justice for all An interview with Grand Chief Edward John Agnes Portalewska (CS Staff)
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the work of our Board
was born and raised in a fairly remote part of Western Canada in British Columbia in the territory of my peoples, in a community where the only language spoken was Dakelh, or Déné, of the Athapaskan language family. Our families and communities were heavily dependent on the land for food and for livelihood. It was a strong connection to our history, culture, values, and the land.” Tl’azt’en Nation, “People by the edge of the bay,” is a First Nations community in north central British Columbia, Canada. They call themselves Dakelh (“We travel by water”), though Europeans popularized the name “Carriers.” The population of the Tl’azt’en Nation today is around 1,300. Of these, approximately 800 live in one of the main communities of Tache, Binche and Dzitl’ainli, and K’uzche. Tl’azt’en people still live off the land, hunting for moose, deer, bear, caribou, and mountain goats. They still set nets for salmon, white fish, trout, kokanee, spring salmon, and Lingcod, and still go to campgrounds in the summer to gather food for winter storage, much like their ancestors. Grand Chief Edward John’s proud heritage and upbringing have made him the man he is today, a prominent First Nations political leader and Indigenous rights lawyer in Canada. For his service, he was awarded the title of Grand Chief of Tl’azt’en Nation. He helped to create the First Nations Summit, the organization representing the British Columbia First Nations involved in treaty negotiations with Canada and British Columbia. For over 30 years, he has been a tireless advocate for Indigenous rights. In January 2011, John began a three-year term as the North American Representative to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, and in 2012 he was elected Chair. Cultural Survival has the great honor to have Grand Chief John on its board of directors. “The essence of what I bring forward to advocate for Indigenous Peoples is the historic and cultural connection to our teachings, to everything we see around us that is interdependent,” John says.
members, Cultural Survival
Killing the Indian Inside the Child
is honored that Grand Chief
The seeds of John’s resistance were sown early on when John was subjected to mandatory residential schooling. As he tells it: “When I was a child the only schools available to us were the Indian residential schools, located far away from our communities. As 4-, 5-, and 6-year-old children we were bused away every year in September to these schools. We didn’t practice any of our cultural traditions; instead [we] were indoctrinated into anything but our own ways. We were literally there for 10 months of the year. “As children, we didn’t realize the schools were instruments of the state operated by church groups, the purpose of which was to ‘educate’ us and ‘civilize’ us...[the] purpose identified [in] a state document was to ‘kill the Indian inside the child,’ and that meant that we could forever lose our connection to our culture, to our language, traditions, to our land.” These experiences led John into the Anglo legal system in order to seek justice, not only for his people, but for all Indigenous Peoples. “A sense of injustice means you have to find a way to address these things,” said John. “My late grandmother said, ‘we’re sending you to school so you can speak the language, so you can deal with the crooked manager at the local store.’” Much of John’s work has centered around treaty negotiations and economic and social rights of his people. “The quality of life in our community—housing, bilingual education, health, language—is the cultural survival aspect of our people as Indigenous Peoples. Our survival depends on our ability to act as the resources that are what people depend on.
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Cultural Survival board member Grand Chief Edward John Photo courtesy of First Nations Summit
In our series spotlighting
Edward John (Akile Ch’oh), chair of UN Permanent forum on indigenous issues, took time out of his schedule to speak with Cultural Survival Quarterly about his background and current work.
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