Eagle Down Is Our Law: Witsuwit'en Law, Feasts, and Land Claims

by Antonia Mills

Eagle Down Is Our Law is about the struggle of the Witsuwit'en peoples to establish the meaning of aboriginal rights. With the neighbouring Gitksan, the Witsuwit'en launched a major land claims court case asking for the ownership and jurisdiction of 55,000 square kilometers of land in north-central British Columbia that they claim to have held since before the arrival of the Europeans. In conjunction with that court case, the Gitksan and Witsuwit'en asked a number of expert witnesses, among them Antonia Mills, an anthropologist, to prepare reports on their behalf. Her report, which instructs the judge in the case on the laws, feasts, and institutions of the Witsuwit'en, is presented here. Her testimony is based on two years of participant observation with the Witsuwit'en peoples and on her reading of the anthropological, historic, archaeological, and linguistic data about the Witsuwit'en.

238 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

Reviews

[Steve Wehling · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well written account of both culture and the legal wrangling involved in a First Nation land claim petition in the Canadian court system. The title refers to a sacred dance that is performed to signify peaceful relations between clans. A headdress is filled with eagle down, and as the dance is performed, the down floats out of the headdress and settles gently on the ground like snow. Perhaps this could be suggested to the Bush Administration as an alternative to surging more troops into Iraq, or to John Mccain as an alternative to installing troops for another 100 years.

[Annette · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was assigned for my tribal law class. This is not really a book, but the publication of an anthropologist's written expert testimony in a law suit between a tribe and the Canadian government. Her observations are of the Witsuwit'en tribe's social and legal mechanizations. The chapter on law is fascinating.

I give such a low rating because I'm rating this as a literary piece. If I were to rate the work as expert testimony, I would give it 4 stars as it is extremely detailed (almost to a fault of irrelevance in portions) and complete.