Local Journalism Initiative
Council of elders granted for sensitive and cultural approach to justice
‘Anishinaabe’ has many English translations, mainly in reference to creation: a people ‘lowered to earth’ from heaven or born of the spontaneous breathing of the Creator. But there is another definition suggested by indigenous scholars and holders of knowledge: the “Good Humans” or “The People Who Live in the Land of the Right Way”. Living in the ‘right way’, in the ‘good way’, is difficult enough when a person has all the support and knowledge he could ask for. Being committed to this life when you were at the mercy of colonialism, struggling to maintain knowledge, culture and identity, is something else entirely. That is why the community thanks its elders, pillars of culture and wisdom, such as Elder Waasaanese (Alex Jacobs). Waasaanese (Wah-Sah-Neh-Seh) was born in Lake Penage, in the First Nation Community of Whitefish Lake. He is a teacher, a trained social worker and one of the members of the Elderly Council, member of the Indigenous Justice Division (IJD) of the Public Ministry. The Elder’s Council are recent winners of the Law Foundation of Ontario’s Guthrie Award, which recognizes exceptional people and groups working to increase access to justice. The council holds positions for up to 13 Indigenous Elders who are Guardians of Knowledge from diverse First Nations backgrounds in Ontario. Community elders work with the justice system and use their expertise to support the restoration of indigenous legal systems, justice for indigenous peoples and work to guide the Ministry of Attorney General and his team to repair relations between indigenous peoples and the Canadian justice system. “We are working to improve some of the situations we face,” said Waasaanese. “We are trying to work in collaboration with the police forces, with the health department, with the education department.” They also work with tribal police units. “Many of them have become tribal policemen and yet they know very little about their own culture, the culture they are trying to police,” said Waasaanese. Born in 1938, Waasaanese laughs when he says that his role as an elder arose largely through his family connections. “My most significant thing here is that I happen to be related to most of the community members here in this community,” he said. What an elder means, or someone ready to be an elder, is the kind of work they do, Waasaanese said, and whether they tried to live ‘in a good way’. “With the knowledge, study and understanding of how to do specific ceremonies or cultural practices, and someone the community looks for for these practices,” he said. But being an elder is not something reserved for the “elderly”. “It could be someone in their early thirties,” said Waasaanese. “Or even fifty years old, someone who has gained all this knowledge by working with other elderly people – from his community and other communities – and practices this way of life.” Someone who lives his life “in a good way”. When a member of the community is invited to be an elder, he begins to teach. “You can pass on teachings to young people who come to get your advice, or have teaching circles and meet with adults too, to pass on that knowledge.” Elders also often teach life skills. “What we refer to as the seven stages of life,” said Waasaanese. The teachings range from childhood, young teenagers to adulthood, and even include teachings on marriage and children and other teachings for older adults. “How to teach children to live well throughout their lives,” said Waasaanese. He said that it is the teachings he can share, “along with what is being taught by other elders in his community and how they perceive the things of other ceremonies done in other communities”, which are essential for the continuation of the culture. “These young people are our future young elders,” said Waasaanese. Waasaanese also said that these young elders are the reason why he continues his work on behalf of the Council of Elders. “I am very, very proud to be a member of the Council of Elders with the indigenous justice division,” he said, “We have so much work that we are doing, we need to constantly focus on our justice system. It is a system that has gone terribly wrong. ”Waasaanese said it is important that the media obtain information“ in a good way ”about the work that the Council of Elders and similar bodies do. “In terms of restorative justice, we have two communities now, one in Brantford and the other in Thunder Bay, which have a system of judicial courts run in the style of the Indian courts,” he said. “We have elders who participate in the courts and help make decisions or distribute the types of decisions for sentencing, depending on the severity of the offenses.” And this system is working. “In one particular case, the young man at the center was sentenced to a one-year sentence and was expelled from the community.” Not imprisoned, but exiled, you might say. “He was placed in another location north of the community and had to stay there for that period of time,” said Waasaanese. “Nobody could visit him or anything, just the people who were there to make sure he was healthy, well cared for and ‘well’ cared for. When the year was over, he left and was a different man. A different person. And he never took offense again. ”Of the similar cases that Waasaanese observed following this path, only one of the 14 people relapsed. Waasaanese says he also sees his role as an elder simply as “a person with an open heart” and wisdom to bestow. “I have to open my heart to many things, trying to let them know that I am no different than they were when they were young,” he said. “I was where you are once, I tell them, and you will be where I am. At a time in the future, you will be in the same position as I am now and you will have to pass on what you know and what you have passed on to your children ”. He hopes to help his community to continue to have open hearts. “My only desire is to have time to teach what I want to teach.” Jenny Lamothe is a reporter for the Local Journalism Initiative at Sudbury.com. It covers the black, immigrant and francophone communities. Jenny Lamothe, Reporter for the Local Journalism Initiative, Sudbury.com