Elder Brother and the Law of the People

In the pre-reserve era, Aboriginal bands in the northern plains maintained fluid and inclusive membership through traditional kinship practices governed by the Law of the People as described in traditional Elder Brother stories. Elder Brother stories outlined social interaction, marriage, adoption, and kinship roles and responsibilities. In Elder Brother and the Law of the People,Robert Innes offers a detailed analysis of the role of Elder Brother stories in historical and contemporary kinship practices in Cowessess First Nation, located in southeastern Saskatchewan. He reveals how these tradition-inspired practices undermine legal and scholarly definitions of "Indian" and counter the perception that First Nations people have internalized such classifications. He presents Cowessess's successful negotiation of the 1996 Treaty Land Agreement and their high inclusion rate of new "Bill-C31s" as evidence that historical kinship values remain the central unifying factor for band membership. Elder Brother and the Law of the Peoplepresents an entirely new way of viewing Aboriginal cultural identity on the northern plains.