December 7th Update from Grand River

The following update from Hazel Hill from the Six Nations reclamation site just outside of Caledonia:

Good Morning from Grand River.  I know everyone has been wondering what is happening with negotiations and our land reclamation of Kanonhstaton.

Since I last wrote after our November 14th Lands Side Table, there has been no meetings so nothing really to report.  Unfortunately, we had another death in one of our Clanmothers family’s and so our meetings that were scheduled for the end of November were cancelled.  They have been re-scheduled to December 13th and 14th and we will see then how the Crown responds to our presentation of our documents and historical evidence as provided through our Wampum and Oral History at our last meeting.  

Clearly the Crown has found itself in a dilemma since we have presented the TRUTH.  They know for a FACT that the title for Plank Road (also known as Argyle Street and formerly #6 Highway) itself still rests with the Six Nations/Haudenesonne, they cannot contest this.  They also know that the so-called land surrender that they are resting their entire case on is merely minutes of a council meeting with no order in council to support it, and no legal grounds to support it. they also know that the Indian agent at the time who was drafting these fraudulent surrenders, was also the individual who was translating them to the Six Nations, and who clearly was telling the Chiefs one thing, and then recording it as something else.  This is not a new practice.  Our Chiefs pointed out several times in history how this was done, including the Nanfan Treaty, the Simcoe Deed, many areas that the Crown, when realizing that they still were’nt satisified with our generosity and good-will, needed to not only take more of our lands, but to create their own patents so that they could take ownership of them.  This is no more valid then as it would be today, and yet the Crowns Legal Advisors have told them that they have a valid surrender.  Most of their principal negotiators continue to mislead the people of Caledonia telling them that they have a presented a bill of sale for the lands and that the Six Nations will not get it back.  The politicians of today are speaking with the same forked tongue as the Indian agents back then did. They do not know how to speak the truth.  They cannot look their people in the eye and tell them that their ancestors lied cheated and stole to get what they have today, and they cannot tell them that their True Landlords are the very people who have been treated with such disrespect, racial discrimination and have been the victim of many hate crimes and antagonistic behaviours since the land reclamation began in February.        

You know, one of the things I forgot to tell you about from our last meeting was one of the most significant events since we’ve begun.  Our people decided to see what the crown representatives would do when put in the same situation our people were in during the 1800’s.  Jock had put together a document written in the Cayuga Language that outlined our presentation that day.  He stood and read this document to the Crown representatives in the traditional language, and then he translated it into english for them.  He also asked them to sign this document to verify that they had heard this presentation today.  None of the Crown representatives would sign.  At that point Jock then thanked them for proving our point.  

Our ancestors were faced with this throughout our history, with Crown representatives being the ones who not only drafted the documents, but also translated it, having the opportunity to give false information to our people.  The difference being is our people trusted the Crown, and this is where we went wrong.  They were continually being scammed and mislead, and the evidence was clearly represented that day because what was written and what was handed down orally through our history was not the same thing.  After he thanked them for proving that point, Federal Representative Ron Doering put “His X Mark” on the paper.  While again, he did so only after being shown that this was how they frauded our people.  It would be very easy for anyone to put an “X” mark there, and for us to write down who it was and what their role was.  As a matter of fact, that is what we intended to do to show them how we can see through the veil of deception of the past.  Jock told them, we were going to get you to put your “X” mark there and we would give you an Indian Name to describe who you are.  He also told them that we could have written that you just signed all of Canada back to our people, and you have no way of knowing because it is not your language of understanding.  Just as it wasn’t our ancestors language of understanding and again, our ancestors trusted your people. Today we know better. This is one of the reasons why I’ve always said, and quoted Pope John Paul II, it’s not the LAW, it’s only paper.    

Today, we are faced with having to deal with all of this.  However, many things have progressed and continue to progress.  At last Chiefs Council meeting there were at least six development companies that have come to our Traditional Council in hopes of finding a way to begin consulting with the Landowners as opposed to the Crown.  Interestingly enough, each of those developers have stated that the Crown representatives continue to mislead them.  In this case every single one of them mentioned that the lead provincial negotiator Jane Stewart continues to tell them that they need only to consult with the band council.  I guess the Crown hasn’t clearly understood what is happening in our community as well as across the country and the world with respect to the Onkwehonweh.  The PEOPLE have said they have had enough.  We are no longer going to tolerate the Crowns interference in our governance.  The band council does not represent the people.  Please understand that it is not the individual people within that system who are at fault, they have been mislead into believing this is the government because this is what the Crown, and its corporation of Canada has set up.  It is the system itself that has been developed to do exactly what it has done, to undermine the authority of our traditional government, our people, for one thing; but also to assimilate our people into canadian society so that the crown will never have to answer to its crimes.  This is why the people have stood and will not back down.  It is not a personal attack against the Elected Chief, or the elected councillors,  nor is it an attack against any of our other brothers and sisters who have been forced into a system to try and help their people.  It was a set up.  It was part of the genocidal practice of the Crown.  Well, again, our people have turned that negative into a positive.  The Chiefs Council has invited representatives from across Canada to join us for a meeting on December 9th.  All of the Chiefs of Ontario as well as the AFN have been invited to come to meet with the Traditional Council.  All of our territories and people are invited to attend.  The purpose of this meeting is to explain the very same wampum and history as was explained to the Crown.  Only in this instance, to show how that relationship worked with the other Nations, how they fall under the shelter of that Great Tree, and how today that can be worked out so that the Haudenesonne Council, the Original League of Nations, will have its rightful place again, and carry the voice and concerns of the Onkwehonweh to the Crown.  This is the way it was, and this is the way it should be.  We had an opportunity to look at minutes of the council meeting from 1870.  Many of our people traveled to Six Nations at that time to counsel.  There were representatives there from Rama, St. Francis, Muncey, Alderville, Chippewas of the Thames, Oneidas of  Muncey, Sarnia, Lake of Two Mountains, St. Regis, Caughnawanga, Saugeen, Cape Croker, Walpole Island, Rice Lake, Sauble, Kettle Point, Bay of Quinte, Snake Island, Mississauga of the New Credit, Moravians of Thames as  well as Six Nations.  What is happening today is exactly why the Crown brought in the Indian Act in the first place.  To prevent the Haudenesonne from doing its job.  So, this meeting on December 9th, 2006 is like a continuance of our counsel from June 10th 1870.  We’ve been slightly interrupted for over a hundred and fifty years, but again, as was pointed out to the Crown, our Traditional Council has continued, uninterrupted, and nothing the Crown has done, nor can do, will ever cancel that out.  This is something that was given to us by the Creator, and this is what the people continue to uphold.

