The Law in Language: Wahkohtowin, Pastamowin, Ochiwin, & Kwayeskastasowin

Tansi Nîtôtemtik,

        There is no Cree word for reconciliation but, as Lorena Sekwan Fontaine explained during this weekend's Reconciliation: Wahkohtowin Conference, other Cree terms can help us to flush out its meaning.

        Wahkohtowin, for example, refers to “the laws governing relationships. These laws establish the principles that govern the conduct and behaviour of individuals within their family environment, within their communities, and with others outside their communities.”¹ The ideas that everything is related,² and that we all exist “embedded in relationships,”³ are too often missing from colonial ways of thinking and doing. When we forget or ignore the relational aspects of human existence, it becomes easier to harm others.

        Pastamowin means breaking relationships.⁴ The TRC, and the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) before it, provide examples of how the Canadian state broke its relationship with Indigenous peoples. 150 years after confederation, the ochiwin (or consequences)⁵ of this are seen in Canadian news headlines every day. Finally, we can consider kwayeskastasowin – “setting things right.”⁶

        The concepts of wahkohtowin, pastamowin, ochiwin, and kwayeskastasowin define specific Cree values, obligations, and responsibilities. They indicate socially acceptable behaviour and responses for non-compliance. Lorena also noted that in this framework “it is the wrongdoers' responsibility to repair the relationships they have broken.”⁷

        Considered together, these Cree words outline a legal process that allows for the just resolution of injurious action. The word reconciliation does not.

        Linguistic diversity allows for a more robust understanding of what meaningful reconciliatory praxis might look like. As many of the Conference speakers demonstrated over the weekend, Indigenous languages, stories, songs, ceremonies, and pedagogies all house traditional cultural knowledge and nation-specific laws. In a multi-jural nation such as Canada, it is essential that the legal principles contained within these alternative sources of law be brought into our conversations about reconciliation.

Come back tomorrow for more highlights from the Reconciliation: Wahkohtowin Conference!

Until next time,

Team ReconciliAction YEG

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[1] Harold Cardinal, “Nation-Building as Process: Reflections of a Nehiyaw (Cree)” (2007) Canadian Review of Comparative Literature 34:1 at 74.

[2] Lorena Fontaine, “Kwayeskastasowin (Setting Things Right)” (Reconciliation: Wahkohtowin Conference delivered at the River Cree Resort, Enoch/Edmonton, 22 September 2017) [unpublished].

[3] See Hadley Friedland, “Chapter 4: Wah-ko-to-win: Laws for a Society of Relationships” in Reclaiming the Language of the Law: The Contemporary Articulation and Application of Cree Legal Principles in Canada (PhD Dissertation, University of Alberta, 2016) [unpublished] at 8.

[4] Fontaine, supra note 2.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

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