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MAKÚK lutz1.p65 1 3/20/2008, 4:14 PM lutz1.p65 2 3/20/2008, 4:14 PM John Sutton Lutz MAKÚK A New History of Aboriginal-White Relations lutz1.p65 3 3/20/2008, 4:14 PM © UBC Press 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission of the publisher, or, in Canada, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright (Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency), www.accesscopyright.ca. 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in Canada on acid-free paper Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Lutz, John S. (John Sutton), 1959- Makúk: a new history of Aboriginal-white relations / John Sutton Lutz. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7748-1139-2 1. Whites – British Columbia – Relations with Indians – History. 2. Indians of North America – British Columbia – Economic conditions. 3. Indians of North America – Employment – British Columbia – History. 4. Indians of North America – Commerce – British Columbia – History. 5. Indians of North America – Canada – Government relations. 6. British Columbia – Ethnic relations. I. Title. E78.C2L88 2008 971.1004’97 C2008-900642-9 UBC Press gratefully acknowledges the financial support for our publishing program of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP), and of the Canada Council for the Arts, and the British Columbia Arts Council. This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and with the support of the Faculty of Humanities, University of Victoria. UBC Press The University of British Columbia 2029 West Mall Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2 604-822-5959 / Fax: 604-822-6083 www.ubcpress.ca lutz1.p65 4 3/20/2008, 4:14 PM Contents Maps, Figures, and Tables / vi Preface: Makúk / ix 1 Introduction: Molasses Stick Legs / 3 2 Pomo Wawa: The Other Jargon / 15 3 Making the Lazy Indian / 31 4 The Lekwungen / 49 5 The Tsilhqot’in / 119 6 Outside History: Labourers of the Aboriginal Province / 163 7 The White Problem / 233 8 Prestige to Welfare: Remaking the Moditional Economy / 257 9 Conclusion: The Outer Edge of Probability, 1970-2007 / 275 Postscript: Subordination without Subjugation / 301 Appendices / 309 Notes / 319 Bibliography / 380 Acknowledgments / 402 Credits / 405 Index / 420 lutz1.p65 5 3/20/2008, 4:14 PM lutz1.p65 6 3/20/2008, 4:14 PM Maps, Figures, and Tables Maps Tables 1.1 Aboriginal British Columbia / 5 4.1 Lekwungen occupations for men and women 4.1 Straits territories / 51 (aged 15-65), 1891 / 98 4.2 Territories of the Lekwungen / 53 5.1 Food fishery salmon caught in the Williams 4.3 Lekwungen (Songhees) reserves and Lake Indian Agency/Quesnel Fisheries District, City of Vancouver boundaries / 101 1933-47 / 152 5.1 Tsilhqot’in territory (contemporary) / 121 6.1 Aboriginal and non-aboriginal population 5.2 Tsilhqot’in territory (historical) / 124 estimates for British Columbia, 1835-1901 / 166 5.3 Geography of the Chilcotin War / 134 6.2 Average rates of pay for various professions in 6.1 British Columbia place names, 1845-85 / 164 British Columbia, 1860-90 / 188 6.2 Origins of aboriginal mill workers, 1870s, 6.3 Working-age aboriginal population (aged Port Gamble, Puget Sound / 183 16-64) in British Columbia, 1880-1959 / 196 6.3 Origins of aboriginal hop pickers, 1926, 6.4 Relative importance of sources of income (%) Fraser Valley / 213 for Aboriginal People in British Columbia for selected years, 1900-54 / 209 Figures 6.5 Aboriginal People employed in BC industries 4.1 Songhees band population, 1850-1967 / 97 (excluding fishing, trapping, and agriculture), 6.1 Number of aboriginal coal miners in Nanaimo 1940-45 / 228 mines, 1875-88 / 173 6.6 Occupations of Aboriginal People, 1931-61 / 231 6.2 Number and income of Aboriginal People in the A.1 Paid and subsistence work described in auto- BC sealing industry, 1882-1911 / 200 ethnographic sources / 313 6.3 Value of fur trapped in British Columbia, 1923-70, and Registered Indian income from trapping, 1923-46 / 202 6.4 Number of BC coastal canneries, 1881-1959 / 205 6.5 Aboriginal cannery workers employed in Anglo- British Columbia Packing Company, selected years, 1910-60 / 207 6.6 Number and percentage of fishing licences and boats held by Aboriginal People, selected years, 1922-73 / 208 6.7 Income of BC Aboriginal People, 1898-1945 / 210 lutz1.p65 7 3/20/2008, 4:14 PM lutz1.p65 8 3/20/2008, 4:14 PM Preface: Makúk Makúk may well have been the first word exchanged by Aboriginal and The Moment we landed I sent some European peoples on North America’s Northwest Coast. James Cook, the [men] to cut grass not thinking that the first European visitor to land on what is now British Columbia, heard it Natives could or would have the least objection, but it