Áwaahl

The Two Sisters - THE LIONS

2013-03-02T19:42:00.000-08:00

Twin Sisters

YOU can see them as you look towards the north and the west, where the dream hills swim into the sky amid their ever-drifting clouds of pearl and grey.

They catch the earliest hint of sunrise, they hold the last color of sunset. Twin mountains they are, lifting their twin peaks above the fairest city in all Canada, and known throughout the British Empire as "The Lions of Vancouver."

Sometimes the smoke of forest fires blurs them until they gleam like opals in a purple atmosphere, too beautiful for words to paint.

Sometimes the slanting rains festoon scarfs of mist about their crests, and the peaks fade into shadowy outlines, melting, melting, for-ever melting into the distances. But for most days in the year the sun circles the twin glories with a sweep of gold. The moon washes them with a torrent of silver.

Often-times, when the city is shrouded in rain, the sun yellows their snows to a deep orange, but through sun and shadow they stand immovable, smiling westward above the waters of the restless Pacific, eastward above the superb beauty of the Capilano Canyon. But the Indian tribes do not know these peaks as "The Lions."

Even the Chief, whose feet have so recently wandered to the Happy Hunting Grounds, never heard the name given them until I mentioned it to him one dreamy August day, as together we followed the trail leading to the canyon. He seemed so surprised at the name that I mentioned the reason it had been applied to them, asking him if he recalled the Landseer Lions in Trafalgar Square. Yes, he remembered those splendid sculptures, and his quick eye saw the resemblance instantly. It appeared to please him, and his fine face expressed the haunting memories of the far-away roar of Old London.

But the "call of the blood" was stronger, and presently he referred to the Indian legend of those peaks a legend that I have reason to believe is absolutely unknown to thousands of Palefaces who look upon "The Lions" daily, without the love for them that is in the Indian heart; without knowledge of the secret of "The Two Sisters."

The legend was far more fascinating as it left his lips in the quaint broken English that is never so dulcet as when it slips from an Indian tongue. His inimitable gestures, strong, graceful, comprehensive, were like a perfectly chosen frame embracing a delicate painting, and his brooding eyes were as the light in which the picture hung.

"Many thousands of years ago," he began, "there were no twin peaks like sentinels guarding the outposts of this sunset coast. They were placed there long after the first creation, when the Sagalie Tyee moulded the mountains, and patterned the mighty rivers where the salmon run, because of His love for His Indian children, and His Wisdom for their necessities.

In those times there were many and mighty Indian tribes along the Pacific in the mountain ranges, at the shores and sources of the great Fraser River. Indian law ruled the land. Indian customs prevailed. Indian beliefs were regarded. Those were the legend-making ages when great things occurred to make the traditions we repeat to our children today.

Perhaps the greatest of these traditions is the story of 'The Two Sisters,' for they are known to us as 'The Chief's Daughters,' and to them we owe the Great Peace in which we live, and have lived for many countless moons. There is an ancient custom amongst the Coast tribes that when our daughters step from childhood into the great world of womanhood the occasion must be made one of extreme rejoicing.

The being who possesses the possibility of some day mothering a man child, a warrior, a brave, receives much consideration in most nations, but to us, the Sunset Tribes, she is honored above all people. The parents usually give a great potlatch, and a feast that lasts many days. The entire tribe and the surrounding tribes are bidden to this festival.

More than that, sometimes when a great Tyee celebrates for his daughter, the tribes from far up the coast, from the distant north, from inland, from the island, from the Cariboo country, are gathered as guests to the feast.

During these days of rejoicing, the girl is placed in a high seat, an exalted position, for is she not marriageable? And does not marriage mean motherhood? And does not motherhood mean a vaster nation of brave sons and of gentle daughters, who, in their turn, will give us sons and daughters of their own?

"But it was many thousands of years ago that a great Tyee had two daughters that grew to womanhood at the same springtime, when the first great run of salmon thronged the rivers, and the ollallie bushes were heavy with blossoms. These two daughters were young, lovable, and oh! very beautiful.

Their father, the great Tyee, prepared to make a feast such as the Coast had never seen. There were to be days and days of rejoicing, the people were to come for many leagues, were to bring gifts to the girls and to receive gifts of great value from the Chief, and hospitality was to reign as long as pleasuring feet could dance, and enjoying lips could laugh, and mouths partake of the excellence of the Chief's fish, game and ollallies.

