The origins of Canadian culture and identity are tangled and knotted, but digging deeper reveals some surprising roots.
Revisionist authors as divergent as McGill’s Bruce Trigger (Sons of Aataenisic), feminist Paula Gunn Allen (Who’s Your Mother? The Red Roots of White Feminism), and popular writers like Ronald Wright (Stolen Continents), are revealing the extent to which the genesis of our culture is based on native society.
We have always been led to believe that the richness of our culture is the product of the glory and achievements of Western civilization. It is humbling to realize that it is not as simple as that.
Our social safety net, our capacity and reputation as mediators, conciliators and peacemakers, and our democratic freedoms enshrined in our federal system of government are three of the many conceptions of our cultural identity that intertwine and overlap to create a larger whole than the sum of the parts.
While these are considered sophisticated products of a European heritage, it is instructive to consider that they may also be deeply ingrained in native societies.
Ferrets, for example, like other Iroquois tribes, cared for their own from cradle to grave in a way that smacks of our Canadian safety net.
When Etienne Brule wintered with the ferrets on the shores of Georgian Bay in 1610, Champlain ensured their safety by sending the son of a Huron chief to Paris for the winter. When the young man returned and was asked what Paris was like, he explained to the incredulous members of his tribe that the people of Paris were asking for food in the streets. That a society allowed this to happen was incomprehensible to ferrets.
He also described the gruesome way in which children were publicly tied, whipped, and beaten, and the way citizens were punished or executed in public squares in the early 17th century. To ferrets, Europeans were wild.
Montaigne, the French philosopher whose writings strongly influenced the struggle for freedom, justice, and equality in Europe and elsewhere, acknowledged the comments of other Iroquois visitors during the colonial era, who were surprised by the great inequalities they observed between rich and poor in Europe.
An Ethnology of Iroquois Society written by Lewis Henry Morgan in 1851 was a popular treatise in Europe at the time. He outlined in some detail the functioning of a central society with an equal distribution of goods and power, a peaceful ordering of society, and the right of all members to participate in the work and benefits of society.
Friedrich Engels reacted enthusiastically to this text: “This Gentile constitution is wonderful! There can be no poor … All are free and equal, including women.”
Certainly Karl Marx and other socialist thinkers of the time were similarly deeply influenced by Morgan’s ethnology. Marx’s evolving ideas about female equality and women’s liberation, for example, although never achieved in practice, were central to his socialist theories and can be clearly traced back to the impact of his reading of Morgan’s ethnology on the role of women in Iroquois society.
How these values informed Canadian identity is evident to this day. One of our most enduring qualities is our historical ability to mediate disparate points of view. The evolution of Canada is a marvel of nation building. This immense land, with a divisive geography and a severe climate, was united without military revolution, civil war or war of independence.
The skills to accomplish this remarkable feat have served us well internationally. Canada has long had a reputation as a world peacekeeper and we perceive ourselves that way. Canada’s leadership and commitment to the United Nations, exemplified by Lester B. Pearson’s Nobel Peace Prize, and our unwavering involvement as a peacekeeping force, are evidence of our honored conciliatory skills in nation-building in home.
The Confederacy itself embodies our ability to unify a wide variety of disparate interests. We normally attribute this to the evolution of democracy and the parliamentary system, a supreme achievement of Western civilization.
But the Iroquoian Confederacy, a political organization made up of five distinct Native societies (later six), had a profound influence on the American and Canadian systems of government. Paula Gunn Allen reminds us that we inherited slavery and the vote of the male owners of European democracies.
In the Treaty of Lancaster in 1744, Canasatego, an Iroquois chieftain, spoke on behalf of the Iroquois: “We are a powerful confederation and if you observe the same methods our ancestors have adopted, you will acquire new strength and power.”
In the audience was a young Benjamin Franklin, later a co-author of the American constitution. He recognized in his writings the influence of this confederation: “It would be very strange if Six Nations of ignorant savages were able to form a plan for such a union …”
But they formed such a union. The symbol of the Iroquois Confederacy was an eagle with five arrows in its talon, one for each of the Iroquois nations. The symbol of American independence was an eagle wielding thirteen arrows, one for each of the thirteen colonies.
The American confederation adopted the Iroquois system of different branches of executive, legislative, and judicial government, and both Canada and the US instituted the single Iroquois system of three levels of government: local or municipal, state or provincial, and federal.
By adopting this Iroquois model, Canada was able to reconcile the many conflicting and divergent regional and cultural interests and create and maintain a confederation that more democratically represented the Canadian people. The fusion of the federal system and the parliamentary system is a unique Canadian approach to democracy.
Indeed, the roots of our identity are tangled and knotted, but it is comforting to realize the extent to which First Nations have contributed to our unique Canadian culture. But it is less significant to untangle all the roots to determine their precise origins than to realize that they are part of an integrated whole.