Robert Joseph remembers the first time his Kwakiutl family brought him to a ceremony at the Big House on Village Island, just off the northeast tip of Vancouver Island.

It was around 1945, when he was six years old. His family took a photograph of him there, which he’s kept for more than 70 years.

“I remember it because it was so magical,” the hereditary potlatch chief of the Thunderbird clan told the Star on Thursday. “As a little kid, you’d see all these dancers, their paraphernalia and masks.

“It wasn’t drama or theatre; they were real to a six-year-old. And that experience was so important because you begin to grow up and realize it was all a re-enactment of our belief systems, our history and our spirituality.”

Chief Joseph, 79, spoke a day after a fellow member of the Kwakiutl nation testified before the House of Commons justice committee about allegations of political interference when she was attorney general.

Jody Wilson-Raybould testified that when she refused to bow to pressure from the Prime Minister’s Office to cut Montreal-based engineering firm SNC-Lavalin a break on corruption charges, she was demoted. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he “completely disagreed” with her characterization of what happened and insisted his staff acted appropriately.

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In Wilson-Raybould’s closing statement, she stated she “came from a long line of matriarchs, and I’m a truth teller in accordance with the laws and traditions of our Big House. This is who I am, and this is who I always will be.”

That remark might have gone over the heads of Canadians unfamiliar with West Coast Indigenous cultures, but for her fellow Kwakiutl nation people — also known as Kwakwaka’wakw — the message was crystal clear.

It was a statement about where she derives her authority, not merely as former attorney general, to take the stance she has.

The Big House, explained Chief Joseph, is where everything important to the nation takes place, from decision making and conflict resolution to oral history and commerce.

“The Big House is in a sense our Parliament building, used by the hereditary chiefs, the heads of all the clans and houses,” he said. “It is our governance instrument, our central governing institution.

“But the Big House is actually both a metaphor and a building at the same time. It’s a metaphor for our world in the broadest sense. Everything in us and about us is contained in the Big House.”

John Borrows, founder of the University of Victoria’s Indigenous Law program — the first of its kind in the world — taught Wilson-Raybould law at the University of B.C. He said her reference to the Big House in her testimony Wednesday was no accident, paired with her insistence that the words you use matter and must be used with care.

“We saw Canada’s Indigenous constitution in action,” Borrows said, invoking the name of a book he wrote. “We more often see it in the treaty or Aboriginal rights context, but here it came out in cabinet. Indigenous law is not just something on the floor of the Big House but also on the floor of a parliamentary committee.”

Borrows, from the Anishinaabe nation of Ontario, took part in several Kwakiutl Big House ceremonies and described one he was invited to in Alert Bay, B.C.

Rows of benches line the walls like bleachers on three sides, the fourth featuring an elaborately painted screen in front of which dancers share stories and histories of the nation. Big Houses, he added, are used for everything from preserving oral history to bestowing ceremonial names and titles to resolving conflicts in Kwakiutl family law.

“I’ve attended a couple of their gatherings,” Borrows recalled. “It’s a lot about witnessing and checks-and-balances. There’s a speaker hired who gives the overarching narrative, but there are other family members also involved in conveying a narrative that is the history of the nation through song, dance and word.

“It’s beautiful as people go across the Big House floor … It’s very, very involved and can be a 16-hour experience of how the people relate to their territory.”

By the entrance of the Big House, representatives of the nation’s traditional clan system, each representing an important animal or being to that family, stand in regalia with “dramatic” carved masks. At various points they step in to comment or participate, sharing their clan’s historical connection to the proceedings.

Another key theme in Wilson-Raybould’s speech was her family lineage, including what she was taught by her father, mother and relatives, as well as her traditional name, Puglaas. According to Chief Joseph, the name means “a place one goes for fulfilment or to receive knowledge” and is a “very important name” to her people. “Her granny and the other elders and matriarchs,” he said, needed great faith that she would live up to its obligations.

“It is in that Big House that people are given names,” professor Borrows said. “And you have to keep your name ‘clean,’ to uphold the name when you speak and to always speak plainly.

He explained that, as the Big House is an official decision-making body, her name carries with it certain responsibilities she must uphold.

