Historical Anishinaabe heroes revived during Treaty talk

By Kelly Anne Smith

NORTH BAY—Nipissing University welcomed Alan Ojiig Corbiere as part of Indigenous Week, on the traditional land of Nipissing First Nation and the Robinson Huron Treaty of 1850.

Corbiere’s public lecture was titled, “Treaty Foundations: The Relevance of Covenant Chain to the Robinson Huron Treaty.”

Hosted by Office of Indigenous Initiatives, Director Tanya Lukin Linklater was pleased the venue was packed with students, professors, and community members.

“Alan Corbiere’s research in treaties of the Great Lakes region is significant historically and has implications for today. Sharing his knowledge with the campus community and broader community is important for understanding our shared history. I hope that this talk helped students begin to consider the role of Treaty in the foundations of Canada.”

Alan Ojiig Corbiere, of the Ruffled Grouse clan from M’Chigeeng First Nation, is a traditional knowledge teacher and a History doctoral candidate who won a Governor General medal for his work on the Anishinaabemowin Revival Program.

Corbiere was also an expert witness in the Robinson Huron Treaty Annuities case, explaining the embedded promises in the Treaty. From the opening statement:

“What makes Mr. Corbiere’s expertise and testimony unique in this case is that he uses an ethnohistorical method that is particularly attuned to the specific intricacies of the Anishinaabek from the Great Lakes area.”

History comes alive when Corbiere educates the crowd. Corbiere works to uncover the past through metaphors, symbols, ceremony, wampum strings and belts, and calumet pipes in historical records and Anishinaabemowin.

In conversation after his talk, Corbiere explains that he didn’t have the knowledge growing up but quickly became enthralled when learning his true history.

“I didn’t know any of it. When I was reading the RCAP research report prepared by Jim Morrison, it read like a novel,” recalls Corbiere. “I remember laying there late at night and I couldn’t put it down. My wife was urging me to turn off the light. But I couldn’t. It was just riveting. I wondered what was going to happen next.”

Corbiere wants to keep digging for clues. He points out he sees a lot of people wearing shirts of Geronimo and Sitting Bull.

“We are not really given our own heroes. We don’t have our own guys yet or put them up because we don’t know what they’ve done. It’s in this absence of knowledge that others fill that void.”

Corbiere has been teaching about our chiefs for the last few years.

“People can then identify— this is our chief and this is who we valorize. There is nothing wrong with valorizing Tecumseh and what he accomplished. There’s Pontiac, he’s Odawa, but Sitting Bull, Geronimo, Crazy Horse, Poundmaker, Crowfoot and Big Bear?” explains Corbiere. “To me, it’s actually at the expense of our own. When we don’t have a sense of our own history, we latch onto others.”

Corbiere points out that Shingwaukonse was most prolific because he had priests and literate mixed bloods to write his sentiments.

“The other chiefs aren’t exposed to as much disruption as he is. Therefore, some of them aren’t as active as he is,” notes Corbiere. “He ends up being the hero, in my mind, because of his active stance and his pro-active stance as well. His reaction, his action and his proactivity that he pulls all together to try to put his people forward.”

Corbiere says Shingwaukonse should be given more credit for westward treaty signing as well.

“Shingwaukonse knew his rights and claims to the land as well as claims for his service for alliance with the British.”

Corbiere says in some corridors, the chiefs were criticized for becoming Christians.

“They didn’t hold on to their spirituality. Some call them sell-outs,” explains Corbiere. “The world was changing then and these men killed people. These guys fought during the war of 1812 and they killed men, other men. And you are dismissing them for becoming a Christian? A nominal Christian?  To me, their life story is more complicated than we give credit to. That’s why I’ve tried to pursue this more to show as much as we can, because the record doesn’t privilege them but the record does privilege Shingwaukonse.”

“But the chief from our area, Bemigwaneshkang, he doesn’t get as much attention. Nor does Debassige. We want more of these chiefs’ stories told in a complex fashion rather than these absolute generalizations or categorizations that they sold-out because they signed a treaty or they sold out because they became a Christian or they didn’t sell-out and they held on to their traditions. Since they didn’t accept Christianity they are better. I find that diminishment of the world that they were faced with and the choices they were faced with, and how complex it was. We don’t actually look at understanding their world. That’s what I’m trying to do.”

“The other interesting part is that Shingwaukonse just spoke Ojibwe and he couldn’t write. He’s telling somebody who translates it for him. Who knows whether or not he actually got it right. All we’re actually looking at is what one guy wrote of what this man said. And maybe other people had all these different understandings, but because he wrote it down, that becomes the version,” explains Corbiere. “Back then you only had one interpreter. It was up to him basically and one secretary. The interpreter translates in Ojibwe to English and then the secretary writes down what the interpreter is saying. And this is all going in real time – live. How much is he missing? How much is he catching. That’s the other part that we don’t really get to look at when we look at these documents.

“Here we have this English document. But all those chiefs that were there at that time, they only spoke Ojibwe. With Shingwaukonse, he had people who could translate for him. But did all the other chiefs have that? That’s the other part that we want to look at a bit more. That’s the part where the oral tradition comes in.”

The Covenant Chain is supposed to be protecting the Anishinaabe, not the Brits reasons Corbiere. In an 1845 painting projected by Corbiere, the gathering of Manitowaning on Manitoulin Island is shown, depicting presents of cloth, kettles, and guns received.

Corbiere says the chiefs knew the fire was to be kept burning and that the treaties were to be renewed.