Overview
Treaty Day plays an important role in the treaty relationship between the Mi’kmaq and the Crown. It is a time to reflect on what it means to take care of a relationship in both good times and bad.
This LE allows educators and learners to focus on important relationships in their lives through reflecting on how people celebrate, share and create ceremony to renew and strengthen their ties to one another. With these relationships in mind, educators and learners will watch or listen to one or more of the annual Kji-Keptin’s Treaty Day speeches, and consider how the Kji-Keptin’s speech seeks to strengthen the treaty relationship.
The Mi’kmaw expression etlita’suwaltultimk describes how Mi’kmaq approach any relationship. The intent of treaty relationships—whether they are with animals or plants, with individual people or among nations—is to be sure that life thrives within them. At the heart of any treaty relationship is a trust and a promise that beings can rely on each other, secure in the knowledge that everyone is doing their best to keep everything well and good. Etlita’suwaltultimk are the moments when people come together with the confidence that others will be there for them and that they can rely on each other.
Encouraging learners to think about moments when they knew they could trust someone is a good starting place. How did they know they could trust the other being? In turn, they can think about how the other being knew they could trust them. Experiencing trust is not luck. Etlita’suwaltultimk requires that relationships have time and care invested in them. It requires that people take time to share, to celebrate, and to enter into ceremony to affirm their relationships. Sharing takes listening and a willingness to work things out when misunderstandings or harm occur. Celebration (for example, birthday parties) or ceremonies (for example, weddings) help people to honour their promises and their commitments to one another. They are sources of both memory and guidance.
Learners will...
- Understand that Treaty Renewal is strengthened by Treaty Day, and other activities honouring the agreements in the Peace and Friendship Treaties.
- Understand an important component of Treaty Day as well as its significance.
- Connect present-day Treaty Day events with the 1752-53 Treaty.
- See themselves as treaty people, and understand that they are welcome and encouraged to participate in Treaty Day activities.
- Think about how the treaty relationship is lived and taken care of through the lens of their own important relationships.
- Begin to understand that taking care of the treaty relationship through sharing, celebration and ceremony helps everyone thrive.
Focus
This Learning Experience is designed to be done in two parts. It is recommended to do parts one and two on different days to allow time for reflection. Part one of the LE asks educators and learners to think about their own relationships, which provides a foundation for approaching part two: watching and thinking about the Kji-Keptin’s Treaty Day speech.
The LE begins with a lesson about Treaty Day, its origins in the Treaty of 1752-53, and how it has been celebrated since the Sante’ Mawio’mi brought it back in 1986. The importance of the Kji-Keptin’s speech to Treaty Day proceedings will also be good to include. Resources to support this lesson can be found in the introductions to the Treaty Renewal and the Treaty Day sections, as well as in the “Additional Resources” box.
It is difficult to understand the importance of Treaty Day without seeing it as a part of etlita’suwaltultimk; it will be helpful to share this concept with learners at the start as well.
In part one, educators and learners are asked to think about the most important relationships in their lives. They could be with a family member, a close friend, or even relationships with non-humans like with a pet, or a garden. Using the worksheet provided, they will then express (either through written words or drawings) how everyone in that relationship practices etlita’suwaltultimk through sharing, celebration, and ceremony. Everyone is encouraged to share their worksheets, either in a class discussion, or in a smaller group.
In part two, educators and learners listen to the Kji-Keptin’s Treaty Day speech. This can be done live through video feed, or through one of the many videos of previous years’ speeches available online (see Additional Resources). For accessibility purposes, written transcripts of previous speeches have also been included in the supplementary materials, but to honour Mi’kmaw oral culture, it is recommended that hearing participants listen to the speech.
While listening to the speech, educators and learners are asked to keep in mind the relationships they thought about in part one, and how important it is to take care of them. This is how the Kji-Keptin approaches the speech.
After listening, educators and learners will then fill out a second version of the worksheet, this time considering how the Kji-Keptin’s speech shows many different ways of taking care of the relationship between the Mi’kmaq and the Crown. How is sharing, celebrating, and ceremony part of the speech? How do all of these parts make the treaty relationship stronger?
At the end of the activity, educators and learners will compare the two worksheets, and share their thoughts in either a class discussion, or in smaller groups. Discussion questions may include: What are some of the similarities between our everyday relationships and the treaty relationship? What are the differences? How does our understanding of the treaty relationship change when we connect it to the important relationships in our lives?
PE!
It is important that learners have a clear understanding of the following content:
- The Mi’kmaq as the indigenous people of Nova Scotia and the Atlantic region.
- Mi’kma’kik as the ancestral homeland of the Mi’kmaq.
- The British and Mi’kmaq created legal agreements in the 18th century that endure to the present day.
- Family-based Mi’kmawey and Sante’ Mawio’mi governance structure. (See Leadership introduction and related LEs in the Foundations level)
- Core Mi’kmaw values such as consensus and tpi’tnewey. (See LE F8)
Teacher Tip
A great way to participate in Treaty Day from any location is to listen to the speech live on October 1st. See Additional Resources for recommendations on where to stream.
The Kji-Keptin approaches the speech every year with the intent to strengthen the treaty relationship. Part of thinking about “sharing” in relationships is to consider not only sharing good things—like food, time, loving words—but sharing when there problems as well, so they can be approached together. It will be helpful for learners to think about how being honest when there are problems in any relationship helps reach shared solutions that bring everyone closer together.
LE Materials
The materials below support this LE’s activities and knowledge growth. They are designed to be printed on both 8.5″x” and 11″x17″ paper.
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