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Candace Maracle: In this video,
I'm going to be talking about

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the various forms of leadership
in Indigenous communities and

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the various forms of governance
structures. I'm going to focus

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specifically on my community.
One of the main reasons that I'm

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going to be doing this is to
avoid the pan Indian approach

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that we often see when
mainstream media covers

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Indigenous issues. Now, first,
I'm going to give you a little

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bit of a backgrounder as to who
I am and where I come from. My

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mom was Odawa, and Potawatomi.
And my father is Mohawk. Mohawk

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people are matrilineal, which
means that the children often

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take their mother's nation or
clan, because of the way our

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traditions have been disrupted
since colonization, a lot of

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those traditional forms of
passing along the clanship or

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the nation to the descendants
has shifted and changed. So as

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it happens in Western culture,
my sister and I both took on our

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father's band, and that's his
nation. And his last name,

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Maracle. Mohawk is the name of
my nation, and my nation is part

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of a greater confederacy of six
different nations. In our

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language, we refer to the Mohawk
people as Ganienkeh, which also

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means the People of the Flint,
and that refers to the

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surroundings of the place of our
origin, where we originally came

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from in upstate New York. One of
the first suggestions that I

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would make when you're reporting
in Indigenous communities is to

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always ask your subject, how he
or she identifies, what nation?

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So they consider themselves
Aboriginal? Do they consider

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themselves Indigenous or Native
American? The French also had a

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hand in naming our people and
that's where we get Iroquois

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from a we call ourselves
Haudenosaunee, which means

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people of the longhouse, which
is the place where our

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ceremonies take place. Okay, I
hope you're still with me. The

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Canadian government also has a
name for us. And that's Indian.

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One of the biggest misnomers
that's slowly been amended over

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history. But it's still in place
and a lot of old Canadian

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federal legislation as it
pertains to us. And right here

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on my certificate of Indian
status card. Now, the greatest

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aim of the Indian Act was to get
rid of the Indian and the tribal

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system, and assimilate the
Indian people in all respects

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with their inhabitants of the
Dominion as speedily as they are

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fit to change. Sir John
MacDonald, 1887. Until the 50s,

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the Indian Act made it illegal
for us to practice our

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ceremonies and it also denied
women the right to vote up until

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the 1960s. I know this is a lot
of information. And trust me,

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it's confusing for me too. But
this brings me to my point,

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which is who's really in charge
on Indian reserves?

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Rohahiyo Brant: The common
belief is that there's the

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there's the chase with great big
long headdresses. Okay, big

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plane style headdresses. And
they're the the chiefs. And then

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there's the council. And it's
elected through band council

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Candace Maracle: Many First
Nations people don't actually

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elections.

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vote for our elected Chief and
Council, that's the band, the

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chief, the elected councillors.
They were an imposed governance

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structure by the federal
government, which is why a lot

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of people, a lot of my people at
least don't vote. One of the

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reasons that people do vote is
because we fought long and hard

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for the right to vote.

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Rohahiyo Brant: When we look at
it in terms of the language, if

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we ever have a traditional
Council, and we have a band

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Council, and they're represented
differently in the language we

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have in our traditional system.
We have very different

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vocabulary for much older words.
When we're looking at the

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contemporary Council, of course,
we say Roya and a word for a

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chief, Band Council chief would
be Royá:ne(r), or Yakoyá:ne(r)

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for a female,Royá:ne(r) for a
male. And basically it means

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almost like a boss or a manager.
So it's seen, and the way I see

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it's kind of more as a company
operating, instead of a

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traditional Council of
conducting business. And within

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each nation, we have chief stood
up for a very long story. But we

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have representatives from each
nation, and within each nation,

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we have a clan system. The
traditional chief himself will

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be a Nahó:ten. is from a word
that most people might know as

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yakoyá:ne(r). And we kind of
translate it nowadays is it's

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good. More so it means it has a
path in it. When it's back in

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the day, when you're going
trying to find another place or

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you're trying to go hunting
you're trying to get anywhere.

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You're in a very dense woods.
Well, what's the most useful

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thing you could find well
probably a path. So for

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something to have a path in it
something, no path not only

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representing a way to get
somewhere, but a sense of

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usefulness to it.

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Candace Maracle: Sid Hill is the
traditional head chief of the

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Six Nations, the Onondaga,
Oneida, Cayuga, Mohawk, Seneca

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and the Tuscarora he presides
over the Grand Council. His

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title is The Tadodaho is a
lifetime appointment.

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Tadodaho Sid Hill: This is our
passport here that we use to

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travel in law.