“People assume land and territorial obligations in the Big House. What Jody is doing is drawing on that tradition of intervening, checks-and-balances, speaking plainly and keeping the long genealogy of the legal system in the minds of people.”

Meanwhile, Indigenous people far beyond Wilson-Raybould’s own nation saw an important message in her remarks Wednesday.

Calgary Indigenous rights advocate Michelle Robinson, who is of the Dene nation, oversees membership for the Indigenous Peoples’ Commission for the Liberal Party of Canada. She told the Star she is “definitely concerned” about how Wilson-Raybould could be treated in the wake of her explosive remarks.

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“I worry about why it is so many folks don’t understand what she did was a positive thing for Canada and for democracy,” Robinson said.

“Instead, a lot of party loyalists and other folks are dogging on her. I think it’s really rooted in that hate against Indigenous women. We just can’t seem to get past that bias, no matter how incredibly accomplished this woman is.”

Bias against Indigenous women is unaddressed in Canada and is manifesting itself throughout this entire affair, she argued. But Robinson also said a broad range of Indigenous people were proud to hear the testimony.

“She represented her nation with such dignity and conviction,” she said. “I think that her nation should be applauded for what happened yesterday, because they taught her how to be this incredibly strong woman.

“Her people raised her from the moment she was born to be a very strong voice for her nation specifically, and I think that was really showcased yesterday … She’s an incredible role model for all Indigenous people.”

Heather Dorries, an assistant professor of public policy at Carleton University, noted that the Liberal government said it made Indigenous relationships a central priority. Those statements are being contrasted with the government’s actions — and raising questions.

“I think that the actions of this government confirm what many Indigenous Peoples have known for a long time,” Dorries told the Star by email. “That Canada will not uphold the rule of law if it is not politically expedient.

“This affair demonstrates that ultimately protecting a narrow set of economic interests is this government’s greatest priority.”

Speaking to the Star by phone Thursday, Judith Sayers — a prominent B.C. lawyer and president of the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council on Vancouver Island — pointed to Wilson-Raybould’s Indigenous heritage as a guiding path for her decision to speak at the Commons justice committee.

“As Indigenous people, the rule of law has always been used against us,” she explained. “She knew what her job was, she knew the power and authority she had, and made up her mind on something.”

Sayers said Indigenous people are typically subjected to the rule of Canadian law without their consent.

“When she was given that opportunity (to speak on the affair), her Indigenous laws, protocols and principles that she was raised with came out,” she said. “So she did what I think all the matriarchs ahead of her would have done.”

Sayers stressed the tight-knit nature of the Indigenous community and the effect that the SNC-Lavalin fallout is having on Indigenous people across the country.

“If (Trudeau) didn’t understand how closely connected the Indigenous community is, he is really not understanding Indigenous people at all,” Sayers said.

“Having this happen, I think it just brings so much more anger and disappointment ... No. 1, for having treated Jody the way he has, and it’s always going back to his line about Indigenous people being the most important relationship that he has. His actions have never lived up to his statement, and I think that this just proves it more.”

Canada banned the potlatch — a feast and gift-giving ceremony that forms the heart of many West Coast nations’ traditions — and other Big House rituals until 1951, along with outlawing Indigenous nations hiring lawyers to advocate for them. So on B.C.’s coast, numerous cultures held Big House potlatches illegally in secret.

“I was born in 1939, so I was old enough to attend some of the underground potlatches,” Chief Joseph recalled. “We lived in more isolated areas, so we didn’t have too much intrusion from newcomers and were almost unimpeded, but our neighbours who were in the direct path of colonization were going through severe challenges.”

When the Star visited Village Island last fall, it was overgrown with thickets of blackberry brambles and apple trees. There are signs of bears living among the ruins of homes, complete with wood stoves and no electric sockets or light fixtures.

Through the dense foliage, the ruin of a Big House — a monumental cedar crossbeam metres thick still standing atop two posts — acts as a reminder that the Indigenous governance system that endures today has been here many thousands of years.

“In the Big House, we feel connectedness over time, down through the millennia,” Chief Joseph said. “I was extremely moved by Jody’s testimony because she based it on our values. She was drawing from a lived experience that is millennia old — very, very deep knowledge.

“I was so, so proud of her.”

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