The Iceni Tribe

Vincent J. Curtis

12 Oct 23

RE: Sinforia Ancaster presents ‘Land Acknowledgement’ concert.  By Leonard Turnevicius.  The Hamilton Spectator 12 Oct 23.

It was awfully kind of SA music direct Jeffery Pollock to assign Ancaster to nations other than Canada.  This is what he seemed to say in “composers who come from nations on which the AMAC land sits.”  ‘Land sitting on nations’ is a rather awkward formulation, but it somehow forms the basis for holding a “Land Acknowledgement recognition concert” to acknowledge that Ancaster is illicitly squatting on Indian land.

Apparently, 357 Wilson St. E., Ancaster, and, by implication, all of Ancaster, is Anishinaabeg and Haudenosaunee land, (whoever they are); that’s the working theory.  This is rather like saying that East Anglia, England, is Iceni land because that was the indigenous Celtic tribe in occupation when the Romans arrived.

Actually, the Ancaster area was found to be in the possession of the Mississaugas of the Credit, and whatever title they were deemed to have had to it was purchased from them by the descendants of the Iceni in 1792, as part of the Land between the Lakes acquisition.  Land tenure was a foreign concept to the local indigenous, and it would be doubly impossible for 357 Wilson St. E. to be Asishinaabeg or Haudenosaunee land: first, because it was Mississauga; and, second, no individual from any local indigenous tribe can be said to have owned that parcel then, or now.  It’s Iceni, and licitly so..

Rather than give their part of illicit Ancaster back, they’re going to sing for reconciliation; but there’s no incentive on the Indian side to reconcile.

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