Telegraph Creek:

.

Maps of Experience: The Anchoring of Land to Story in Secwepemc Discourse

By Andie Diane Palmer

In many North American indigenous cultures, history and stories are passed down, not by the written word, but by oral tradition. In Maps of Experience, Andie Diane Palmer draws on stories recorded during travels through Secwepemc ? or Shuswap ? hunting and gathering territory with members of the Alkali Lake Reserve in Interior British Columbia. Palmer examines how the various kinds of talk allow knowledge to be carried forward, reconstituted, reflected upon, enriched, and ultimately relocated by and for new interlocutors in new experiences and places.

Maps of Experience demonstrates how the Secwepemc engagement in the traditional practices of hunting and gathering create shared lived experiences between individuals, while recreating a known social context in which existing knowledge of the land may be effectively shared and acted upon. When the narratives of fellow travellers are pooled through discursive exchange, they serve as what can be considered a ?map of experience,? providing the basis of shared understanding and social relationship to territory. Palmer?s analysis of ways of listening and conveying information within the Alkali Lake community brings new insights into indigenous language and culture, as well as to the study of oral history, ethnohistory, experimental ethnography, and discourse analysis.

More: Here
.

Ethnographies for British Columbia Native Cultures

.
From Tad McIlwraith:

Anderson, Margaret and Marjorie Halpin, editors. 2000. Potlatch at Gitsegukla: William Beynon’s 1945 Field Notebooks. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.

Atleo, Richard. 2004. Tsawalk: A Nuu-chah-nulth Worldview. Vancouver: UBC Press.

Blackman, Margaret B., with Florence Edenshaw Davidson. 1992. During My Time: Florence Edenshaw Davidson, A Haida Woman. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

Blackstock, Michael. 2001. Faces in the Forest: First Nations Art Created on Living Trees. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press.

Boas, Franz. 1975. Kwakiutl Ethnography. Helen Codere, editor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Brody, Hugh. 1981/1988. Maps and Dreams: Indians and the British Columbia Frontier.Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre.

Culhane Speck, Dara. 1987. An Error in Judgement: The Politics of Medical Care in an Indian-White Community.Vancouver: Talonbooks.

Daly, Richard. 2005. Our Box was Full: An Ethnography for the Delgamuukw Plaintiffs. Vancouver: UBC Press.

Dinwoodie, David. 2002. Reserve Memories: The Power of the Past in a Chilcotin Community.Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.

Furniss, Elizabeth. 1999. The Burden of History: Colonialism and the Frontier Myth in a Rural Canadian Community.Vancouver: UBC Press.

Kramer, Jennifer. 2006. Switchbacks: Art, Ownership, and Nuxalk National Identity.Vancouver: UBC Press.

McDonald, James A. (2003) People of the Robin: The Tsimshian of Kitsumkalum. CCI Press

Mills, Antonia. 1994. Eagle Down Is Our Law: Witsuwit’en Law, Feasts, and Land Claims. Vancouver: UBC Press.

Palmer, Andie. 2005. Maps of Experience: The Anchoring of Land to Story in Secwepemc Discourse.Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Pryce, Paula. 1999. Keeping the Lakes’ Way: Reburial and Re-creation of a Moral World among an Invisible People.Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Ridington, Robin. 1988. Trail to Heaven: Knowledge and Narrative in a Northern Native Community. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.

Roth, Christopher. 2008. Becoming Tsimshian: The Social Life of Names .Seattle: University of Washington Press.
.

Bibliography of Tahltan Materials

.
An Annotated Bibliography of Tahltan Language Materials

John Alderete - Simon Fraser University, Department of Linguistics

Thomas McIlwraith - Douglas College, Department of Sociology & Anthropology

The purpose of this paper is to list and summarize materials on the Tahltan language, including linguistic and anthropological research papers, dictionaries, collections of stories, and teaching materials. We hope that the bibliography will give language teachers, linguists, anthropologists, and all others interested in Tahltan language and culture (and Athabaskan languages in general) an awareness of what materials exist and how they might be useful in a range of scholarship.

