There isn’t a myth more prevalent about my nation then the Squamish Band Amalgamation.  Myths are stories that through time are stories that become fully formed myths as outcome of a cultural process, instead of something with intent or deliberate to be created.  They are a type of story we tell ourselves, as if it were knowledge of information, but without significant fact or precedent for context in which that story is.  Some will say our “legends” are “myths” in the same sense, except within our worldview, there are different types of stories about our history in the oral tradition, and some of these are foundational for our spiritual worldview.  In the same vein, some proclaim Jesus to be a myth, which, to a certain point of view, he is.  The same way our stories can be interpreted as such, and how I am saying the amalgamation.

In 1923, as the story goes, an amalgamation document was signed placing the multiple reserves under one governance.  That is the only true fact of the amalgamation.  Everything else is conjecture, lies, myths, and fanatical belief in rumor.  The story goes, that 16 hereditary chiefs of the Squamish Indian people came together, in unity and harmony, to bring our nation together as a strong and unified nation.  To do this, they signed the amalgamation to bring the 16 reserves, represented by 16 hereditary chiefs to form the Squamish Nation.  Supposedly, before the amalgamation, the reserves were separated and owned by separate families, and some families either through coercion or ignorance, sold their reserved lands to either the government or other people.

Ironically, the origin of the “hereditary chieftainships” came from Christian and Canadian government origin.  It was through the decades, where the government will only respond to their chosen or their ideal candidate to represent the native population, that the cultural protocols became immeshed in with the Christian doctrine of assimilating our way of life into a Euro-Canadian one.

Imagine, a slave owner decided to chose one slave out of the rest to give them a few nicer clothes, a bit more comfortable bed, and some nicer food, to be a leader of the whole slave class.  This slave would proclaim, “The masters are wonderful masters.  They treat us with shelter, and food, and keep us alive.”  The oppressor is not in favor or promoting the community as a whole, but selected leaders to accomplish their goals of dominance and control. (Holy camoly!  Our current band councilors do the same thing now!)

For many decades the “Band Council” was hereditary.  And over time, our people either died or left to move to the more populated villages.  Then, the hereditary governance structure became disturbed with rising problems like alcoholism, lack of adequate education to deal with modern challenges, and nepotism. (Holy camoly! Our current band councilors are the same thing now!).  Eventually, the hereditary band council was replaced with a new custom election regulations are put in by the membership of the Squamish Nation.

This is the part to look at.

The people decided that the hereditary chieftainship system was an inadequate governance model to manage all the affairs of the Squamish Nation.  Chief amongst these issues was money.  As they say in real estate: location, location, location.  So simply because of my people presence within a metropolitan centre, we have had the disastrous effects of European greatest marvel of capitalism.  The old system was pushed out, new system put in.

Let’s just say, this experiment in electoral politics hasn’t been any more successful either.  It’s mostly a governance structure based off of any typical band council, except there is 16 councilors to represent the 16 chiefs, of the 16 villages.

I would like to then explain where we are at now.

My people live through 7 reserves now, along with a segment of the population living off-reserve, and outside of their traditional home territory.  We don’t live on 16 reserves anymore.  The 16 chieftainships are not all fulfilled.  There are more then 16 families in my nation now.  We are a population of nearly 3500 hundred, and when the amalgamation was signed when there was a population of 300 hundred.  The Band Council has 5 Baker family members. 3 from the Jacobs family. 2 from the Joseph family. (From what I understand, the Skwxwu7mesh people is not just Bakers’, Jacobs, and Joseph’s, although I think they would like to think so…haha).
The Amalgamation was broken a long time ago.

The amalgamation is document was signed placing the multiple reserves under one governance.  That governance was 16 hereditary chiefs on a band council.  The hereditary chiefs have no real power in the decision-making business of the people, nor do they all equally and fairly represent the families they come from.  They do not run the Squamish Nation, nor sit on a “Council” as hereditary chiefs.  Three men hold this European title were elected in, and do sit on council.  The Squamish Nation now operated under an outdated Custom Election Regulations since 1982.
The Amalgamation is a myth.

If this it was were fact, it would not be amendable to transformation.  Since July 20th, 1923, the story about the amalgamation has morphed, be told repeatedly, but without any substantial fact or investigation.
The Amalgamation is not what you think.

There are many possibilities of what the document and the event was.  These stories have been passed down do, and based on historical context, are all plausible.  The possibilities about it are:

* It was a document signed by one man, an arbitrarily did it himself.
* The event was orchestrated by the Department of Indian Affairs through the Indian Agents to better control and manipulate the native people for easier resource extraction and land development.
* The hereditary chiefs were not traditional leaders in a pre-contact sense (a siyam), but Christianized assimilated puppets controlled by the government to mass manipulate their followers and families.

There is something behind the story of the amalgamation.  One day the truth of the whole matter will be revealed.  And it will be painful.  If it is not exposed, we will never be able to fully move forward as a people, and all future generations will be trapped by this myth.

Competition is the worst way to choose leaders. It becomes a popularity contest, and those who are voted in are bound by their supporters, and those supports are able to influence the political leadership to their agenda, and not the whole of the community.  If we are going to move forward, the new generations of thinkers and leaders will have to revisit the age old questions that societies for thousands of years have asked:

What is the best way to choose our leaders?