Hul'qumi'num Peoples in the Gulf Islands
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Hul’qumi’num Peoples in the Gulf Islands: Re-Storying the Coast Salish Landscape by Ursula Abramczyk BA Anthropology, University of Guelph, 2012 A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Anthropology Ursula Abramczyk, 2017 University of Victoria All rights reserved. This thesis may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without the permission of the author. ii Supervisory Committee Hul’qumi’num Peoples in the Gulf Islands: Re-Storying the Coast Salish Landscape by Ursula Abramczyk BA Anthropology, University of Guelph, 2012 Supervisory Committee Dr. Brian Thom, Supervisor (Department of Anthropology) Dr. Ann Stahl, Member (Department of Anthropology) iii Abstract A negotiated, cooperative co-management arrangement between six Coast Salish First Nations and Parks Canada has created an opportunity for Hul’qumi’num peoples to “re- story” a colonized landscape in the southern Gulf Islands archipelago east of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Collaborative research undertaken with the Hul’qumi’num-Gulf Islands National Park Reserve Committee is part of a long-term and practical effort to regain authorship over Central Coast Salish cultures, languages and history. In particular, this thesis seeks to challenge popular and public narratives which do not recognize Hul’qumi’num peoples’ territories and territorialities in the Gulf Islands National Park Reserve (GINPR). By tracing the processes of narrative and historical production, and with attention to how power imbues these processes (Trouillot 1995), I argue that the narrative of ephemerality whereby Hul’qumi’num peoples are thought to have “floated by” the southern Gulf Islands, but never “settling” there, emerged largely through early colonial processes and Indian land policy which reconfigured Central Coast Salish territorialities. These assumptions have been reproduced in a regional anthropological “seasonal rounds” narrative and through the language of “villages” and “seasonal camps.” Through the period of comprehensive land claims, this narrative has been reified by framing the southern Gulf Islands as the exclusive territory of First Nations’ neighbouring the Hul’qumi’num. Narratives of ephemerality and exclusivity continue to dominate the public imaginary through their reproduction in GINPR interpretive materials and in the grey literature of consulting archaeologists. These narratives are not neutral, but have implications for rights and title recognition and accommodation by the state. The perspectives of Hul’qumi’num peoples help to understand the silence in the dominant narratives by elucidating the historic and ongoing significance of specific locales in the southern Gulf Islands for Hul’qumi’num individuals, families and communities, as well as the transformative processes effecting territorial dispossession in the post-European contact period. iv Table of Contents Supervisory Committee ...................................................................................................... ii Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iii Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... iv List of Figures ................................................................................................................... vii Acknowledgments............................................................................................................ viii Chapter 1: Introduction ....................................................................................................... 1 Overview ......................................................................................................................... 1 Purpose and Rationale................................................................................................. 4 Problematic Narratives................................................................................................ 8 Research Questions ................................................................................................... 11 Background ................................................................................................................... 12 Narratives, History and Anthropology ...................................................................... 12 Creating a National Park Reserve in Unceded Coast Salish Territories ................... 16 Organization of Research and Overview of Chapters ................................................... 18 Chapter 2: Methodology ................................................................................................... 21 Documentary and Archival Research ........................................................................... 21 Interviews ...................................................................................................................... 26 Regionalist Specialist Archaeologists ....................................................................... 26 Gulf Islands National Park Reserve Personnel ......................................................... 27 Hul’qumi’num Elders and Knowledgeable Hul’qumi’num Peoples ........................ 28 Fieldwork ...................................................................................................................... 35 Transcription, Coding and Analysis ............................................................................. 39 Maps and Mapping ....................................................................................................... 40 Interview Maps ......................................................................................................... 41 Digital Atlases as Community Deliverables ............................................................. 42 Chapter 3: Narratives of Place by Hul’qumi’num Elders ................................................. 44 Oral Narratives and Hul’qumi’num Perspectives ......................................................... 47 Conceptualizing Something of a Hul’qumi’num Land Tenure Model ......................... 49 Choice spots and Other spots .................................................................................... 51 The Perceived Hul’qumi’num- W̱ SÁNEĆ Territorial Boundary at Sqthaqa’lh ....... 55 Social Relations and Kinship .................................................................................... 60 Ancestral Relations ................................................................................................... 62 The Continuity of Reciprocity and Respect in Hul’qumi’num Territorialities ......... 64 Place Names .............................................................................................................. 67 The Narrative and Discourse of Ephemerality.............................................................. 74 Houses and Homes in the Gulf Islands ..................................................................... 78 The Paradox of Mobility in Hul’qumi’num Narratives: The Great Crossing ........... 84 Colonial Land Policy and Land and Water Alienation ................................................. 90 Closing Remarks ......................................................................................................... 100 Chapter 4: Ethnographic Narratives of Central Coast Salish Territories and Territorialities ......................................................................................................................................... 102 Tracing the origin and development of the Seasonal Rounds Narrative .................... 105 Producing an Ethnographic Record of Coast Salish Peoples, Practices and Lands 105 Sociality and Social Organization in a model for Coast Salish Land Tenure ......... 108 v Silences in the Period of Colonial Entanglements with Europeans ........................ 111 The Seasonal Round and Settlement Types ................................................................ 118 Villages ................................................................................................................... 118 Camps ..................................................................................................................... 120 The Seasonal Rounds Model .................................................................................. 124 Narrative Reproduction: Ethnography in Archaeological Reports ......................... 128 Closing Remarks ......................................................................................................... 132 Chapter 5: Archaeological Narratives of Hul’qumi’numMustimuhw Territories and Territorialities ................................................................................................................. 133 A Brief Review of Culture History, Processualism and Post-Processualism in North America ....................................................................................................................... 135 A Brief Review of Settlement Archaeology and Landscape Archaeology ................. 141 Production of Archaeological Narratives of Coast Salish Peoples and the Gulf Islands ..................................................................................................................................... 144 Settlement Patterns in the Gulf of Georgia Culture History Model.......................