Read the Full Paper (PDF): Here
.

Stikine Valley Pictures



Telegraph Creek, B.C - 1884





Telegraph Creek, BC - 1910





Telegraph Creek, B.C - 2010





Stikine River (2008)



Tahltan Strike Power Company Deal

.

Tahltan Nation announced it has signed an impact benefit agreement (IBA) with Coast Mountain Hydro, a subsidiary of Alberta-based AltaGas, for the Forrest Kerr run-of-river hydroelectric project. The agreement comprises a combination of environmental protections, cultural resource protections and economic participation for the Tahltan Nation for the project which would generate hydro power from the Iskut River.

"The Tahltan Nation is proud of this Impact Benefit Agreement with Coast Mountain Hydro Corp. and the increased economic security that it will provide for generations to come," says Annita McPhee, Chair of the Tahltan Central Council. "This agreement establishes ownership, management of our resources and profit sharing while taking into consideration the protection of our environment as a renewable energy project. This IBA will set the bar for resource development projects and demonstrates the results of a successful relationship with a company in Tahltan Territory that respects our aboriginal title and rights."

"Any land and resource decisions affecting Tahltan Traditional Territory must respect the environment, the Tahltan way of life and the Tahltan people," said Annita McPhee earlier today. "The agreement reflects the significant input we've gathered from consultation with community members and, while protecting our territory and our way of life, provides our Nation with long-term economic security."

The Forrest Kerr Project will provide business opportunities for members of the Tahltan Nation to participate in the construction, operation and maintenance of the project, and Tahltan university graduates will have opportunities to enroll in training programs with AltaGas. The agreement also provides economic benefits to the Tahltan Nation, including shared ownership and royalties.

Read More: Here

.

Delgamuukw v. British Columbia

.
Delgamuukw v. British Columbia [1997] 3 S.C.R. 1010, also known as Delgamuukw vs. the Queen is a famous leading decision of the Supreme Court of Canada where the Court made its most definitive statement on the nature of aboriginal title in Canada.

The proceedings were started in 1984 by the Gitxsan Nation and the Wet'suwet'en Nation. They bypassed the slow Federal Land Claims process in which the British Columbia Provincial Government would not participate.

They claimed ownership and legal jurisdiction over 133 individual hereditary territories, a total of 58,000 square kilometres of northwestern British Columbia, an area larger than the province of Nova Scotia.

The Gitksan and Witsuwit'en used their oral histories as principal evidence in the case.

The Province insisted that all First Nations land rights in British Columbia were extinguished by the colonial government before it became part of Canada in 1871. Moreover, Chief Justice Allan McEachern ruled that aboriginal rights in general existed at the "pleasure of the crown" and could thus be extinguished "whenever the intention of the Crown to do so is clear and plain." (In the Court of Appeal, the Province changed its position to argue that aboriginal land rights had not been extinguished.) In his explanation for the ruling, McEachern conceded that he was unwilling to seriously consider evidence from oral history, arguing that prior to colonization, aboriginal lives had been "nasty, brutish, and short".

The Supreme Court made no decision on the land dispute, insisting that another trial was necessary. For the first time, however, the Court directly addressed the issue of Aboriginal title.

Aboriginal title is different from land usage rights, as it acknowledges Indigenous ownership of the land and the right to use in ways it had not been used traditionally. On the other hand, it is different from common land ownership, in that it is a Constitutional communal right deeply linked to Indigenous culture. Land governed by Aboriginal title can only be sold to the Federal Government, not to private buyers. The ruling also made important statements about the legitimacy of Indigenous oral history ruling that oral histories were just as important as written testimony.

The Delgamuukw court case has important implications for the history of Canada and for the idea of history itself. In this case the court gave greater weight to oral history than to written evidence. Of oral histories the court said "they are tangential to the ultimate purpose of the fact-finding process at trial -- the determination of the historical truth."

