We Are All Treaty People
Created by the Artists of Making Treaty 7
Co-Produced by Quest Theatre & Making Treaty 7 Cultural Society
Pronunciations provided by Troy Emery Twigg and Lindy Kinoshameg (see appendix).
Study Guide
Introduction
This guide is designed for parents, teachers and caregivers to use with their children or students in connection with their visit to the theatre. This study guide was created by Quest Theatre and adapted by Marjie Chud, YPT Education & Participation Curriculum Associate, to suit an Ontario context. We hope you will find this guide to be a useful resource. Should you have any questions or feedback or have inquiries about the use of this guide (which is copyright protected), please feel free to contact Karen Gilodo, Associate Artist Director, Education at kgilodo@youngpeoplestheatre.org.
Making Treaty 7 – the Play
The original interdisciplinary production, Making Treaty 7, was presented in a tent in Heritage Park in Calgary, Alberta with a cast of 30 actors, writers, poets, dancers and performance artists. The project was launched by the late, great Michael Green as a Calgary 2012 legacy project. The goal of the original production was to create a truthful, respectful theatrical performance to help audiences understand the true spirit, intent and historical significance of the treaty. It was a co-creation of First Nation and non-First Nation artists informed by the stories of the respected Elders of the Treaty 7 Nations.
A treaty is a promise. Many of the promises made to the First Nations people were broken. The play explores many of those issues, including the failure of the government to make annual payments and children taken from their families and placed into abusive residential schools.
We Are All Treaty People – the Play
Quest Theatre and Making Treaty 7 Cultural Society’s play, We Are All Treaty People, is hosted by a Trickster character who encounters a girl of Aboriginal descent and a girl of colonial decent. They wonder if they can be friends, even though they don’t know or understand their shared history of this land. The Trickster tells them the story of southern Alberta and Treaty 7, including the context in which it was signed, the promises that were made and broken and the issues that still challenge us today. Although sore points are touched upon, such as negative racial references, the whiskey trade and residential schools, the story is told with song, prayer, creative movement and puppets with the intent to heal and create understanding. The girls in the story defy the Trickster and become friends.
What is Treaty 7?
Treaty 7 was a peace treaty made between two nations – the tribes of the Blackfoot Confederacy, (Siksika, Piikani, Peigan) and Kainaiwa (Blood), Tsuu T’ina (Sarcee), the Stoney (Bearspaw, Chiniki and Wesley/Goodstoney) and the Queen (Victoria) by her Commissioners, the honourable David Laird, Lieutenant Governor and Indian Superintendent of the North West Territories, and James Macleod, Commissioner of the North West Mounted Police.
As part of the terms of bringing British Columbia into Confederation in 1871, the Canadian government had promised to build a transcontinental railway within ten years. From 1871 to 1876, the government of Canada had concluded treaties with all tribes in the North West Territories with the exception of those inhabiting approximately 50,000 square miles of land south of the Red Deer River and next to the Rocky Mountains. These lands were occupied by the Treaty 7 First Nations.
Treaty 7 was signed on September 22, 1877 at the Blackfoot Crossing of the Bow River, at the present-day Siksika Nation reserve, approximately 100 km east of Calgary. The government promised Native people reserve lands based on one square mile for every five persons, a $2,000 annual payment with some minimal provisions for farming equipment, ammunition for hunting, clothing supplies as well as providing for education for children.
Message from Allen MacInnis, Artistic Director of Young People’s Theatre
I first saw We Are All Treaty People at the Impact Festival in Kitchener in 2017. I knew the show grew out of Making Treaty 7, a cultural movement in Southern Alberta that seeks to increase knowledge about an agreement with Indigenous Peoples that few non-Indigenous people living in that territory even know about. I thought perhaps that the show might be so specific to that part of Alberta and Saskatchewan that young people in the Toronto area would not find it relevant. I needn’t have worried.
Its relevance is expressed in the show title itself – we truly are all treaty people, all across this country. The agreements made – between the Crown (Federal government) and the First Peoples of many different territories across Canada – affect every citizen of Canada. These treaties aren’t simply settlements of past disputes. They are contracts about how to share, protect or preserve the territory. And if the people who lived there first allowed those who came after to live there too, that fact has to be respected in decision making about the territory. Treaties are not just a thing of the past but of the present and future.
