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Xwelíqwiya: the Life of a Stó:Lō Matriarch Rena Point Bolton and Richard Daly Xwelíqwiya

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Xwelíqwiya: the Life of a Stó:Lō Matriarch Rena Point Bolton and Richard Daly Xwelíqwiya Xwelíqwiya Our Lives: Diary, Memoir, and Letters SERIES EDITOR: JANICE DICKIN Social history contests the construction of the past as the story of elites — a grand narrative dedicated to the actions of those in power. Our Lives seeks instead to make available voices from the past that might otherwise remain unheard. By fore- grounding the experience of ordinary individuals, the series aims to demonstrate that history is ultimately the story of our lives, lives constituted in part by our response to the issues and events of the era into which we are born. Many of the voices in the series thus speak in the context of political and social events of the sort about which historians have traditionally written. What they have to say fills in the details, creating a richly varied portrait that celebrates the concrete, allowing broader historical settings to emerge between the lines. The series invites materials that are engagingly written and that contribute in some way to our understanding of the relationship between the individual and the collective. Manuscripts that include an introduction or epilogue that contextualizes the primary materials and reflects on their significance will be preferred. SERIES TITLES A Very Capable Life: The Autobiography of Zarah Petri John Leigh Walters Letters from the Lost: A Memoir of Discovery Helen Waldstein Wilkes A Woman of Valour: The Biography of Marie-Louise Bouchard Labelle Claire Trépanier Man Proposes, God Disposes: Recollections of a French Pioneer Pierre Maturié, translated by Vivien Bosley Xwelíqwiya: The Life of a Stó:lō Matriarch Rena Point Bolton and Richard Daly Xwelíqwiya The Life of a Stó:lo¯ Matriarch Rena Point Bolton and Richard Daly Copyright © 2013 Rena Point Bolton and Richard Daly Foreword © 2013 Steven Point Published by AU Press, Athabasca University 1200, 10011 – 109 Street, Edmonton, AB T5J 3S8 ISBN 978-1-927356-56-2 (print) 978-1-927356-57-9 (PDF) 978-1-927356-58-6 (epub) A volume in the series Our Lives: Diary, Memoir, and Letters 1921-6653 (print) 1921-6661 (electronic) Printed and bound in Canada by Marquis Book Printers. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Point Bolton, Rena, 1927–, author Xwelíqwiya, The life story of a Stó:lō matriarch / Rena Point Bolton and Richard Daly. (Our lives: diary, memoir, and letters series, ISSN 1921-6653 ; 5) Includes bibliographical references and index. Issued in print and electronic formats. ISBN 978-1-927356-56-2 (pbk.). — ISBN 978-1-927356-57-9 (pdf). — ISBN 978-1-927356-58-6 (epub) 1. Point Bolton, Rena, 1927–. 2. Stó:lō Indians — Biography. 3. Native artists — British Columbia — Biography. 4. Native women — British Columbia — Biography. I. Daly, Richard, 1942–, author II. Title. III. Series: Our lives : diary, memoir, and letters ; 5 E99.S72P64 2013 305.897’943 C2013-905399-9 C2013-905400-6 We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) for our publishing activities. Assistance provided by the Government of Alberta, Alberta Multimedia Develop- ment Fund. This publication is licensed under a Creative Commons licence, Attribution–Non- commercial–No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada: see www.creativecommons.org. The text may be reproduced for non-commercial purposes, provided that credit is given to the original author. To obtain permission for uses beyond those outlined in the Creative Commons licence, please contact AU Press, Athabasca University, at [email protected]. Contents * * * List of Illustrations vii Foreword ix Acknowledgements xi Map of Northern British Columbia xiv Map of Xwélmexw (Stó:lō) territory and nearby Coast Salish areas xv Introduction Richard Daly xvii 1 Born at a Very Young Age 3 First Memories 5 Hiding from Destiny 14 My Father and My Brother 10 Semá:th Lake 19 2 Xéyteleq 25 Chu’chelángen 28 After Xéyteleq: Family Ties 41 Xéyteleq’s Story 32 More Family Ties 46 3 Devil’s Run 51 Peter “Speedy” Bolan 61 Charlie Gardner 66 4 School, Work, and Marriage 69 Coqualeetza 69 Marriage and Family 84 Home for Summer 75 Child Rearing 86 Uncle Ambrose and Auntie Jean 79 Canoe Racing 97 Canneries 80 Lehál 99 5 Life of the Spirit 103 Syúwel 103 Sxwóyxwey 115 Mí’hla 106 Responsibility for the Masks 124 Spirit Guides 111 Passing on Sxwóyxwey 128 A Personal Experience 113 Burnings 131 6 Breaking the Silence 133 Weaving My Way into Political Life 133 Oliver Wells 151 Indian Homemakers 138 Revivals 154 Alliances 147 Meeting Other Activists 157 7 Moving North 165 Promoting Native Arts and Crafts 166 Life with Cliff 176 The North: New Threads 173 Baskets and Textiles 