"The only shadow on the joy of it all was war, for the tribe of the great Tyee was at war with the Upper Coast Indians, those who lived north, near what is named by the Pale-face as the port of Prince Rupert. Giant war canoes slipped along the entire coast, war parties paddled up and down, war songs broke the silences of the nights, hatred, vengeance, strife, horror festered everywhere like sores on the surface of the earth.

But the great Tyee, after warring for weeks, turned and laughed at the battle and the bloodshed, for he had been victor in every encounter, and he could well afford to leave the strife for a brief week and feast in his daughters' honor, nor permit any mere enemy to come between him and the traditions of his race and household.

So he turned insultingly deaf ears to their war cries; he ignored with arrogant indifference their paddle dips that encroached within his own coast waters, and he prepared, as a great Tyee should, to royally entertain his tribesmen in honor of his daughters. But seven suns before the great feast these two maidens came before him, hand clasped in hand.

'Oh ! our father,' they said, 'may we speak?'

'Speak, my daughters, my girls with the eyes of April, the hearts of June' (early spring and early summer would be the more accurate Indian phrasing).

'Some day, Oh ! our father, we may mother a man child, who may grow to be just such a powerful Tyee as you are, and for this honor that may some day be ours we have come to crave a favor of you you, Oh! our father.'

'It is your privilege at this celebration to receive any favor your hearts may wish,' he replied graciously, placing his fingers beneath their girlish chins. 'The favor is yours before you ask it, my daughters.'

'Will you, for our sakes, invite the great northern hostile tribe the tribe you war upon to this, our feast?' they asked fearlessly.

'To a peaceful feast, a feast in the honor of women?' he exclaimed incredulously.

'So we would desire it,' they answered.

'And so shall it be,' he declared. 'I can deny you nothing this day, and some time you may bear sons to bless this peace you have asked, and to bless their mother's sire for granting it.' Then he turned to all the young men of the tribe and commanded, 'Build fires at sunset on all the coast headlands fires of welcome. Man your canoes and face the north, greet the enemy, and tell them that I, the Tyee of the Capilanos, ask no, command that they join me for a great feast in honor of my two daughters.'

And when the northern tribes got this invitation they flocked down the coast to this feast of a Great Peace. They brought their women and their children: they brought game and fish, gold and white stone beads, baskets and carven ladles, and wonderful woven blankets to lay at the feet of their now acknowledged ruler, the great Tyee.

And he, in turn, gave such a potlatch that nothing but tradition can vie with it. There were long, glad days of joyousness, long pleasurable nights of dancing and camp fires, and vast quantities of food.

The war canoes were emptied of their deadly weapons and filled with the daily catch of salmon. The hostile war songs ceased, and in their place were heard the soft shuffle of dancing feet, the singing voices of women, the play-games of the children of two powerful tribes which had been until now ancient enemies, for a great and lasting brotherhood was sealed between them their war songs were ended forever.

"Then the Sagalie Tyee smiled on His Indian children: 'I will make these young-eyed maidens immortal,' He said. In the cup of His hands He lifted the Chief's two daughters and set them forever in a high place, for they had borne two offspring Peace and Brotherhood each of which is now a great Tyee ruling this land.

"And on the mountain crest the Chief's daughters can be seen wrapped in the suns, the snows, the stars of all seasons, for they have stood in this high place for thousands of years, and will stand for thousands of years to come, guarding the peace of the Pacific Coast and the quiet of the Capilano Canyon."

This is the Indian legend of "The Lions of Vancouver" as I had it from one who will tell me no more the traditions of his people.

Johnson, Pauline - "Legends of Vancouver", 1906

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"The Sisters"
The Indigenous Peoples Sḵwxwú7mesh ("Squamish") named these two prominent peaks "Ch'ich'iyúy Elxwíkn" (translates as 'Twin Sisters'). These mountains remain sacred for their legal marker of a Peace Treaty, family lineage histories, and spiritual value.

The two peaks were transformed by the Sky Brothers, or Transformers, after twin sisters that had married with Haida twins created the path for the war to end between the Sḵwxwú7mesh and Haida. The families that made the Peace Treaty and married together still live in the Sḵwxwú7mesh and Haida Nations.