proved otherways for even before he dropped anchor. The Mowachaht, whom the British ex- the Moment our people began to cut plorer met at what is now known as Yuquot on Nootka Island, used the they stopped them and told them they word makúk to attempt to convey several messages. must Makook for it, that is first buy it. First and foremost, makúk meant “let’s trade.” The Mowachaht were Captain James Cook, Friendly Cove, 1778 keen to exchange their furs and other items for the metal goods Cook carried with him. Second, the word implied that the Mowachaht would not be intimidated by the well-armed white men into giving even so much as their grass away. Finally, in using the word makúk the Mowachaht were offering Cook and his crew their first lesson in a language of intercultural communication. Yuquot, which Cook and later Europeans called Nootka, or Friendly Cove, thanks to the welcome they received there, became the centre for European trade on the Northwest Coast of North America from 1778 to the late 1790s. Every trading vessel stopped there, and the Spanish estab- lished a settlement there. Beginning with makúk, the Mowachaht, along with their Nuu-chah-nulth relatives along the west coast of Vancouver Island and Cape Flattery to the south, taught the Europeans a basic trading vo- Captain James Cook cabulary. When trade shifted to the territory of the Chinook people at the mouth of the Columbia River after 1800, the traders took this simple jar- gon with them. Yuquot and the Chinook villages at the mouth of the Columbia were already established trade centres when Europeans arrived. The Chinook added the “Nootka Jargon” to their own trading jargon, which they then taught to other foreign traders.1 This Chinook “jargon,” or wawa (to dis- tinguish it from the language spoken by the Chinook people), then spread to other aboriginal groups via the fur traders. English and French words Maquinna, Chief of the for introduced items were added to the language (e.g., polallie, from the Mowachaht voyageur French “pouderie,” for powder; lahache, for axe; and lum, for ᮤ Cook’s crew exchanging items with rum.) The jargon spread northward and eastward so that, by the late 1880s, the Mowachaht, 1778 (see p. xii) lutz1.p65 9 3/20/2008, 4:14 PM x preface I’ve Begun a Vocabulary the anthropologist Franz Boas was among many to remark that it would be 2 I have begun making a vocabulary of impossible to get around British Columbia without it. the Chenooke gibberish, by which we This “rough-edged tongue with the whiff of commerce about it,” as communicate with the Indians – it is a poet Gary Geddes described it, was born of exchange, at the crossroads of vile compound of English, French, cultures, where novel experiences arise and new language is needed. Sites American & the Chenooke dialect. of exchange and translation of languages also become sites of transforma- William Fraser Tolmie, The Journals of William Fraser Tolmie, June 25, 1833 tion: just the places where the “Trickster” gets involved. In the European tradition, the ancient Greeks attributed the invention of language to Hermes – the Trickster in their pantheon of gods. Plato thought that spoken lan- guage was itself a byproduct of bargaining between peoples. On North America’s Northwest Coast, a story from the Nuxalk people tells us the Creator thought one language would be enough for all peoples, but Raven (the Trickster), made many languages in order to have more sport in the spaces of misunderstanding.3 Certainly, the Trickster was at work in Chinook jargon. The Nuu-chah-nulth word makúk (makook, mahkook, ma-kuk, maá- kuk) was central to this trading jargon. It means “to exchange” – in all possible ways. The expression náika tík-a makúk kiúu-ten translates not only as “I want to buy that horse” but also as “I want to sell that horse” and “I want to trade that horse.” In response, a potential trading partner might reply: Kloshe, which generally means “good” but has forty-five other mean- ings, including “graceful” and “useful.” The buyer-seller might then say, Maika skookum, but since skookum means both “strong” and “demon,” he Chinook Dictionary or she could be saying “he (the horse) is strong” or “he is a demon.” Words Now, if the learner will just turn to ... and phrases that sound alike also caused confusion. Naika weght chako maika, “Makook” – “Buy” which also signifies sounds very much like Naika wake chako maika, but the former means “I “Sell, etc” this tending to puzzle the will come to you tomorrow” and the latter “I will not come to you.” person who understands it only in one sense when hears it used by an Indian To make the language simple, but also more confusing, there are no [meaning?] quite opposite.
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