It is also important to realise that not all treaties have the same provisions and that many areas of Canada are not covered by treaties at all.
Historically, the terms in many of Canada’s treaties haven’t been respected by the people who came to this continent. It is a sad, terrible fact that we have to face. But there is hope. We can do better. That’s why I wanted to present this play – because it offers truth, but also hope.
Curriculum Connections
- First Nations
- Metis and Inuit Studies (Scope and Sequence of Expectations Resource)
- Social Studies
- History and Geography
- Canadian and World Studies
Seven Ancestral Teachings
- Honesty
- Love
- Wisdom
- Respect
Themes
- The Lasting Repercussions of Colonialism
- Rebuilding Trust
- Believing in Change
- Finding Truth and Reconciliation
Curriculum Connections
By participating in these activities, students will:
- Demonstrate a sense of identity and a positive self-image.
- Develop an appreciation of the multiple perspectives within groups and of the ways in which they themselves can contribute to groups and to the groups’ well-being.
- Apply the creative process using drama writing and visual arts to communicate feelings, ideas, and stories.
- Understand and apply the elements of drama, including character, relationships, setting, tension, focus and emphasis.
- Recognize a variety of text forms and demonstrate understanding of how they communicate meaning.
- Work individually and collaboratively to generate, gather and organize ideas and information to write for an intended purpose and audience.
- Describe some of the ways in which people’s roles, relationships, and responsibilities relate to who they are and what their situation is, and how and why changes in circumstances might affect people’s roles, relationships and responsibilities as well as their sense of self.
- Identify some of the significant people, places, and things in their life, including their life in the community.
- Analyse some key short- and long-term consequences of interactions among and between First Nations and European settlers.
- Use the social studies inquiry process to investigate aspects of interactions among and between First Nations and Europeans in Canada.
- Describe significant features of and interactions between communities.
- Gather and organize information on interactions among and between First Nations and Europeans during this period, using a variety of primary and secondary sources that present various perspectives.
- Evaluate evidence and draw conclusions about aspects of the interactions between and among First Nations and Europeans.
Glossary
Iniistsii: so that you know
Oki: “hello” in Blackfoot language
Umba wastitch: “hello” in Nakoda language
Danit’ada: “hello” in Dene language
Signatories of Treaty 7: Blackfoot Confederacy, Kanai, Siksika, Piikani, Nakoda, Tsuu T’ina and the representatives of Queen Victoria in Canada
Iinii: “buffalo” in Blackfoot language
Tatonka: “buffalo” in Nakoda language
Hanate: “buffalo” in Tsuu T’ina language
Aakii: “woman” in Blackfoot language
Woosa: in the future
Smallpox: a highly infectious, contagious disease that turned into an epidemic killing an estimated 80% of the Treaty 7 Frist Nations people
Treaty: a treaty is a promise, an agreement, a physical document, a deal, a spiritual understanding that speaks of two different paths that exist side by side but do not interfere or infringe on each other’s journey
Indian Act: the principal statute through which the Federal Government administers Indian status, local First Nations Governments and the management of reserve lands and communal finances
Metis: people of mixed European or Canadian and Aboriginal ancestry
Missionary: a person sent on a religious mission, especially one sent to promote Christianity in a foreign country
Hudson’s Bay Company: a merchant company founded in London England that branched into Canada, primarily as a fur trading business
The North West Mounted Police (1873-1920): known as Redcoats, the forerunners of our current Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald considered areas in Alberta and Saskatchewan as untamed and lawless. With the goal of settling the West to extend Canadian sovereignty from coast to coast, it was important to establish good relations between an increasing number of settlers and the First Nations communities. For these, and other reasons, the NWMP was established in 1873-4.
Colonel James MacLeod (1836-1894): joined the NWMP in 1874. He founded Fort MacLeod, suppressed the whiskey traffic, and, it has been said, that he won the confidence of the Blackfoot chiefs and negotiated Treaty 7.
Queen Victoria (1819-1901): Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 1837 until her death in 1901. She sent her representatives from England to make treaties with the First Nations Chiefs. Her representatives may also be referred to as ‘The Crown.’