Chapter 24 Application

2013-01-15T08:14:00.004-08:00

We, the undersigned, Alaskan Natives of Hydaburg, Alaska, hereby declar that we have given up our old tribal relationships; that we recognize no chief of clan or tribal family; that we have given up all claim to or interest in tribal and communal houses; that we live in one family houses in accordance with the customs of civilization; that we observe the marriage laws of the United States; that our children take the name of the father and belong equally to the father and mother, and that the rights of the maternal uncle to direct the children are no longer recognized and that in the case of the death of either parent we recognize the laws of the United States relative to inheritance of property; that we have discarded the totem and recognize the Stars and Stripes as our only emblem; and that we are a self-supporting and law abiding people.

We therefore believe that we have fulfilled all requirements necessary to citizenship in the United States, and we respectfully request the Congress of the United States to pass a law granting to us the full rights of citizenship.

1920

Scanned copy of original document:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/60450845/Chapter24Application.pdf

See also:
An Act - to define and establish the political status of Native Indians

Chapter 24 -- An Act

2013-01-15T07:50:00.003-08:00

CHAPTER 24

Page 52

AN ACT

(Ch. 24)

To define and establish the political status of certain

Native Indians within the Territory of Alaska.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE TERRITORY OF ALASKA

Native Indians, citizens under provisions of Sec. 6, Ch. 119

Section 1. Every native Indian born within the limits of the Territory of Alaska, and who has severed all tribal relationship and adopted the habits of a civilized life in accordance with Section Six (6), Chapter One hundred and nineteen (119), may, after the passage and approval of this act, have the fact of his citizenship definitely established by complying with the terms hereafter set forth.

Section 2. Every native Indian of the Territory of Alaska who shall desire a certificate of his citizenship shall make application to a United States Government, Territorial or municipal school, and shall be subject to an examination by a majority of the teachers of such school as to his or her qualifications and claims for citizenship. Such examination shall broadly cover the general qualifications of the applicant as to an intelligent exercise of the obligations of suffrage, a total abandonment of any tribal custom or relationship, and the facts regarding the applicant’s adoption of the habits of a civilized life.

Section 3. Any native Indian of the Territory of Alaska who shall obtain a certificate in accordance with Section Two (2) of this act, which certificate shall set forth that a proper examination has been duly held and the applicant found to have abandoned all tribal customs and relationship, to have adopted the ways and habits of a civilized life and to be properly qualified to intelligently exercise the obligation of an elector in the Territory of Alaska, shall thereupon obtain an endorsement upon said certificate by at least five white citizens of the United States who have been permanent residents of Alaska for at least one year, who were not members of the examining board as provided in Section 2. to the effect that such citizens have been personally acquainted with the life and habits of such Indian for a period of at least one year and that in their best judgment such Indian has abandoned all tribal customs and relationship, has adopted the ways and habits of a civilized life, and is duly qualified to exercise the rights, privileges and oblibations of citizenship.

Application to District Court

Section 4. Upon securing such certificate as provided by sections two (2) and three (3) of this act properly signed in ink, the applicant shall forward the same together with an oath duly acknowledged to the effect that such applicant forever renounces all trible customs and relationships, to the United States District Court for the Division in which the applicant resides praying for the granting of a certificate or citizenship.

Hearing

Section 5. Upon receiving such application the Judge of the District Court shall set a day of hearing on such application which shall not be less than sixty (60) days from the date of receipt of such application, whereupon the Clerk of the District Court shall post a notice in his office containing the name of the applicant and the facts set forth in his application, and the date set for the hearing upon the application, and shall immediately forward a copy of such notice to the applicant, whereupon the applicant shall post such notice or a copy thereof in a conspicuous place at the Post Office nearest to his or her residence.

Final Certificate.

Section 6. Upon approval of such application by the Judge of the United States District Court for the Division in which the applicant resides, the said Judge shall issue a certificate, certifying that due proof has been made to him that the said applicant is "an Indian born with the Territorial limits of the United States, and that he has voluntarily taken up, within limits, his residence separate and apart from any tribe of Indians therein, and has adopted the habits of civilized life." Said certificate, when presented in court or otherwise, shall be taken and considered as prima facie evidence of the truth of the statement therein contained.

