Introducing and Understanding Law, Indigenous Law, and Legal Orders

Teacher Background

• All types of laws—including Indigenous law, common law, and civil law—have some important things in common:
  • Law helps people work together to solve problems, manage conflicts, make decisions, and live together as a community despite our differences.
  • The law includes rules that help people understand how they should act in a fair and safe society. 
  • Law includes the process of discussing, interpreting, and applying the rules as a community.
  • Law is something that people do together.
• Indigenous law comes from each Indigenous society’s different land, history, language, beliefs and way of life.
• Each Indigenous society has its own legal order. While some Indigenous societies may have laws that are alike, each legal order is distinct. This means Kwakwaka’wakw law in British Columbia is different from Inuvialuit law the Northwest Territories.
• Indigenous law is part of an Indigenous society’s legal order. People rely on their society’s legal order to help them live in a fair and organized way. Each society’s legal order helps people solve problems between people from the same society. It also helps them solve problems with people from other societies.
• Indigenous laws and legal orders have been around long before Canada existed. However, early settlers and the Canadian government have tried to ignore and erase Indigenous law. Indigenous societies were forced to deal with Canadian laws and systems that did not match their values, principles, legal processes, legal actors, and law. As a result, many Indigenous societies have not been able to fully practice their laws for a long time.
• Law must be socially constructed—laws must come from the people who live by them. Indigenous people did not help make Canadian law, so it cannot effectively help them solve problems and manage conflicts. There are many different Indigenous legal orders, and each one is unique. Canadian law cannot fully understand or work for all of them.  
• For Indigenous societies to care for their community in the best way, they need to be able to use their own law and legal orders. This means thinking about what their law means, asking questions, and using law to try and solve problems. This way, their law and legal order can grow and change to help their society today.

Activity: Part 1

1. Have students work in pairs or small groups to brainstorm a definition of “law.” You might want to use some of the following prompts to help them: 

What do you think “law” is? How would you explain what “law” means? Can you share any examples of laws you see in your life? 

Write the examples of laws that students come up with on the board. Work with students to look for similarities.

Laws familiar to students may include traffic laws (seatbelts, speed limits, parking), safety laws (bike helmets), age of majority laws (voting, driving), and criminal laws (theft, violence).    

2. Have students read page 6 of Truth Before Reconciliation: Indigenous Law and Legal Orders. 

3. As a class or in small groups, ask your students to consider the questions posed in the red box about laws in the schoolyard:

• Are there rules that everyone knows about? 
• Who decides what the rules are?  
• How do the new kids learn the rules?  
• How do you know when there is a problem?  
• Can you think of a time when there was a problem or someone broke the rules?  
• What did you do to deal with the problem?  

Some additional prompts to help your students may include:

• Are there any rules you would change? How would you do that?
• Who has the power to change rules?
• Should everyone have a say?

4. Explain to students that all of these elements that ensure that the schoolyard is fun and safe for everyone are part of law. Law is the rules that people follow, but also the process of figuring out and applying those rules, and the people involved.

 5. Using pages 8-9 of Truth Before Reconciliation: Indigenous Law and Legal Orders, have students explore the four characteristics of law. Ensure that students understand the definitions of each of these concepts.

6. Provide students with the handout “Seatbelt Laws in Canada.” This provides some context about changing safety laws in Canada. Have students read the background information and then identify the ways in which this law is collaborative, public, socially constructed, and adaptable and responsive.

7. Have students revisit the definition that they first wrote for “law” and update it based on what they have learned through their conversations, readings, and activities.  

Activity: Part 2

1. Now that students are familiar with the concept of law, they can begin learning about Indigenous law and legal orders. 

• Indigenous law comes from Indigenous peoples themselves and is based on their own culture, values, histories, principles, and ways of living. It helps societies organize themselves, solve problems, and live together as a community.
• Indigenous law is part of an Indigenous society’s legal order. 
• Each Indigenous society has its own law and legal order. 

Have students read page 12 of Truth Before Reconciliation: Indigenous Law and Legal Orders to understand the components of Indigenous legal orders: Indigenous law, legal processes, norms, principles, rules, and legal actors.

2. To help solidify students’ understanding of these definitions, you can use the sheet titled “Parts of Indigenous Legal Orders” and have students match the terms and their definitions. 

3. On page 19, there is an example of how the different parts of Indigenous legal orders work together to guide how people live, treat each other, and stay organized as a community. 

The example looks at Coast Salish fishing and foraging grounds. Have students identify all of the elements of the legal order within this example. 

4. Students will now follow the same process using the attached example, “Respecting Caribou in Łutsël K’é Dene First Nation.” Pass out the handout with the background information and have students determine the Łutsël K’é Dene First Nation’s values, principles, rules, legal processes, legal actors, and law for protecting the caribou.

As an extension activity for older students, they could also identify the ways in which the Yúnethé Xá Ɂetthën Hádı (caribou stewardship plan) is collaborative, public, socially constructed, adaptable, and responsive.