184 8 They Begin to Listen 199 Rewards 199 Xwelíqweltel and the Queen 207 Children of Mother Earth 202 Still a Long Way to Go 212 9 Life Cycles 217 When We Come Back 217 For the Young 223 Water and the Cycle of Life 221 Epilogue 227 Family Trees 231 A. Rena’s family through her mother’s second marriage 232 b. Rena’s maternal grandmother’s family 234 c. Rena’s maternal grandfather’s family 236 d. Rena’s father’s family 237 Pronunciation Guide 239 Glossary 243 Works Cited 247 Index 253 Illustrations * * * 1 Richard Daly, Rena, and Richard’s wife, Liv Mjelde, in Rena’s workroom 2 Rena at five months, with her mother 3 Rena around the age of three, in her “Kimiko” period 4 Sumas Lake, looking north 5 Surveyor’s map of Sumas Lake, ca. 1920 6 Dan Milo and his wife, Agnes Milo (née Edwin), in the 1920s 7 Th’etsimiya, Rena’s great-grandmother 8 Frank Hilaire performing with Coast Salish exhibition dancers, ca. 1912 9 A portrait of Rena’s mother’s family, ca. 1910 10 Silva family portrait, ca. 1929–30 11 A youthful Rena is a cedar bark dance costume 12 Rena and Roy Point with their first child, Tim 13 Rena’s “grandmother-in-law,” Mrs. Dan Milo 14 The children of Rena and Roy Point 15 Rena’s son Mark, wearing a Salish robe that his mother made for his graduation 16 Rena and Steven on the occasion of his graduation from law school 17 Dugout canoes created from red cedar logs, the work of Mark Point and Cliff Bolton 18 The Si:l’hiy crest, painted on a drum 19 The Si:l’hiy crest, knitted into a sweater by Rena 20 The large basket that Rena made to house the female Sxwóyxwey masks 21 The large basket, also made by Rena, that houses the male Sxwóyxwey masks vii 22 A Point family racing canoe 23 Mark Point and his wife, Brenda, with Rena 24 Wool, after the carding and spinning, that has been treated with natural dyes and hung to dry 25 Rena at her loom, weaving a Salish swó’waxw blanket 26 Two Salish robes, which Rena made for her sons 27 A Xwélmexw basket, woven of red cedar, wild cherry, and grasses 28 Family members dancing in Rena’s cedar bark costumes at Expo ’86 29 Mrs. Agnes Sutton, of the Gitxsan Nation 30 Tsimshian weaver Willy White and Rena, modelling gifts they made for each other 31 Cliff and Rena Bolton 32 Rena, during the Christmas season, in what was then the newly built log house on the Zymacord River 33 Cliff Bolton displaying one of his moon masks, made red cedar inlaid with jade and abalone shell 34 Cliff and Rena in 2010, exchanging stories over tea at the kitchen table 35 Rena working on a northern-style basket 36 Rena at work on a North Coast spruce-root basket 37 The first rows: beginning a North Coast basket 38 Rena edging a North Coast basket 39 Examples of Rena’s North Coast basketry in spruce root and cedar bark 40 North Coast spruce-root hat, interior view 41 Rena holding one of her rare Salish fish baskets, made from split cedar boughs 42 One of Rena’s Salish textiles 43 One of the traditional Salish robes that Rena wove for her sons 44 A “rattle” basket, made of spruce root 45 Producing the lid for the rattle basket 46 Rena working on a Thompson River (Nlaka’pamux) basket 47 Rena holding the Coast Salish basket that accompanied her to the British Columbia Lifetime Achievement awards 48 A marriage of two worlds: Rena beginning work on a basket at Government House, in Victoria viii Illustrations Foreword * * * I have been asked to pen a few words with regard to my mother’s book, and I am very pleased to help in this way. Any time that people put their whole life into written form I think they run the risk of misapprehen- sion and even criticism from others. Richard Daly has taken on the monumental task of listening to and recording my mother’s thoughts and memories about her life. For this I am very grateful. This book has been an ongoing project for many years, and both Richard and Rena have devoted countless hours to making this book a reality. Richard’s training in the field of anthropology, together with his self-critical attitude toward his work, lends itself very well to the task at hand. For too long, anthropologists and historians have written about Aboriginal people from a purely academic perspective, with their mind on audiences somewhere else, perhaps in Europe. This has produced some marvellous reports, but in some cases it has resulted in a one-dimensional, ethnocentric, and subjective analysis of people about whom the writer in fact knows very little. That is, such accounts simply describe the surface and not the depth of Aboriginal people’s reality. Richard Daly has chosen a much different approach, in that he spends time with the subjects of his study, attending gatherings and feasts and even residing inside their communities so that he can gain a deeper, inside perspective that later informs his written work.
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