Approved, April 27, 1915

Scanned copy of original document
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/60450845/AnAct.pdf

Applicants for Citizenship re: Chapter 24
http://haidagwaiihistory.blogspot.ca/2013/01/chapter-24-application.html

See also:
Native Indians born in Canada, re: Jay Treaty (PDF)

Yaaguun Gandlaay

2012-07-13T13:58:00.004-07:00

Tlall

2012-07-13T13:58:00.003-07:00

K’uuna Gwaay

2012-07-13T13:58:00.002-07:00

Nung Xaldangaas

2012-07-13T13:58:00.001-07:00

SGaayTaw Siiwaay K’adjuu

2012-07-13T13:58:00.000-07:00

KunXalas

2012-07-13T13:57:00.002-07:00

Kamdis

2012-07-13T13:57:00.001-07:00

Duuguusd

2012-07-13T13:57:00.000-07:00

Damaxyaa

2012-07-13T13:56:00.002-07:00

Haida Heritage Site / Conservancy

Daawuuxusda

2012-07-13T13:55:00.000-07:00

Map Preview File Size: 1.1 MB

DNA study illuminates Haida History

2012-06-01T06:59:00.000-07:00

Penn and Genographic Project scientists illuminate the ancient history of circumarctic peoples
Published: Thursday, May 17, 2012 - 20:33 in Paleontology & Archaeology

Two studies led by scientists from the University of Pennsylvania and National Geographic's Genographic Project reveal new information about the migration patterns of the first humans to settle the Americas. The studies identify the historical relationships among various groups of Native American and First Nations peoples and present the first clear evidence of the genetic impact of the groups' cultural practices. For many of these populations, this is the first time their genetics have been analyzed on a population scale. One study, published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, focuses on the Haida and Tlingit communities of southeastern Alaska. The other study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, considers the genetic histories of three groups that live in the Northwest Territories of Canada.

Establishing shared markers in the DNA of people living in the circumarctic region, the team of scientists uncovered evidence of interactions among the tribes during the last several thousand years. The researchers used these clues to determine how humans migrated to and settled in North America as long as 20,000 years ago, after crossing the land bridge from today's Russia, an area known as Beringia.

Penn houses the Genographic Project's North American research center.

Theodore Schurr

"These studies inform our understanding of the initial peopling process in the Americas, what happened after people moved through and who remained behind in Beringia," said author Theodore Schurr, an associate professor in Penn's Department of Anthropology and the Genographic Project principal investigator for North America.

Both papers also confirm theories that linguists had posited, based on analyses of spoken languages, about population divisions among circumarctic populations.

Schurr contributed to both papers, along with Penn colleagues Matthew Dulik, Amanda Owings, Jill Gaieski and Miguel Vilar.

The first paper focused on the Haida and Tlingit tribes, which have similar material cultures.

"They share potlatch, or rituals of feasting, totemic motifs and a type of social organization that is based on matrilineal clans and moieties," Schurr said.

Using cheek-swab DNA samples, the analyses confirmed that the two tribes -- although they possessed some similarities in their mitochondrial DNA makeup -- were quite distinct from one another. Comparing the DNA from the Tlingit and Haida with samples from other circumarctic groups further suggested that the Haida had been relatively isolated for a significant period of time. This isolation had already been suspected by linguists, who have questioned whether the Haida language belonged in the Na-Dene language family, which encompasses Tlingit, Eyak and Athapaskan languages.

In the clan system of Haida and Tlingit peoples, children inherit the clan status -- and territory -- of their mothers. Each clan is divided in two moieties, or social groups, for example the Eagle and the Raven in the Tlingit tribe. Traditionally, a person from the Raven clan married someone from the Eagle clan and vice versa.

"Part of what we were interested in testing was whether we could see clear genetic evidence of that social practice in these groups," Schurr said. "In fact, we could, demonstrating the importance of culture in molding human genetic diversity."

The other paper expands this view of circumarctic peoples to closely consider the genetic histories of three groups that live in the Northwest Territories: the Inuvialuit, the Gwich'in and the Tlicho. The Inuivialuit language belongs to the Eskimo-Aleut language family, while the Gwich'in and Tlicho speak languages belonging to the Na-Dene family and the Athapaskan subgroup.

In this study, the researchers analyzed 100 individual mutations and 19 short stretches of DNA from all individuals sampled, obtaining the highest-resolution Y chromosome data ever from these groups.

