GItxsan are a Matrilineal People

Shaneen Robinson visits with her Aunt Ardythe Wilson to learn how their clans come through the mother line. Women have always played an integral role in Gitxsan culture. They share how every person’s strengths are different and are utilized within their house groups according to their strengths.

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Transcript

Multiple Speakers [00:00:00] [cheerful electronic music] Sim gigyat, Sigidim Haanak’, K’ubawilxsihlxw. Oki, wishing you good life. Kuei! Kuei! Yo! Wik’sas. Dánet'e, negha dágǫ́ht’e.

Announcer [00:00:14] This is Words and Culture, a series on Indigenous languages funded by SiriusXM through the Community Radio Fund of Canada and distributed by Native Voice One, The Native American Radio Network. [music fades out]

Shaneen Robinson-Desjarlais [00:00:30] Sim gigyat, Sigidim Haanak’, K’ubawilxsihlxw. Tansi, Kihew Ga Ni Pawit Disinakason, Mahigan Totem. My name is Shaneen Robinson-Desjarlais and I am a member of the Gitxsan Nation of Gitanmaax, British Columbia on my mother’s side and a member of the Pimicikimak Cree Nation, Cross Lake Band of Indians, Treaty 5 territory in northern Manitoba on my Father’s side.

Ardythe Wilson, Dim Digee Buu, is an Hereditary Chief, a grandmother, knowledge keeper, author, and one of the most powerful women I know. When I was asked to host this series I knew my aunt Ardythe had to be a part of it. Since I was a child she’s always been a leader within our family and extended family. She knows our language, oral histories, traditional laws and has worked hard to ensure our way of life is protected and passed down. She is the fourth child of my grandparents’ eleven children and of course my mother’s sister.

As we’ve shared over the last few episodes, The Gitxsan are matrilineal. Our clans come through the mother line. Women have always played an integral role in our culture. As we’ve also learned every person’s strengths are different and are utilized within our house groups according to their strengths.

Growing up, I witnessed my grandparents, aunts, uncle, and mother work hard to make sure all of us children understood our way of life and the history of our territories. For our family, Auntie Ardythe was always at the forefront of the political battle.

She along with my Ye’eh, Tsogoslee, and people like Don Ryan, Hanamuux, who we heard in our last episode, were part of the group of Gitxsan and Wet'suwet'en who led the movement to what is now historically known as the Delgamuukw case. The landmark Supreme Court of Canada decision that changed the law to recognize oral histories, aboriginal rights and title, and the duty to consult.

She was one of the key representatives of our Nation during the court case. She also wrote the book, “Colonialism on Trial: Indigenous Land Rights and the Gitxsan Wet’suwet’en Sovereignty Case,” in 1991.

Auntie Ardythe lives in Gitanmaax in the house that once belonged to my Ye’eh and Zeets. That’s where I reached her to chat.

Dim Digee Buu [00:02:37] Sim gigyat, Sigidim Haanak’, k'welga 'nith K’ubawilxsihlxw. Dim Digee Buu we'h. (continues introducing self in Gitxsanimaax)

That was an introduction of me. I'm saying Chiefs, Matriarchs, and people that are being groomed. My name is Dim Digee Buu, it means To Be Like A Wolf. It's an ancient name that's been passed down in our family line, in our blood line, for many generations. And it's held by both men and women. Our names and our chieftainships are both men and women, everything passes down through the mother line for the Gitxsan. So when you're born, you're born into your mother's house. You're born into your mother's clan, and your mother’s, mother’s, mother were all born all the way into the mists of time.

Shaneen Robinson-Desjarlais [00:03:45] (narrating) I asked Auntie Ardythe how she thinks Gitxsanimaax plays a role in the preservation of our culture.

Dim Digee Buu [00:03:51] The language begins and is created and it evolves around the place that you live in, your geography. So when you talk about Gitxsan people on our Lax’Yip, our territories, we're talking about time out of memory. So we're talking about generations and generations of Gitxsan people who have flourished, not just lived, but have flourish in Lax’Yip, Gitxsan Lax’Yip.

We can probably trace, archeologically and other fields of science, we can trace our existence on our territories to at least 15,000 years ago, even as the last ice melted from the last ice age.

So that's a fairly long time ago. And then when you take a look at British Columbia, as compared to other parts of Canada, you have a really diverse number of Nations of people. And they're very distinct in their geography, they are very distinct in their demography, they're very distinct in their languages. And probably where they're more common is in the practices of living and their existence.

So when we look at language and how important it is for anything that we do, every aspect of our life is impacted and I think is anchored by the knowledge of and the speaking of your language. I think it's that important.

