Adoption of a Prince and 10th Governor General of Canada

The events that took place downtown Brantford on 1919 when the Prince of Wales and First Royal to take the Office of Governor General of Canada recognized wampum laws and this customary adoption and the legal order that forms it are validated by this adoption.

Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn (1850-1942). Served as the Governor General of Canada, the 10th since Canadian COnfederation and the first to be royal descent. Given the title Kavakoudge and named Chief of the Six Nations by the Grand River Reserve Iroquois in 1869.  In 1969 the Prince as made and Honorary Chief, Alexander Graham Bell and many others had received this distinction and esteem, however in 1919 the Prince of Wales sat with the Confederacy  and was made a customary chief no longer honorary but a full blooded member of the Iroquois longhouse and the longhouse customary laws.

On the return to the City a lengthy stop was made at Victoria Park which contained the densest mass of humanity of the day.

Here the Six Nations Indians were the hosts. A platform had been erected under the very shadow of the monument to the great “Thayendanegea,” and six Indian girls representing the Nations, stood on each side of the entrance way; attired in white they had sashes of maple, oak and pine, emblems of Canada, England, and their own people, while each carried baskets of roses decorated with streamers of Autumn leaves.

The Chiefs, in full array, remained standing until the Prince had taken his place under a canopy of royal purple. Then the red men proceeded to hold a Council, Major Gordon Smith, Superintendent, having first introduced the guest of the day in appropriate terms.

The order of business was the discussion of the Indian name to be bestowed upon the Prince in his creation as a Chief and he was finally asked to select from three titles.

The one chosen was Da-yon-hem-se-ia; (Dawn of Day) and when that was conferred he signed the council roll, the only white man who had previously done so with the exception of his uncle, the Duke of Connaught. Secretary Asa Hill read an address, and then the Prince, his hand in that of David John, was marched up and down the platform, while the old chief uttered invocations to the Great Spirit on behalf of the young man newly honored.

Chief “Dawn of Day,” next drew a silk Union Jack from the face of a bronze tablet containing the names of the Six Nations soldiers who made the supreme sacrifice in France, and the members of whose families had a place of honor.

The Prince made a happy speech and before proceedings closed was handed an address from the Six Nations Indian women to Queen Mary asking her to accept an ancient Indian name Ga-no-ron-gwa, signifying “She Loves.”

Another large crowd was present when the special train pulled out, the Royal visitor waving his hat in farewell as the final scene in a visit during which he abundantly demonstrated his right to the title of “Prince Charming.”

http://hrnabrantford.org/resources/photographs/prince-arthur-john-buck-and-alexander-graham-bell-brantfordont-20-oct-1919/

This thesis is a cross-disciplinary study of legal history and customary law. Respect for, and accommodation of local customary law has been a constant and integral feature of law in Britain since Anglo-Saxon times. It guided the emergence of the common law, and continues as a rule of law to the present day.

Such respect and accommodation was an essential principle that permitted the peaceful consolidation of the British realms from its constituent parts. Continuity of law is a legal presumption whether territories have been added by conquest, cession or annexation.

The principle respect for local legal custom was one of two schools of thought carried to Britain’s overseas colonies; the other was a theory that local customary law could be extinguished by non-recognition on the part of the British sovereign or his/her delegates. Nevertheless, customary laws and institutions were explicitly and implicitly recognized in the colonial period.

The doctrine has modern application with respect to the customary law ways of indigenous peoples wherever the common law has been extended overseas. Rights under customary law are distinguished from Aboriginal rights, though there is some overlap between the two.

Customary law can only be extinguished by an express statute, or by clearly unavoidable implication. Legal customs are not invalid merely for being contrary to the common law. Common law defers to valid customary law as a matter of constitutional common law. But the common law provides tests by which courts can identify valid legal custom.

Where a valid, unextinguished legal custom is found, courts are bound by the common law to apply it. Where customary law can be identified, it binds the servants and agents of the Crown, except when it is inconsistent with Crown sovereignty itself.

https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/831/items/1.0077461

Per McLachlin C.J. and Gonthier, Iacobucci, Arbour and LeBel JJ.: Under English colonial law, the pre-existing laws and interests of aboriginal societies were absorbed into the common law as rights upon the Crown’s assertion of sovereignty unless these rights were surrendered, extinguished or inconsistent with Crown sovereignty.

The enactment of s. 35(1) of the Constitution Act, 1982 accorded constitutional status to existing aboriginal and treaty rights, including the aboriginal rights recognized at common law. However, the government retained the jurisdiction to limit aboriginal rights for justifiable reasons in the pursuit of substantial and compelling public objectives.

The test to establish an aboriginal right focuses on the integral, defining features of the relevant aboriginal society before the Crown’s assertion of sovereignty. A claimant must prove that a modern practice, custom or tradition has a reasonable degree of continuity with a practice, tradition or custom that was in existence prior to contact with the Europeans.

The practice, tradition or custom must have been integral to the distinctive culture of the aboriginal people in the sense that it distinguished or characterized their traditional culture and lay at the core of the aboriginal people’s identity.

https://scc-csc.lexum.com/…/scc-csc/en/item/1869/index.do

Customs and Usages

• Long time and long use, beyond the memory of man, suffices for right.
• Custom is the best expounder of the law.
• Custom is another law.
• A prescriptive and legitimate custom overcomes the law.
• Custom leads the willing, law compels or draws the unwilling.
• Usage is the best interpreter of things.
• Custom is the best interpreter of laws.
• What is done contrary to the custom of our ancestors, neither pleases nor appears right.
• Where two rights concur, the more ancient shall be preferred.

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Land Information:

• We are researching records and will add details as we learn more.