Secwépemc People, Land, and Laws

Marianne Ignace is distinguished professor of Indigenous studies and director of the Indigenous Languages Centre at Simon Fraser University. Ronald E. Ignace is Canada's first Indigenous languages commissioner.

"The Ignaces have created a sweeping and powerful book that provides us with an opportunity to understand Secwépemc people's relationship with the land." Susan Rowley, University of British Columbia "Our young people will passionately accept their responsibilities as stewards of both our territories and teachings sacred to our ancestors when they know our languages and traditions. The Ignaces have brilliantly woven the Secwépemc oral histories with research, and written a work from which young people and all can learn." - Perry Bellegarde, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations "I couldn't put this book down! A masterpiece of multidisciplinary research on the Secwépemc Nation's history from the Ice Age to the present, science and archival records serve to back up the volume's primary source of knowledge, the oral narratives and shared memories of the Secwépemc people. These accounts go deeper than science, to the moral lessons of how the humans and the land we live on should relate to each other. Only the Ignaces could write a book of this magnitude, based on their lifetimes of research while living Secwépemc lives as well." - Leanne Hinton, University of California, Berkeley"An impressive achievement that connects lessons preserved from a 10,000-year history to ongoing land rights struggles, this comprehensive work makes valuable contributions to cross-cultural understanding while providing an excellent model for other First "... a major and unique contribution. [This] book offers a deep history of the Secwépemc across millennia through the lens of an Indigenized methodology that draws together both Secwépemc knowledge - in the forms of lived experience, oral knowledge, ontolog "A masterful and definitive story of an ancient culture that continues to thrive despite years of colonial oppression." - BC Studies"Secwépemc People, Land, and Laws will not only become known as the Secwépemc encyclopedia, it also sets the new gold standard for Indigenous scholarship. I will treasure this book as a family heirloom, but I will also be using it to teach Indigenous studies research methods and Indigenous history and to provide an aspirational example of what Indigenous community-engaged, decolonized scholarship can look like. And for this I am deeply indebted to the Ignaces for their lifetime of work." - Sarah Nickel, McColl Magazine"This text is not only impressive and powerful for the sheer depth in which it introduces and documents Secwépemc history, enduring laws, language, and relationships to land, but also in the ways in which Secwépemc voices, past and present, are represented and foregrounded throughout." Transmotion

• Note on Copyright and Intellectual Property Rights xiTables and Figures xiiiSpelling and Formatting Conventions Used in This Book xxiiiYeri´7 re sqweqwentsi´n-kt An Opening Prayer xxvAcknowledgments xxviiForeword xxxiiiBonnie LeonardColour Section Following Page 3801 YYeri´7 me7 re Scnese´ps-kucw Introduction 32 Le Q’7es te Tellqel’mu´cw The Time of the Ancient Transformers 313 Re Tsu’wet.s le Q’7es te Stete’ x7e´ms-kucw What Archaeology Tells Us about the Initial Peopling and Life of SSecwepemcu´l’ecw 73Mike K. Rousseau and Marianne Ignace4 Secwepemctsi´n The Shuswap Language 1215 Re Styecwmen u´ le’ cws-kucw How We Look(ed) after Our Land 145with Nancy J. Turner6 Le Q’ 7e´ses re Scwescwese´t.s-kucw ell re S7eykemi´n’ems-kucw Trade, Travel, and Transportation 220Marianne Ignace and Kenneth Favrholdt7 Re Stslexemúle’ cwems-kucw Secwépemc Sense of Place 2348 Re Stsqe’ yu´ le’ cwems le Stete´ x7éms-kucw The Secwépemc Nation and Its Boundaries 2609 K’wseltktenéws-kucw How We Are Relatives to One Another 31810 Re Kuku´kwpi7s-kucw ell re Tk’wenm7íple7tens Secwépemc Chiefship and Political Organization 36411 Re Tyegwyegwténs-kucw ne Tmicws Secwépemc Spirituality and How It Was Hidden in the Church 38112 Telrí7 re Semséme7 m-Neq’wcit.s te Tmicws-kucw The Unfolding of Dispossession during the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries 42513 Tse’ lílcstem re Stsqe’ ys’ -kucw The Indian Rights Movement of the Early Twentieth Century 46214 Re Stsq’ey’s-kucw Wel Me7 Yews Stories from the Past, Laws and Rights for the Future 490\qj Notes 503Bibliography 533Index 557