Crowfoot: a Siksika chief and diplomat who negotiated with the Federal Government on behalf of the Blackfoot Confederacy. He was a key link between Aboriginal people on the western plains and colonial forces by way of the North West Mounted Police. He was key negotiator and supporter of Treaty 7.
Sir John A. Macdonald: the first Prime Minister of Canada (1867-73, 1878-91), Scottish lawyer, businessman and politician. Taking orders from the Queen, he sent police to negotiate a treaty with the Aboriginal people making promises he had no intentions of keeping.
Bull-head: a Sarcee warrior who came to Blackfoot Crossing to negotiate Treaty 7 in 1877. He reluctantly marked his “x” on the treaty, as he could see no alternative but to sign it.
Chief Chiniki: one of the Chiefs of the Nakoda Nation involved in the signing of Treaty 7
Chief Redcrow: warrior, peacemaker, indigenous leader, he was chief of the Kainai (Blood) and one of the signatories to Treaty 7
Pemmican: an elderly holy man who was asked by Chief Crowfoot for advice about Treaty 7. It is said that his advice was, “I want to hold you back because I am at the edge of a bank. I want to hold you back because your life will be different from what it has been. Buffalo makes your body strong. What you will eat from this money will have your people buried all over these hills. You will be tied down, you will not wander the plains, the whites will take your hands and fill it. You won’t have your own free will. That is why I say don’t sign. But my life is old, so, sign if you want to. Go ahead and make the treaty.”
Fort Whoop Up: the nickname given to a whiskey trading post near what is now Lethbridge, Alberta. It was established in 1869 by Americans as a base for fur trade with Aboriginal people. It is now a National Historic Site.
Lieutenant-Governor David Laird (1833-1914): the first Lieutenant-Governor of the North West Territories. Treaty 7 was signed September 23, 1877, by Chief Crowfoot and other Chiefs, Commissioner Laird and Lieutenant Colonel MacLeod, Commissioner of the North West Mounted Police.
Poniika: antelope
Okkii: rivers
Pooniikaamitaaks: horses
A’appokskiinaaks: cows
Naapaa.nn: bannock
Moh-kins-tsis: elbow, like the river – the original Blackfoot name for Calgary
Assimilate: the process whereby a group gradually adapts to the customs and attitudes of the prevailing culture and customs, just like the Colonial creators of Treaty 7 intended for the First Nations peoples
Pre-Show Discussion Questions
Ask students:
- What is a treaty?
- What do you know about the first people to live on these lands and waterways – their heritages, languages, cultural practices and spiritual beliefs?
- How do you decide who will be your friend?
- What does family mean to you?
- Have you ever broken a promise? Has a promise that was made to you ever been broken? If so, what did it feel like?
Pre-Show Unit
Activity #1 – Friendship
Objective:
By engaging in this activity, students will explore the meaning of friendship and consider what it means to be a friend.
Materials:
Poem, writing paper, pens/pencils
Directions:
- Explain to students that in the play, Alanna and Maya meet for the first time on the first day of school. Their backgrounds are completely different. Alanna is Blackfoot, Dene and a descendent of the Lakota. Maya’s heritage is English, French and a bit of Irish. They wonder if they could ever become friends.
- Read the following poem with your students:
A Friend is a Treasure
A friend is someone we turn to,
when our spirits need a lift.
A friend is someone we treasure,
for our friendship is a gift.
A friend is someone who fills our lives,
with beauty, joy and grace.
And makes the world we live in,
a better and happier place. - Discuss what qualities students look for in a friend.
- Ask students to pair up and share stories of how they met someone who is now a good friend. Select a couple of students to share their story with the class.
- Instruct students to write their own poems about friendship.
Activity #2 – Treaty 7
Objective:
By engaging in this research exercise, students will learn about the history that informs the play.
Materials:
Computers, textbooks (library or pre-selected), paper and pens/pencils
Directions:
- Ask students to share what they know about Treaties.
- Introduce the definition of Treaty in the glossary. Discuss.
