lacs Band Chippewa, Band Chapter 1091-MLC-24, Chapter 24
Environmental Protection, Natural Resources Protection Ordinance (1980).
33.
Taiaiake Alfred, Peace, Power, 144.