The Land, Kinship, and Indigenous Ways of Life

Native Studies 10 | Unit 2 Handout 10

Learning Goal: I can compare Indigenous and European views of the land and describe how the land is connected to Indigenous identity, community, and way of life.

One of the deepest differences between Indigenous and European worldviews is how each understands the relationship between people and land. This difference sat at the centre of conflict between Indigenous peoples and Canadian governments from the first moment of contact, and it still shapes the community you live in today.

The Indigenous View of Land

In Indigenous worldviews, land is not property. It is a relative. The land, its animals, plants, rivers, and soil, is alive and deserving of respect. People do not own land. People belong to land. The relationship between a people and their territory is intimate, spiritual, and reciprocal. You care for the land. The land sustains you. You give thanks. You take only what you need.

This view appears in ceremonies, in seasonal practices, in the protocols for hunting and gathering, and in the oral histories of nations who have lived in specific territories for thousands of years.

The European View of Land

European settlers brought a different understanding of land. In European legal and economic traditions, land was property: something that could be bought, sold, fenced, and owned by individuals or governments. Settlers used this view to declare unceded Indigenous territory empty and to transfer ownership through legal documents that Indigenous peoples had never agreed to.

Terra Nullius European colonizers used the legal doctrine of terra nullius, meaning "empty land," to claim that North America was unoccupied and available for settlement. This erased thousands of years of Indigenous presence, use, and governance.

Circularity and the Land

The Indigenous concept of circularity applies directly to the relationship with land. People are part of a cycle that includes the animals they depend on, the plants that feed both people and animals, the water that sustains all life, and the seasons that govern when each part of that cycle is active. A disruption in any part of that cycle, whether overhunting, damming a river, or clearcutting a forest, harms the whole.

Treaty Promises and the Land, Then and Now

Treaty 4, signed in 1874, covers much of southern Saskatchewan, including the territory where Muscowpetung, Piapot, Peepeekisis, and Okanese sit today. Under treaty, First Nations were promised reserve land set aside for their exclusive use. For over a century, many Treaty 4 First Nations did not receive the full acreage they were owed. In 1992, the governments of Canada and Saskatchewan signed the Treaty Land Entitlement Framework Agreement with 25 First Nations, creating a process for entitled First Nations to purchase land on a willing seller, willing buyer basis and add it to reserve status. Since 1992, dozens of Saskatchewan First Nations have used this process to add close to 900,000 acres to reserve land. The treaty relationship to land is not settled history. It is still being worked out, in Saskatchewan, in real communities, more than 150 years after Treaty 4 was signed.

Not every First Nation shares this same treaty history. Standing Buffalo Dakota Nation is not a signatory to Treaty 4. Dakota communities arrived in Saskatchewan through a different history and were never treaty partners with the Crown in the way their Treaty 4 neighbours were, which shaped their relationship to land and government differently.

Land, Ceremony, and Belonging

Traditional ceremonies for marking life stages connected young people to their responsibilities within their community and on the land. Coming of age ceremonies, naming ceremonies, and vision quests marked a shift in a young person's understanding of themselves. They were no longer children. They had responsibilities to family, community, and the natural world.

Traditional games and recreation carried this same connection. Lacrosse was played as ceremony and as diplomatic practice among nations. Running, archery, and endurance games built the physical skills the land and the hunt demanded, while teaching cooperation and respect.

Vocabulary

Terra nullius: the legal doctrine meaning "empty land," used by European colonizers to claim Indigenous territory was unoccupied and available for settlement.
Reciprocity: a relationship of mutual give and take, in Indigenous worldviews describing how people care for the land and the land sustains people in return.
Unceded: land that Indigenous peoples never surrendered or signed away through treaty or agreement.
Treaty Land Entitlement (TLE): the process, formalized in Saskatchewan in 1992, through which First Nations that did not receive their full treaty-promised reserve acreage can purchase land and add it to reserve status.
Stewardship: the responsibility to care for and protect land and resources for the benefit of future generations, rather than to extract or exhaust them.

Key Ideas

Indigenous and European worldviews start from opposite assumptions about land. One treats land as a relative to be cared for in relationship. The other treats land as property to be owned, divided, and used. That difference was not abstract. It justified the doctrine of terra nullius, shaped how treaties were negotiated and broken, and still shows up today in ongoing processes like Treaty Land Entitlement. Land in Indigenous worldviews is never separate from identity, ceremony, or community responsibility, and for many Saskatchewan First Nations, the work of restoring the land promised under treaty continues in the present, not the past.