In A Fair Country, John Ralston Saul writes about the broader significance of the court's recognition of oral evidence as carrying as much or greater weight as written evidence, on Canadian society.
.

Tahltan Central Council - Mandate and Vision

.
Four central principles guide the actions of the Tahltan Central Council:

• self-determination for the Tahltan people
• environmental stewardship which includes protecting the land and Tahltan culture
• ensuring the people benefit from the land and resources and the development of healthy communities

In all its decision making, the TCC's priority is to ensure Tahltan people are involved in the planning, management and decision-making with respect to land and resources in Tahltan Territory.
.
Source: http://www.tahltan.org/s/Mandate.asp

.

Declaration of the Tahltan Tribe (1910)

.

We, the undersigned members of the Tahltan tribe, speaking for ourselves, and our entire tribe, hereby make known to all whom it may concern, that we have heard of the Indian Rights movement among the Indian tribes of the Coast, and of the southern interior of B.C. Also we have read the declaration make by the chiefs of of the southern interior tribes at Spences Bridge of the 16th July last, and we hereby declare our complete agreement with the demands of the same, and with the position taken by the said chiefs, and their people on all the questions stated in the said Declaration, and we furthermore make known that it is our desire and intention to join with them in the fight for our mutual rights, and that we will assist in the furtherance of this object in every way we can, until such time as all these matters of moment to us are finally unsettled. We further declare as follow:

Firstly- We claim the sovereign right to all the country of our tribe - this country of ours which we have held intact from the encroachments of other tribes, from time immemorial, at the cost of our own blood. We have done this because our lives depended on our country. To lose it meant we would lose our means of living, and therefore our lives. We are still as heretofore, dependant for our living on our country, and we do not intend to give away the title to any part of same without adequate compensation. We deny the B.C. government has any title or right of ownership in our country. We have never treated with them nor given them any such title. (We have only lately learned the B.C. government make this claim, and that it has for long considered as it property all the territories of the Indian tribes of B.C.)

Secondly - We desire that a part of our country, consisting of one or more large areas (to be selected by us), be retained by us for our own use, said lands, and all thereon to be acknowledged by the government as our absolute property. The rest of our tribal land we are willing to relinquish to the B.C. government for adequate compensation.

Thirdly - We wish it known that a small portion of our lands at the mouth of the Tahltan River, was set apart a few years ago by Mr. Vowell as an Indian reservation. These few acres are the only reservation made for our tribe. We may state we never applied for the reservation of this piece of land, and we had no knowledge why the government set it apart for us, nor do we know exactly yet.

Fourthly - We desire that all questions regarding our lands, hunting, fishing etc., and every matter concerning our welfare, be settled by treaty between us and the Dominion and B.C. government.

Fifthly - We are of the opinion it will be better for ourselves, also better for the governments and all concerned, if these treaties are made with us at a very early date, so all friction, and misunderstanding between us and the whites may be avoided, for we hear lately much talk of white settlement in this region, and the building of railways, etc., in the near future.

Signed at Telegraph Creek, B.C., this eighteenth day of October, Nineteen hundred and ten, by:

NANOK, Chief of the Tahltans,

NASTULTA, alias Little Jackson,

GEORGE ASSADZA, KENETI, alias Big Jackson

And eighty other members of the tribe.

.
.

Tahltan Language and Culture – Chad Day

.

Check out this amazingly crafted video by Chad Day about Tahltan culture, language loss and some positive solutions for honoring, protecting and ensuring a bright Tahltan future. Chad writes:

A video that describes a concern for the future loss of the Tahltan language. This video was completed at the University of Alberta and was made to not only bring awareness to the importance of language within Aboriginal culture and identity, but to wrap up my time spent in Edmonton by giving thanks to the Cree nation and showcasing some of the things I've learned while obtaining my degree here over the past three years

.

