Canadian tribes seek Royal support

Press, 15 July 1976, Page 18

Canadian tribes seek Royal support

By

ELIZABETH DUNN

in London

Accustomed to a country where one can buy car bumper stickers which read “Custer Had I’ Coming,” six Canadian Indian chiefs who met the Queen at BucHngham Palace this month, were upset by the reaction of the British Press. “Pow Wow at the Palace,” read the “Daily Mirror” headline, followed by a string of witticisms abou* squaws and pipes of peace. The chiefs were promptly denounced by tl.e militant American Indian Movement which now has a British committee: “They’re apple Indians,” a spokesman said. “Red on the outside, white on the inside.”

Visibly shaken, mostly by the British newspapers’ apparent conviction that the proper place for an Indian is in John Wayne’s gunsights, the chiefs grew wary. Not only were the accounts in doubtful taste, they were also wrong. The chiefs’ visit to Britain (sponsored and paid for by the Alberta Provincial Government) is designed to underline the Canadian Federal Government’s failure to honour its treaties with the Indian people, not to celebrate their existence. When the treaties were signed, the Indians handed over huge tracts of tneir land to Queen Victoria in return for schools, hunting and fishing rights, and cash. Today, according to Chief John Snow of the Stoney Indian tribe in southern Alberta, their schools are staffed by “teachers who would never make it in white society.” The hunting and fishing rights, while still .alid, are rendered useless by devel-

opment projects. “The promises,” Chief John said, “are either already broken or they are in jeopardy.” By way of illustration, he quotes the wrangl over the Bighorn Kootenay p lains reservation.

It should have been designated a reserve when the treaty was first signed in 1877, but the land was found to hold rich coal seams. The formalities of creating a reserve were delayed until 1945 when the Government allowed the Indians to live in the area but kept the mining rights for itself. For 25 years, the Indians made a reasonable living out of the land — “maybe one or two people were on welfare,” the Chief said, “then in 1959 they built the largest dam in Alberta and flooded 27 miles of land

where the Stoney Indians used to hunt and fish. Today, 95 per cent ot my people are living on welfare.”

Chief John tried to make some, of these points to the Queen but he says she changed the subject. He has invited her to join the Alberta Indians back home next year when they commemorate the 1877 treaty and mourn its breaking. So far there hr.s been no reply.

It is bureaucratic default on the scale of the Kootenay dam project and the sorry social conditions of many Indian people which have encouraged the development of the American Indian Movement in Canada. Further west, in British Columbia, Indians are paid to stay on their reserves.

Should they move into the

towns, they lose their land rights and gain the label “non-status Indian”. They are bitterly resented by the white population largely because they do not have to pay purchase tax and because, the whites say, they drink all their welfare benefits. Certainly alcoholism is a problem for the Indian community. For all these reasons, A.LM. has been gaining ground in Canada for the last three or four years. Some militant Indians in British Columbia have set up armed road blocks in protest at the rent-free use of their land made by government and white industry. A.LM. leaders in Alberta have urged Indians to take no part in the commemoration of the treaties because “they have been broken and violated time and again.” A.LM. in Britain supports that view. “These chiefs,” said Mr Terry Lewis, United Kingdom" national organiser, “are only interested in talk, talk, talk. The difference between them and A.LM. is that they want to see the treaties honoured; we want selfdetermination for all American Indians. We think the Indians in Canada should have the same support as the blacks in Rhodesia or South Africa. International support.” Mr Lewis, who developed an interest in the Indians’ plight when the Vietnam war ended, seems an improbable supporter in spite of his Indian jewellery and hair drawn back in an elastic band. Somehow, talk of the liberation of the Sioux, the Cree, the Dene, lacks immediacy when delivered in a flat Birmingham accent.

In the six months since he formed the committee, he has concentrated on rallying

support which might come in handy at the United Nations. A.l.M.’s strength in terms of active participants in this country is nine. Last week they were focusing their protest on the American Embassy’s bicentennial exhibition of folk art. Meanwhile, the Canadian chiefs and their wives continue their tour. After the meeting at the Palace, they abandoned their ceremonial dress for less conspicuous garb. To visit the Lord Mayor three of the chiefs (including Chief Leo Pretty Young Man and Chief Jim Shot Both Sides) wore Victorian uniforms issued by the Federal Government to the elected chiefs of the tribes at the time of the treaty-signing. They lunched with the Canadian Maple Leaf Ladies’

Club; they visited schools; they went to Kenilworth for the Royal Agricultural Show and then on to Edinburgh for lunch with the Lord Provost. In all. not a disagreeable way to mark broken promises. Six weeks ago, in Brocket, Alberta, the regional director of the American Indian Movement, Nelson Small Legs, dressed himself in his ceremonial robes and shot himself with a rifle. He was 23. He left a wife and two daughters and three notes. One of them read; “I give up my life in protest to the present conditions concerning Indian people of southern Alberta. . , For 100 years Indians have suffered. . . My suicide should open up the eyes of non-lndians into how much we’ve suffered.” - 0.F.N.5., Copyright.