traditional governance systems
Chief Awasis of ThunderChild First Nation talks about traditional governance from before contact, Indian Act governance and how some nations are beginning to combine them into a third type of governance.
Tom Happynook of Huu-ay-ut First Nation explains how traditional leaders are raised to learn the qualities and values of leadership. He also explains how traditional governance in his community is more democratic than the Canadian election process.
This profile by Sheldon C. Spotted Elk examines the U.S. government's infringement on the Northern Cheyenne's political sovereignty. Most significantly, it examines the relationship between the oral history of the Northern Cheyenne and its impact on traditional tribal governance and law. Following...
Joseph Norris of the Halalt Nation located in British Columbia talks about being raised from the age of five to be a leaders and about the structure of traditional governance in his community.
Chief Gamble of Beardy's and Okemasis First Nation says that tradition and spirituality are a way of life and might be captured in a constitution so that First Nations can develop laws that are based on traditional values. This would be a way to undo the Indian Act and make way for more traditional...
Vice Secretary Darrin Old Coyote of the Crow Tribe's Executive Branch provides a brief history of the Crow Tribe's governance system, and explains the factors that prompted the Tribe to abandon its governance system in 2001 and replace it with a new constitution and system of government entirely of...
In this excerpted video, former Cochiti Governor Regis Pecos provides an overview of the core values that are integral to Cochiti's culture and way of life, and shows how his people relied on the application of those core values to overcome a catastrophe and rebuild its nation and community. This...
University of Minnesota American Indian Studies Professor David Wilkins provides a comprehensive overview of the resiliency of traditional governance systems among Native nations in the period leading up to the passage of the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA), and shares some data about the types of...
Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy Director Stephen Cornell provides a brief overview of what a constitution fundamentally is, and some of the emerging trends in innovation that Native nations are exhibiting when it comes to constitutional development and reform. This video resource is...
More than 565 Indigenous tribal governments exercise extensive sovereign and political powers within the United States today. Only about 230 of the native communities that created these governments, however, have chosen to adopt written constitutions to define and control the political powers of...