Hunting and History in Northern B.C

.
‘But We Are Still Native People’: Talking about Hunting and History in Northern Athapaskan Village

by Thomas McIlwraith Ph.D

Abstract:

My dissertation is a study of hunting in the northern Athapaskan village of Iskut, British Columbia, Canada. Hunting serves as a cultural system uniting Iskut people in a place where ethnic identity is not as easy to identify as outsiders might expect. Moreover, non-natives sometimes suggest that Iskut hunting activities reflect cultural and economic poverty. Still, interest in Iskut knowledge about animals and the land persists in and outside of Iskut. Traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) is in demand in bureaucratic settings, for example, but Iskut knowledge about food and animals resists easy interpretation. I turn to the ‘ethnography of speaking’ as a way of learning about hunting and of moving beyond the fact-finding often associated with bureaucratic TEK projects. I attend to hunting stories and group history to understand why Iskut people talk about hunting with such passion. Studying talk of hunting and its etiquette reveals a wide range of lived experiences and practices at Iskut Village. It shows how Iskut people draw their history into contemporary resource conflicts. And, it illustrates a cultural system in a place where different family histories exist.

Read More (PDF): Here
.

2005 Moratorium Declaration

.

Tahltan Moratorium Heats Up The Northwest

These words, in a statement issued by the Elders of the Tahltan Nation last week, have sparked controversy in BC's northwest, where big energy companies like Shell thought they were going to get a virtually free ride, thanks to agreements they were negotiating privately with some members of the Tahltan who lacked the authority to speak for the Nation's traditional territory.

The story is another example of the BC government being only too willing to avoid its consultation responsibilities, handing them off to companies that claim they have agreements with the First Nations. As the recent Haida case makes clear, the government has a much greater responsibility than that. Its failure to properly consult and accommodate the Tahltan people has forced the Elders to take this unusual step.

As recent media coverage such as today's Tyee story indicates, the Tahltan Elders are becoming active. They have occupied the Telegraph Creek band office, making the point that the chief elected under the Indian Act, whose authority only extends to the boundary of the Indian Reserve, is not acting on behalf of the people. And they've declared a moratorium on development until proper consultation and accommodation can begin. Their statement puts all the companies pushing major development proects in the region on notice that they don't have the legal right to start operations.

Read More Here: Dogwood Initiative 

.

The Sociality of Water

.

As concerns over climate change intensify, anthropologists have emerged as key participants in conversations about water use. Such work is crucial not only to assess the implications of floods, droughts and water rights conflicts today, but also the ways in which water has always been a mediated resource, and how communities’ relationships with water might change in the future.

.

The following commentary series focuses on water governance and management, examining water access and power relationships, development initiatives, water conservation and availability, water as commons and commodity, and emerging trends in sustainable water management.

John Wagner
Water Governance Today

Barbara Rose Johnston
Water, Culture and Power Negotiations at the UN

Antina von Schnitzler
Gauging Politics: Water, Commensuration and Citizenship in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Eleanor E Shoreman
Muddy Waters: Water Conservation and Environmental Ethics in the Mississippi Delta

Ashley Carse
Moral Economies of Water Management: Tensions in the Panama Canal Watershed

Jessica Cattelino
Citizenship and Nation in the Everglades

Carla Roncoli
Participatory Models and Exclusionary Frames in Water Management* More photos by Carla Roncoli related to this article are available on Flickr.

Kathryn Hicks, Nicole Fabricant and Carlos Revilla
The New Water Wars: Collective Action after Decentralization in El Alto, Bolivia

Nan Bress
The Water Spigot: Water Access, Safety and Perception Near the Ashokan Reservoir* More photos by Nan Bress related to this article are available on Flickr.

Simanti Dasgupta
Transactions in Transparency: Water, Market and Politics in the Indian Silicon Plateau


SOURCE: http://aaanet.org/publications/articles.cfm
.