For the Gitxsan, I think that – we were fortunate in that we were one of the last Indigenous Nations to experience European contact.

And in fact, it was probably around the early 1800s that the first white settlers started emerging onto our territories. Not that we didn't know about them and not that we didn’t have a lot of their goods that we acquired by trade. So we knew a lot about them, but in terms of direct contact, we were fortunate in that the contact was – we were one of the last Nations to be in contact here.

As such, a lot more of our language was protected. A lot of our way of life, our way of being was almost uninterrupted.

However, I think that the one disadvantage we had was that we're a small Nation of people. And so when your language starts to be impacted and when your Lax’Yip, your territory, start to be impacted, it affects all your way of being.

We are oral societies. Most Indigenous Nations around the world are oral societies and you transfer knowledge, you transfer your way of life through your language. Especially when you took – look at the generations of people and the roles that men, women, and other genders in our societies played in the transference of knowledge. Transference about ways of being, practices, customs, et cetera.

The transference of knowledge or ability to adapt to the times is because of language. Everything is language driven. When you take a look at the directed policies of the governments, one of the ways they try to destroy and restrict who we are and our place on this Earth was by attempting to remove language and to remove children from the family fold. Because that's where the strength of our Nations are. And so when you take a look at those policies, that's what they attacked.

The whole child welfare system is another one of those policies and programs designed to separate the child from the family. And, you know, in our languages, we don't have words that say child and family in the context of how it's used in this day and age. Because the underlying premise of that is that the child is removed from the family and taken care of outside of the family.

Well, Indigenous cultures don't have that. A child is very centered in its family – into their family, they're very centered.

And so when we look at wellbeing, again, it’s the protection of that is based on our language, our identity, our roots. And there's no other way of transferring that knowledge other than by your language. So when there's an attempt to destroy the language or take it away, steal it, and not, you know, outlaw it, that really impacts our people.

Shaneen Robinson-Desjarlais [00:09:00] (narrating) As a mother of three sons, this makes me feel sad and a bit overwhelmed. Not only does my clan not carry on to my grandchildren, because I have no daughters, but having lost my language, I have no way of passing the intricate teachings down. Also, growing up in a different province I didn’t have as much time on the land as my relatives have which limits my land-based knowledge.

In previous episodes, our guests talked about the systems of government, our house groups.

Dim Digee Buu [00:09:28] Our system of governance, the creation of our governing system, which is based on clanship, but also within the clans you have different house groups and each of the house groups have one common female ancestor. Since time immemorial. One common female ancestor and that's how generation after generation the Gitxsan way of being is transferred.

Each of the house groups also have a corresponding territory that maintains and protects future generations. It sustains them. This is where your treasure box is. This is were your food seller is. This is, you know, where you have resources to build your homes, to make your clothing, to feed your family. And so all of the systems that we have, we have laws, ancient laws we call adaawk that governs the human movement.

So that the resources don't get harmed or damaged or extinguished for the benefit of the future generations. That's why laws existed. And when we talk about laws, they're very fundamental, basic laws. They're not wordy and like the white man's system right now. You know, you have one law and then you go on and on and on and on, pages, pages, pages, pages.

You know, our adaawk was fairly simple. So for example, you know that one of the laws is that you inherit through the mother line, you descend through the Mother line. That's a law.

And that's a law that helped us to create our society. And each of those house groups follow, you know, fundamental law.

And where changes just like any other – we're dynamic, we're not frozen in time, you know, and with each generation there comes new things to consider, new things that impact your well-being. Whether it be like, let's say forest fires, an earthquake, raids happening. Where your neighbor, territorial, and tribal neighbors come in for whatever – try to change the boundaries of their land. So there's war that happens.

There's customary practices that people follow even when doing that. And all that is transferred – that knowledge is transferred with the use of your language.

You had the knowledge because people were always interacting within the house, right? You had – you’re regularly holding feasts, people dying, people marrying, people getting divorced. That required you to come and do certain things and the business had to be done publicly.

So there were checks and balances to the business to make sure that we were following our own laws. And so when business was conducted, the final step in doing that business is to have publicly demonstrate to the other people in your village, the other clans, that you did this work properly. So that's when we have our feasts.

You always know as a house group what your responsibilities are to your land, what responsibilities you have to your resources, what responsibilities do you have to your Chiefs within your house. You had a responsibility in – for women. 

You knew what your responsibility was for all the people in the house. So people always were aware of that responsibility. So there were special people with special knowledge, for example, in the house, there were some people who were the genealogists. There was some people who were the historians, there were some people who were the pharmacists, there were some people who were doctors, there were some people who were midwives.

So all those existed within our culture. We were no different from any other nation of the world. So we all had our specialized knowledge but we had general knowledge as well.