I guess, while there are going to be many who say that our Confederacy Council cannot work with the band council, it is this very issue of governance that our people must begin to put their minds to.  To figure out how we can help our people who have been taken outside of that circle, and bring them back in.  Again, we can say that they have done so willingly, and that they have no voice.  From my perspective, just like when our children were stolen and put in residential schools, or when our children were beaten and strapped for speaking their own language, or how we were forced into their education and religions, and how today when our people are criminalized for trying to defend the future of our people and our homelands.  It was all part of the overall plan to get rid of the “Indian Problem”.    When the Peacemaker came and reminded us of the Great Law, he also gave us the mechanism to work together in Unity & Peace.  This was the Five Nations Confederacy.  The Original League of Nations.  It is very much alive today, as it was the day it was given.  Anything we are faced with can be resolved through the Great Law, and through the Confederacy Council.  We need only take up our responsibility to it and uphold what was given to us.  This is how we can bring the other councils in, they can come under the Confederacy and support the Confederacy in carrying the voice of all of the Onkwehonweh to the Crown.  We must stand United and we must stand Strong.  This is all part of the prophecies and it is also what the Crown has been trying to prevent from happening for many generations.  

This is also why they continue to use tactics such as instigators like Gary McHale to come in and hopefully create a situation that will divert the people from our path.  Last weekend they had the nerve to use the Canadian Troops as an excuse to try and create such a situation.  They claim they wanted to hang ribbons and flags up in support of the troops in Afganistan.  They had the television media there even before they got there with their flags, waiting in anticipation and hoping our people from the site would come out and try to stop them or fight with them. They did not anticipate that we would simply inform the OPP to deal with their people, and that again, we have been respectful.  we have our flags flying on the site and in front of the site.  we could go into the town of Caledonia and fly them, because as i’ve said, we’ve proven that the road itself is still ours, and that most of the town is still ours too, but we have respected the people and have maintained our presence on and near the reclamation site.  We only ask that the same respect be shown in return.  We do not have a problem with them hanging their flags anywhere outside the proximity of the site, it was being veiwed as it was intended, to try and instigate a fight.  When the OPP prevented them from hanging the flags across the road from the site there was much anger at the fact that they should be able to hang their canadian flag on canadian soil.  I understand and respect this.  However, it is questionable whether there is any land within Turtle Island that they can claim as Canadian soil, and in this particular case, again, the road itself we have already proven is within the Six Nations jurisdiction and we were within our rights to ask them to respect that.  Interestingly enough, when they did go down just past 6th line to hang their flags in support of the troops, (still in our jurisdiction but we gave them permission to hang them there) the television camermen didn’t follow them.  Again, they were there only to make sure they caught on tv any violence that they were hoping would erupt.  Shame on those who used the troops in that way!  

There are many things going through my mind and things I would like to share, but at this point, I will close with one last message.  I want all of you to keep in mind December 17th 2006.  It appears that since the Crown has been put in the position of having to address the issue of the theft of our lands and resources, at having been put in the position of answering to the crimes they have committed, we are going to be faced with continued attempts of instigation and potential violence. Gary McHale is again planning another rally.  I’ve been told he has the help of a woman (sorry I don’t know her name off hand), but she is like the president of a white supremist group.  Again they are hoping to bring violence to our people at Kanonhstaton. I would like all of you to bring your minds to PEACE on that day, and offer your sacred tobacco or medicine to help support us in upholding the LAWS OF CREATION. According to the star map, December 17th is directly under the Temple of Taurus, and Orions Belt which is representative of the Peacemaker.  The Temple of Taurus is our Rosetta Stone.  It is our Great Law.  It is who we are and how we connect to the Peacemaker.   These are things our people have forgotten, but it is how our ancestors knew when to do things, just like they know when to begin the midwinter ceremonies and our other ceremonies.  Through the Stars.  It IS OUR MAP in Creation. But, the Crown has learned this too.   Throughout history the Crown has used the stars just as our ancestors did, to sanction their continued use and abuse of our people and the Great Law.  This is how they have been able to keep our people down and under their thumb for so long. They have kept us in spiritual bondage.  They use our own people and our medicines to do this. This is what the People have been fighting and this is what the Women and Clanmothers stopped the day they went onto our lands to stop development, and this is what the Men have been standing and protecting.  And this is what today, we have to continue to stop.  Today, we need to bring all of our minds together to do this. All of the Onkwehonweh must stand before the Creator and acknowledge the Law that was given to us, we need to acknowledge our responsibilities to Creation, and acknoweldge our duty to uphold and protect the Law that He provided.  That is what I would like each of you to do everyday, and specifically on December 17th.   We need only to let Creation know we are standing strong and doing our best, and Creation will respond.

That’s all I have to say for now.  Nya Weh!

In Love, Light and Peace,
Hazel