- Divide students into small groups to research the history of Treaty 7. The following are some sample topics:
- Nations of Treaty 7
- Signing of Treaty 7
- Role of the North West Mounted Police
- Role of Queen Victoria
- Role of buffalo and the consequences to buffalo after Treaty 7
- Role of Elders in Indigenous culture
- Role of the Trickster in Indigenous culture and stories
Extension:
- Presentations – Students share their learning to the group using an art convention of choice (i.e. scenes, tableaux, song, and visual art).
- *Share the following with students: Young People’s Theatre is situated on the ancestral lands of the Dish with One Spoon Territory, more recently Treaty 13. This includes the Mississaugas of the Credit who are part of the Anishinaabe (Anish-Naw-bay) Nation, the Wyandot (Wen-Dat) Nation and the Haudenosaunee (HooD-eN-eSh-Own-E) Confederacy of Six Nations, and any other nation recorded or unrecorded.
- Ask students to research Treaty 13. Some questions to consider:
- Who were the Nations of Treaty 13?
- What was the proposed purpose of the Treaty?
- What were the consequences to Indigenous people?
- What have Canadians since learned about this Treaty?
- How is Treaty 13 different and the same as Treaty 7?
The following websites can be used for further information about the Toronto Purchase Treaty No. 13 (1805):
http://mncfn.ca/torontopurchase/
https://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1370372152585/1370372222012#ucls13
http://tihp.torontoisland.org/toronto-purchase-treaty-13-1805-2010/
Activity #3 – What Are You Saying?
Objective:
Through participating in this exercise, students will use “gibberish” to explore the challenges of communicating without a common language.
Materials:
Sample sentences
Directions:
- Read the following to students: One hundred and forty years ago at Blackfoot Crossing just east of Calgary, thousands of people came together: Blackfoot Confederacy, Kainai, Siksika, Piikani, Nakoda and Tsuu T’ina as well as Metis Traders, Missionaries, representatives of Queen Victoria, people from America and the Hudson’s Bay Company. The native people believed that they were there to sign a peace treaty, and that the North West Mounted Police would take care of them – no more killing the buffalo; no more whiskey trade; no more starving; no more disease. They were there to make a treaty – a promise – inistissii. The Chiefs of all the First Nations listened to the offers being made by the representatives of the Crown, but English was not their language and, though there were translators, they did not speak all the Native languages. The Queen’s men listened to the Chiefs, but they didn’t understand their native languages. What happened as a result was clearly a failure to truly communicate.
- Discuss the meaning of “failure to communicate”.
- Ask students to think about what it might be like to try to communicate in a new place in which they do not speak the language or understand the culture.
- Present a sample sentence using gibberish (sounds and utterances in place of recognizable speech) and gestures. Ask students how they can tell what you are saying.
- Pair students and hand out sample lines of dialogue instructing students to communicate with gibberish and gesture only. If students have difficulty putting together nonsensical sound, suggest they substitute random use of numbers or letters of the alphabet instead.
Sample Sentences
I have a toothache.
I like your new haircut.
Where is the exit?
That is a beautiful hat.
I’ve missed my bus.
Please don’t shout.
Are you my mother?
Who’s in charge here?
May I take your order?
My feet hurt.
Stop, in the name of the law.
I’m thirsty.
It looks like rain.
We’re going to be late.
This food is spoiled.
Get off my lawn.
I have a splitting headache.
Do you have a pen?
Leave me alone!
I’m cold.
I’m hungry.
Extension:
Create gibberish scenes (open-ended or theme-related).
Debriefing Questions:
Ask students:
- What are the challenges of communicating without a common language?
- What are the ways we can communicate without language?
- How does gesture help to get a message across?
Activity #4 – The Buffalo
Objective:
Students will collaborate in small groups to present their own interpretation of a song from the play.
Materials:
Song lyrics
Directions:
- Share the following information with students: The buffalo was one of the most sacred and powerful beings in the Treaty 7 territory. It provided food, clothing, and shelter – everything the people needed. This was the reason it was so devastating when the buffalo population was wiped out by the white settlers and representatives of The Crown.
- Read the following excerpt from the play, We Are All Treaty People:
The Buffalo Song
Do you feel low?
You need buffalo!
If your stomach cries
Eat the meat when it dries.
Need a place to rent?
The hide makes a tent!