Where that interruption started to happen was as a result of the Indian day school – or the Indian, not – the residential schools and the Indian day school later on. But for the residential school, there was a disruption and interruption on the transfer of knowledge and language breakdown. Because a lot of the children were beat for trying to speak their language when they were in residential school, as well as at Indian day schools run by churches in their communities.

So even though they just went during the day, they still were beat if they used their language.

The knowledge – I think that some of the things that I'm thankful for is that some people started recording their history in their languages but only their families knew about it. And rightly so because there was an attack on our languages. So when people went underground, they started to protect their knowledge.

When you have a breakdown of communication, you start to have a breakdown in your community. You have – you start to have a breakdown in your family, and you have to – you start a breakdown in your culture.

And that's what's happening with the Gitxsan now. We're really feeling the effects now of – and I think even with COVID, also, was both a curse and a blessing to us. Because one of the things that we did, because we're public people and because we have to validate our business in public, not having public gatherings for feasts to finish our business really impacted a lot of our people here.

So the transference of knowledge got interrupted again. Thankfully, some people continue to do it outside in their backyards rather than going into our feast houses. So we were able to do that – some of that.

Shaneen Robinson-Desjarlais [00:15:39] I was talking to Dr. Smith today and she was telling me the numbers and, within 40-50 years, we have the potential to lose our language, and only have 3% fluent speakers. Tell me, as a grandmother, as a Hereditary Chief, what your hope is for our people and our language and our culture.

Dim Digee Buu [00:16:01] Well, my hope and a lot of my efforts now go to trying to protect and to stop the loss of language, protect what we've got, and to start enhancing it by using it. Throughout my life I lived and fought for our right to be recognized as Gitxsan people within our own lands and the right to make decisions for ourselves.

One of the factors we saw that blocked that was the health and wellbeing of our people. Because of the policies of extinguishment and, you know, all those – I can't even remember all those different policies right now. But, you know, discrimination, extinguishment. It – you know, they tried to erase who we were. Many of my younger years, I was fighting for our rights, you know, fishing rights, hunting rights, rights to access, right to make decisions on our resources, the right to protect our families, all that.

And then later on, I recognized that there was a – one of the things that stopped us from being able to do that was the sad state of the health and wellbeing of our people.

So the next effort, well, “What do we do about that? How can we deal with that?” So a lot of effort was made into trying to deal with that and by no means is it even – have we even scratched the surface on that.

So for IRS, for example, it just destroyed families. Like, I did some work on trying to address the impacts of families and intergenerational trauma in our communities after – and we had to look – we, I mean, their policy said, “Oh, we had to at white therapists coming in and working with our people.”

And our people just had no trust for any kind of authority by this time. And so that wasn't going to work. So when we got what little money we could at, you know – we started to look at developing family healing plans because every aspect of you as a family was impacted by tearing kids away from their families, sending them off to residential school.

And so then addictions moved in because of the deep sorrow and the deep trauma that children, parents, grandparents, and Aunties, and uncles experienced with the loss of generations of their children. And so I think a little headway has been made in terms of dealing with the addictions.

And the most critical one, of course, that we see making a difference is land-based activity. Going back to the land, using the language, reviving your ways of being. So that was one of the things that we looked at. And then we recognized, you know, how critically threatened we were at the loss of language.

And so now in these past few years, I've been concentrating on activity that will help to enhance that. So one of the last – things I did a few years ago was to – I was pulled in to be on advisory and we ended up developing a curriculum for the first Indigenous immersion programs in public schools here in Gitxsan territory. We developed a K-to-4 curriculum for Gitxsan immersion.

The only immersion classes they have anywhere in BC is French, really. And that's what gets resource. But there was nothing for Gitxsanimaax. We had Gitxsan classes, but we didn't have immersion programs. So we actually developed a curriculum for that. And I was pretty happy about that.

So we're starting off like nursery school, you know, Head Start. And yeah, and that level – and then kindergarten to grade four. And so we didn't just correct – develop the curriculum. We had to really speak to the system and the structures that would support that.

So for example, you know, we – they said, “Well, how do you grade people, you know, from – you know that they're meeting these grade one, two, three objectives?”

And we said, “Well, you can't do that because that's not the Gitxsan way.” So we had to look at how do we evaluate the success of those programs. And so you have to follow your own way of being to do that because that's how we taught our children all the time. So it's not anything new for us.

And then the other thing that I'm also involved in, which is really close to my heart, is working with – and I hate the use, but I'll use it because that what's commonly used now, “Child and Family.” And thankfully, the last group I'm working with here, I convinced them to eliminate that term of, “Child and Family,” and just deal with Family Services because that's what it is.

