ABORIGINOLOGY

The following long quote is from p.43 of, Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry, by Widdowson & Howard - it quotes anthropologist, James Clifton, describing his stint as “expert witness” on behalf of some American aboriginal groups:

“In these trials by history (i.e., law office history), watching the highly skilled, forceful attorneys serving the Indian cause at work was a thoroughly eye-opening experience. From them I learned much about the selective use and suppression of historical and anthropological evidence, systematic distortion of facts in support of a preconceived “theory of the case”, the dexterous manipulation of judicial and public sentiments, perfectly astounding hyperbole, and the most outrageous fabrications. Watching some “experts” approach the witness stand with hats in hand, and others demur when caustically coached about how and what they should testify to, balking myself when pressed to distort or suppress interpretations and sources, I concluded that in Indian treaty rights cases the standards of evidence and logic are not what they are elsewhere, especially so in scholarly work … the paramount aim, at last I had explained to me by an unusually impetuous counsel, was not veracity but to win at all costs. These particular attorneys were interested in neither truth nor social consequences, except those of obtaining for their clients the largest short-term benefits attainable – money and power.”

Particularly unpleasant is the discussion that follows this on “oral histories” (really, old wives tales, the etiology of folklore) and their use as “evidence” in legal land claims disputes. To its discredit, the Supreme Court of Canada (displaying supreme idiocy) has endorsed such “evidence” as good evidence. This is a legal fiction just as is the reasonable man theory of proof. We know from studies in cognitive science that memory is elastic, and that memories change in time, often to suit whatever issue, dispute or argument is in process at any given moment. Just as elastic and form fitting is so-called “expert’ evidence, as told in the above quote.

 Pax vobiscum.