Makes toys and tools, boil the bones for glue!
Cups from hooves, leather for shoes
Use every part,
Skin, hair, bones, and heart.
Buffalo are everywhere,
But don’t waste them don’t you dare! - In small groups, ask students to create their own presentation of the lyrics. Some possibilities might include:
movement, drums, musical accompaniment, a tune or sound effects, rap or hip hop, choral speech, story theatre with narration and mime or even some sort of artistic depiction to accompany the words. - Prepare, rehearse and present.
Post-Show Discussion Questions
- Why do you think the title We Are All Treaty People was chosen for the play?
- As you watched the play, did you think Alanna and Maya would ever become friends?
- What happened to bring them together?
- Why do you think the character of the Trickster was in the play?
- What do you remember was in the knowledge bundle?
- If you could create your own knowledge bundle, what would you put into it?
- What motivated the First Nations of Treaty 7 to sign the treaty? How did they think they would benefit?
- Why did they believe the promises made by the representatives of Queen Victoria? What did those representatives really want?
- Why is it important for Maya to learn about Alanna’s culture and history?
Post-Show Unit
Activity #1 – Knowledge Bundle
Objective:
Through this exercise, students will reflect on the play by creating art to represent their learning.
Materials:
A variety of visual art supplies
Directions:
- Ask students to recall why Trickster’s knowledge was so heavy and then became lighter by the end of the story.
- Challenge students to come up with a list of what Trickster pulled from the bundle to describe the peaceful way of life in the Treaty 7 First Nations before the newcomers and representatives of the Crown arrived. If students need a reminder, some of what was created at the beginning of the play was: the land, trees, grass, water, bears, antelope, owls, wolves, caves, nests, burrows, dens, buffalo, tipis, long houses, huts and families.
- Instruct students to create an artistic representation of their own knowledge bundles. What would they put in it and why?
Extension:
Create a class wall mural with teams of students each responsible for one section.
Activity #2 – Storytelling
Objective:
In this activity, students will work together to share stories.
Materials:
A variety of legends and stories from the Nations of Treaty 7 or access for research.
Directions:
- Share the following with students: In the play, Trickster tells the story of Napi and the White Dust. She had heard this story at the trickster conference from a friend. First Nations, Inuit and Metis cultures have passed on knowledge from generation to generation through oral traditions, including storytelling. Stories bring history to life, as Trickster demonstrated by pulling many things out of the knowledge bundle. Also, through stories, people learn about cultural beliefs, values, customs, rituals, practices, relationships, the land and ways of life.
- Ask students to work in small groups to find a legend or story belonging to one of the Nations of Treaty 7: Blackfoot Confederacy, Kainai, Siksika, Piikani, Nakoda or Tsuu T’ina. Some stories may be sacred or historical, focus on social, political and cultural ways, or even be entertaining and funny. You may wish to provide several stories for groups to choose from.
- Once each group has chosen their material, have them decide on and rehearse how they will present it to the rest of the class. It is important that each student participate in the telling of the story so the work is collaborative and fair.
- As they rehearse, encourage students to work on vocal, facial and physical expression, possibly adding music or sound. They may also create or gather visual aids as needed.
- Share the stories.
Extension:
- Students can take turns being a videographer to record the stories and then they can be shared with other classes.
- Students can share stories from their own cultures.
Debrief Questions:
Ask students:
- What are various ways that stories are told?
- What made the stories interesting?
- Were there any common elements in the stories?
Activity #3 – Treaty 7 Revisited
Objective:
Using what they have learned from the play, students will have the opportunity to reimagine the past.
Directions:
- On the basis of what the students found out in the play, discuss the following questions:
- Why did the First Nations people sign the treaty?
- What did they think it meant for them?
- What promises were made by the representatives of the Crown?
- What promises were broken?
- What effect did this have on their lives?
- Ask students to imagine they could go back to the time when Treaty 7 was written and enacted.
- Knowing what they know now, brainstorm with students about what each side, the First Nations and the Colonials, would want and expect if they could create a new treaty.
- For what would they negotiate?
- How might they negotiate? What would each side promise?
- What would their rights and responsibilities be?
- Would it truly be a peace treaty this time?