We have to look at the whole family if we're looking at prevention. And so how do we do that using the Gitxsan way? So we've developed our program called Wila Dildilsdi’m, The Way We Live. Under that program, we've developed a whole bunch of other initiatives that use the language more and more and more, and are active in the community.

So I see people now easily saying, “Oh, Wila Dildilsdi’m,” and not even recognizing that they're already enhancing their use of the language.

Dr. Smith, when she creates these songs that people sing, you know, people are taking that and they're able to sing that song and they are not as uncomfortable or hesitant or shy to do that because it's in song and it's a rhythm, right?

So those types of initiatives are – I'm really excited about. So there's more of that happening. I see that the Western Gitxsan villages of Gitsegukla, Gitwangak, and Gitanyow, they've got a high school that probably be opening up in September this year.

And I'm really excited to kind of see and stay on top of how they're developing their programs. Because it's more in line with how our children were taught than, you know, like, the provincial curriculum that really hasn’t done anything for our children too much. And yet it's still high academic achievements, right?

And I think that we have to quit judging our people. I remember there were a few years back, some of the older people, “Oh, that's not how you say it.” Or, “Everybody has their own way of spelling.” And said, “It doesn't matter. So long as they can speak it, then we should be supporting it.”

And that's basically where I'm at. I think every word that you learn, every sentence that you could put together is an achievement for all of us as Gitxsan people. So regardless of where we live, which includes you – you've got little ones there. They should be guided by all their grannies and their Aunties and speaking the language.

So that's my dream. That's what my vision is. I envision that happening. That the families once again are grooming their young ones to take on the responsibilities of looking after their land, looking after their resources properly, looking after themselves properly, living a good and healthy life. And just being a really successful, thriving person in this world. And there's nothing that's stopping us from that except ourselves. Economically, socially, culturally, we've got all that.

And I think that with COVID, at least, the good thing about COVID, I just want to say is that, yeah, we became isolated, but during that time, in that isolation, a lot of our young were unable to deny the gifts they were carrying. And they started to acknowledge them and started to use their gifts.

And it started the young ones asking about their language. And to me, I saw that as a real plus. “Yay, we've got people who are interested in language.” Now everybody wants to learn the language. And to me, that's a plus. And so how do we do that? And yet I just talked to another Elder last night. She says, “There's much I wanna do.” And she's, like, in her 80s now. She says, “I'm running out of time and there's still stuff that I wanna do that I haven't done yet.”

So that's where we're at in our later years, right? I mean, who would have thought way back when, when we were fighting on Delgamuukw, that I would be sitting here and worrying about how many years I have left to do what I want to do.

Shaneen Robinson-Desjarlais [00:25:10] Is there any final thoughts that you want to leave with the listeners today?

Dim Digee Buu [00:25:14] Well, with all the craziness going around in this world around us, right? It's like, it's just really crazy. There's a lot of denialism that's taking place, denialism about who we are, the detrimental policies that have been put into place to try and eliminate us or, you know, restrict us. I think that the one thing that they haven't taken away and that we have continued to survive, not because of, but in spite of all those policies and all those attempts to erase who we are.

The reason why we were able to do that was because we knew our history. So whether you know your history in English now or French or whatever, that's fine. But you need to learn your language in order to give the right flavor and the right context to those oral histories.

Learn your language. One word at a time, one sentence at a time, one speech at a time. Do it. Don't be shy. I’ve finally come to understand what some of our people said as one of the weaknesses of our people was being shy.

Don't Be Shy. Say those words. People will try and make fun of you, people will try to judge you. Say the words. Speak your words. Use your voice to protect your own history and your culture, your identity and your wellbeing, and your place in this world.

Shaneen Robinson-Desjarlais [00:26:54] (narrating) Despite not being a language speaker, this project and the teachings that have been shared have given me hope that I can still learn the ancient ways of my people. And I truly believe I will also be able to instill the pride I feel into my sons and my future grandchildren.

For Words and Culture, the Gitxsan episodes, I’m Shaneen Robinson-Desjarlais. Remember to follow us on socials. Just search Words and Culture. Also check out our website for more episodes on different languages, like Cree!

Until next week, hamiyaa for listening.

Announcer [00:27:26] [cheerful electronic music] Words and Culture is made possible with funding from SiriusXM, through the Community Radio Fund of Canada. It is distributed through Native Voice One, The Native American Radio Network. Words and Culture is produced by Kim Wheeler. Kaylen Belair is our audio engineer and editor.

Multiple Speakers [00:27:45] Hamiyaa. Yammi! K’achu naohdá nǫ́. Halakas'la. Kitakitamaatsinyo’pau, we’ll see you later. [music fades out]