Indigenous Legal Traditions Distinguished Scholar Lecture with Darlene Johnston: Killing the Windigo

Event Description

Among the Anishinaabe peoples of the Great Lakes, including the Ojibway, Ottawa and Pottawatomi Nations, the phenomenon of humans becoming Windigo, beings with superhuman strength and an insatiable appetite, posed a grave threat to community survival. An account of how one community overcame the existential crisis of having a Windigo living among them is contained in an 1838 manuscript housed at the Toronto Reference Library.

A close reading of the manuscript problematizes the manner in which the killing of a Windigo can be categorized in terms of the Western legal system. In particular, the boundaries between public and private law are blurred, as is the separation between criminal law and tort law. For those located outside the Anishinaabe worldview, a suspension of disbelief in the existence of the Windigo is required in order to apprehend the legality of the Anishinaabe communal response.

For Zoom link, contact Louise Chen at: visitingscholars@allard.ubc.ca.

Speaker

Darlene Johnston earned a B.A. from Queen’s University, and an LL.B. and LL.M. from the University of Toronto. In 2008, she was awarded the designation of Indigenous People’s Counsel from the Indigenous Bar Association of Canada, (IBA). Prior to accepting her appointment at the Allard School of Law, Professor Johnston was an Associate Professor and Aboriginal Student Advisor at University of Toronto. Her teaching areas include Indigenous Legal Traditions, Canadian Aboriginal and Treaty Rights, and Law & Colonialism.  Her current research focuses on the relationship between totemic identity, territoriality and governance.