There is a quiet confusion running through our communities right now. More and more people are talking about the Haldimand Proclamation as if it were a kind of general membership card: “I’m a band member, so I’m automatically part of that.” Others assume that simply having Indian status or living on reserve gives them the same standing as someone whose ancestors were actually intended under those Loyalist-era instruments.

Underneath that confusion is a deeper problem. We’ve blended different categories of identity and rights into one blurry label – “Indigenous,” “status,” “band member” – and tried to stretch that over everything: treaty lands, hereditary interests, cultural responsibilities, and political representation. When everything is treated as the same, nothing is clear. And when nothing is clear, governments and outside interests can walk right through the confusion.

To make this more understandable, I’ve started using a simple analogy: a handful of dice.

Imagine five dice sitting on a table. Each die represents a different category of connection or standing. They’re related, but they are not identical. One die represents whether you are actually descended from the Mohawk Loyalists who were granted lands along the Grand River under the Haldimand Proclamation. That is not just “I’m Native” – it is a specific bloodline and a specific historical class of people.

Another die represents your clan through your mother – your mitochondrial clan continuity. Do you know your clan? Can you trace your line through your mother’s people in accordance with Haudenosaunee practice? Have you done the legwork to find out, or are you just repeating what someone once told you?

A third die represents whether you are recognized as a clan person and a national member in a real, lived way. It’s one thing to claim a clan; it is another thing entirely for your community to know who your people are, which house you belong to, and how you fit into the nation’s structure. Recognition is not just paperwork; it is relationship and continuity.

A fourth die is the one Canada likes to emphasize: band membership under the Indian Act. Are you on the list? Do you have a status card? This is an administrative category created by Canada, with certain benefits and limitations attached to it. It has legal consequences, but it is not the same thing as hereditary standing, nor is it the same thing as traditional clan identity or Loyalist descent.

The fifth die represents proof and documentation: genealogy, archival records, baptism or marriage registers, Loyalist rolls, affidavits, and confirmed oral histories. This die is the difference between “I think I am” and “I can show, with evidence, that I am.” It is also the hardest die to roll, because it takes time, persistence, and sometimes money to access and assemble the necessary records.

The key point is this: different rights require different combinations of dice.

Some rights or benefits might only require that you have rolled the band membership die. If the band is distributing a specific program benefit that is tied to the band list, then being listed is enough. Other rights, such as longhouse responsibilities or clan matters, lean heavily on your clan continuity and recognized national identity dice.

When we start talking about hereditary or talzie-style interests linked to the Loyalist era and the Haldimand Proclamation, however, we are in a different lane. Those rights are not generic “Native rights.” They are tied to Mohawk Loyalist posterity, to the specific people and families who were granted lands along the Grand River for their loyalty and alliance. In that context, the Mohawk Loyalist descent die becomes central, supported by proof and documentation, and ideally reinforced by clan and national continuity.

Too often, people assume that rolling one die automatically gives them the whole combination. “I’m a band member, therefore I’m automatically a Haldimand rights-holder.” That is like picking up one die, seeing a number, and then declaring you’ve rolled a full house. Band membership is one die, one category. It does not automatically mean that your ancestors were part of the specific Loyalist class that the Haldimand Proclamation contemplated, and it does not mean you have done the genealogical work to confirm that.

There is also a risk in the dice analogy: dice sound random. But in this context, rolling the dice is not about luck. You do not just wake up one day and discover that the perfect combination has landed in front of you. You have to pick up the genealogical die by doing the research; you have to pick up the clan die by listening to your elders and tracing your line; you have to pick up the documentation die by hunting down records and preserving stories. Most people are only rolling the dice that Canada hands them – the band list and the status card. The deeper, traditional and hereditary dice are often left untouched.

Some of us have made it our life’s work to intentionally pick up and roll as many of these dice as honestly as possible. That means tracing our lines back to documented Mohawk Loyalist ancestors who came into the Grand River under Haldimand. It means following our mother’s line to find our correct clan and having that accepted in community. It means maintaining band membership while not confusing it with our deeper identity. It means collecting the records, certificates, and historical confirmations that turn stories into evidence.

When those dice land together, they form a very specific combination of standing: a Haldimand-class Mohawk Loyalist descendant, a recognized clan person, a band member, all supported by documentation. That is not just “I’m Native” or “I have a card.” That is a person standing in a particular hereditary lane with evidence, not just opinion.

Why does this matter? Because the Haldimand Proclamation and related instruments were not written to a vague idea of “Indigenous people.” They addressed specific nations and specific posterity. Over time, Canada has blurred this by treating Mohawk Loyalist descendants, other Haudenosaunee members, and generic status Indians as if they were all the same category. That blur serves governments, because it allows Haldimand lands and obligations to be treated as if they were just “band assets” or mere funding issues, rather than distinct hereditary interests owed to a specific posterity.

The dice analogy pushes back against that blur. It reminds us that not everyone stands in the same place when it comes to certain rights. It does not say anyone is less valuable as a human being or as an Indigenous person. It simply says that some rights are specific: they belong to particular lines, acquired through particular histories and preserved by particular families.

When someone confidently says, “I’m part of that Haldimand thing,” the respectful response is not to attack or dismiss them, but to ask which dice they have actually rolled. Have they traced their lineage to a known Mohawk Loyalist family connected to the Haldimand grant? Do they know their clan and how it travels through the maternal line? Are they recognized within the nation’s own systems? Do they have documents and records to support what they are saying?

If they haven’t done that work, that doesn’t mean they aren’t Indigenous. It means they are speaking as if they’ve rolled dice they’ve never actually picked up. The invitation is to do the work, not to give up.

This is not gatekeeping for ego’s sake. It is about clarity as protection. When we are clear on which dice we have rolled, we are harder to displace. When we can show, with evidence, that we stand in a particular hereditary line, we are harder to ignore. When we distinguish between band administration, national identity, and hereditary posterity, we stop letting outsiders define us entirely by the Indian Act.

The Haldimand question is not going away. As we move forward, we will need language that both our people and outside institutions can understand. The handful of dice is one way to explain the difference between general Indigeneity and specific Loyalist-era standing. For Haldimand rights, for hereditary talzie-style interests, you need the right combination of dice – and you need to have actually rolled them.

I say this not to shut people out, but to invite them in: if you believe you stand in that lane, then pick up your dice. Do the genealogical work. Talk to your family. Seek out the records. Confirm your clan. In other words, roll honestly – and then you will know, with total certainty, where you stand.

For anyone who wants to go deeper than this article, I invite you to visit SixMilesDeep online. There you can read the full texts of the Haldimand Proclamation, Dorchester’s Mark of Honour, the Simcoe Proclamation and more in our growing encyclopedia, and use our plain-language lexicon to unpack key terms and phrases. If you’re serious about knowing which dice you’ve actually rolled — and what that means for your standing — Six Miles Deep is a good place to start.