<
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/12/canada-indigenous-heiltsuk-constitution>
"When outsiders arrived in the lands of the Heiltsuk people, they brought with
them a rapacious appetite for the region’s trees, fish and minerals. Settlers
and the government soon followed, claiming ownership of the thick cedar
forests, the fjords and the abundance of life. Heiltsuk elders were confused.
“If these are truly your lands,” they asked, “where are your stories?”
For the Heiltsuk, stories explain everything from the shape of a local mountain
to the distinct red fur fringes on the sea wolves stalking shores. They tell of
the flesh-eating monster
baxbakwa’lanuxusiwe, whose entire body was covered
with snapping mouths before it was destroyed by a shaman and became a cloud of
mosquitoes.
Passed down over generations, in ceremonies forbidden by Canada’s government,
the stories weave together the physical world, the supernatural and the liminal
space that binds the two.
Such stories are also the bedrock of the Heiltsuk’s newly created constitution,
a document recently ratified through ceremony that asserts the nation’s
long-held convictions that they are the original inhabitants and rightful
stewards of the region’s future.
The declaration comes at a time when Canada’s own sovereignty is under threat,
and when the first peoples are increasingly using their political power to
reclaim territories and customs from a colonial project that once sought to
destroy them."
Via
Positive.News
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
