Acknowledging history: an empty gesture?
Every day, more than 250,000 kids in Toronto public schools hear an acknowledgement that their school is on land that was once the traditional territory of Indigenous peoples.
“The territories include the Wendat, Anishinabek Nation, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nations and the Métis Nation,” says a voice each morning over the PA in schools from Brown’s Line to Woodbine Ave.
By now, kids probably know the words by rote, much like the patriotic anthem that precedes them.
And like “O Canada,” the acknowledgements, which are becoming more widespread in Ontario’s institutions, can be stirring.
Some see them as recognition and respect, an acknowledgement that Indigenous people live here as they have for thousands of years, and an important step toward reconciliation
Others see them as meaningless, an Indigenous tradition co-opted by outsiders and with statements that don’t go far enough to make amends. And still others use them just to say hi. “They’re there,” says Lee Maracle of her Indigenous ancestors. “The land is there. It’s alive and it’s around you,” says the U of T Indigenous studies teacher. “The spiritual world is all around you everywhere all the time so you might as well say hello.
“They might get pissed at you if you don’t,” she says with a chuckle.
Whatever the interpretation, there is no disputing that the acknowledgements, which are a tradition among Indigenous communities in Canada, are becoming more popular in non-Indigenous circles.
Schools, universities and synagogues are among the institutions using them. TIFF started saying the acknowledgements before screenings at last year’s festival. And they’ve made their way into this year’s Grey Cup, as well as Jets and Oilers hockey games.
Awareness of the devastating effects of colonialism in the wider populace has been growing, due in part to the Idle No More movement, which began in 2012, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on residential schools and the calls for action on the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, which eventually grew into a national inquiry.
The acknowledgements are viewed by many as a step toward reconciliation, although Maracle says firmly that they have nothing to do with it.
“Reconciliation is economic equality, access to territory, all of those things that are in the 94 calls to action,” she says of the TRC’s report. “No more taking our kids. Like stop right now. Take care of the missing and murdered women. Stop killing us. None of those things have ended.
“So this little acknowledgement to the land isn’t going to do anything for those things,” Maracle says.
Maracle, who teaches oral traditions, was one of the elders who helped craft U of T’s acknowledgement, which was formally adopted in 2016. “What we try to home in on when we talk about a land statement is to understand the history of the land you’re on,” says Jonathan Hamilton-Diabo, who is U of T’s director of Indigenous initiatives and a Mohawk from Kahnawake. U of T’s statement acknowledges the land the university operates on and goes on to say, “For thousands of years it has been the traditional land of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca and most recently, the Mississaugas of the Credit River. Today, this meeting place is still the home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work on this land.”
Hamilton-Diabo says that people who hear those words often say they’ve never thought about Toronto in this manner, “about the land and the history and the people that were here before and that are here now,” he says. “It just changes the thinking a bit.”
Experts consulted by the Star say there is no right or wrong way to do an acknowledgement, or protocol for when it should be used. But the TIFF statement raised a few eyebrows this year for its “provocative” language, referring to the Toronto area, the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of the New Credit, the Haudenosaunee and the Huron-Wendat, as “their land.”
And Maracle would prefer they be freeform, and not read as a statement, but she is fine with the TDSB’s daily recitation.
“Some of those children may fall in love with their country, the land,” she says.
At Ryerson, the acknowledgement created by the university’s Aboriginal Education Council is different again.
The statement acknowledges that Toronto is in the “’Dish With One Spoon Territory,” which refers to a “treaty between the Anishinaabe, Mississaugas and Haudenosaunee that bound them to share the territory and protect the land.” (There are other versions used in the university as well.)
Hayden King helped write the statement, but is ambivalent about their use.
King is Ryerson’s adviser to the dean on Indigenous education and director of the Centre for Indigenous Governance.
On one hand, he says they “remind nonIndigenous people that they’re on Indigenous land.” But he thinks they are mostly symbolic and he is skeptical about their wider use.
“I would like them to say ‘we acknowledge that this is the traditional territories of the Mississaugas and the Haudenosaunee, and as such we’re committed at the university to work towards co-managing our land with these groups, to targeting these students for scholarships and recruitment, to working with researchers to do research to benefit these communities. To focus on language revitalization,’ ” King says.
“I do not want the conversation to stop at, you know, miigwech,” he says of the Ojibwa word for thank you. “I want it to continue.”