The team's results indicate several new genetic markers that define previously unknown branches of the family tree of circumarctic groups. One marker, found in the Inuvialuit but not the other two groups, suggests that this group arose from an Arctic migration event somewhere between 4,000 and 8,000 years ago, separate from the migration that gave rise to many of the speakers of the Na-Dene language group.

"If we're correct, [this lineage] was present across the entire Arctic and in Beringia," Schurr said. "This means it traces a separate expansion of Eskimo-Aleut-speaking peoples across this region."

Many of the native groups who have participated in both studies are also enthusiastic collaborators, Schurr said.

"What we find fits very nicely with their own reckoning of ancestry and descent and with their other historical records. We've gotten a lot of support from these communities."

"Perhaps the most extraordinary finding to come out of these two studies is the way the traditional stories and the linguistic patterns correlate with the genetic data," Spencer Wells, Genographic Project director and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, said. "Genetics complements our understanding of history but doesn't replace other components of group identity."

Additional contributors to the American Journal of Physical Anthropology paper are Sergey Zhadanov of Penn, Judy Ramos of the Yakutat Tlingit Tribe, Mary Beth Moss of the Huna Indian Association, Francis Natkong of the Hydaburg Cooperative Association and the Genographic Consortium.

For the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper, the Penn team worked with Alestine Andre, Ingrid Kritsch, Sharon Snowshoe and Ruth Wright of the Gwich'in Social and Cultural Institute; Crystal Lennie of the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation; Mary Adele Mackenzie, James Martin and Nancy Gibson of the Tlicho Community Services Authority; Thomas Andrews of the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Center; and the Genographic Consortium.

Support for both studies was provided by the National Geographic Society, IBM, the Waitt Family Foundation and the University of Pennsylvania.

Source: University of Pennsylvania
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Notes:

Haw’aa... In Haida the word "K’áy" means both "to give birth" and "adoption". No distinction. Note about the DNA findings when Haida and Tlingit DNA was compared. We are totally different people and, we were Isolated from other peoples for a very long time. Sam Davis from Hydaburg around 1920 asked his grandfather how long we had been getting Sockeyes from Klakaas Inlet and, he answered, "You will have to ask those rocks, they are the only ones that have been her longer than us." Our history says we were here before the Ice Age which began about 23,000 years ago... everyone else left and went south... we didn’t. The Ice was present for about 13,000 years and melted about 10,000 years ago. That is when the others returned north. The Bald Eagle was not here before the Ice. It came north about the time the Athabascans (including Tlingit) so we call them "Ts’aakgw Xaat’aay" (Eagle People). - Kawaan Sangaa

The 1862 smallpox epidemic

2012-04-27T07:19:00.002-07:00

The 100th anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic off the coast of distant Newfoundland on April 15, 1912, deeply engaged British Columbia’s media. There were TV shows and many pages of newspaper coverage.

No doubt, the wreck of the Titanic was a dreadful disaster. Yet this April also marks the 150th anniversary of a catastrophe in B.C. that makes the foundering of that iconic passenger ship seem trivial, and raises questions about why the one invokes fascination while the other is met with a kind of cultural amnesia.

Only 35 of the Titanic passengers were resident in Canada, and the tragedy affected only about a dozen British Columbians aboard the stricken vessel.

Yet over the 18 months that began in April of 1862, at least half and perhaps well over half of all the people living in B.C. — most of them first nations — perished in a single event that killed people so fast and in such numbers that it might have emerged from the pages of an apocalyptic science fiction novel by Stephen King.

During the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, which scarred the psyche of a generation, the mortality rate in Canada is now estimated to have been 6.1 per cent. That is, about six of every 100 people who were infected with the flu virus died.

The mortality rate for the 1862 smallpox epidemic in B.C. was greater than 60 per cent. In some places, as many as 90 in 100 may have died.

In the spring of 1862, B.C.’s total population was about 50,000. By the fall of 1863, at a conservative estimate, about 32,000 people — virtually all the victims were first nations — had perished; likely 20,000 on the coast and probably 12,000 across the more sparsely inhabited Interior Plateau where the remoteness and vast territories of many tribes made for a dearth of statistics.

On the coast, corpses accumulated faster than stunned survivors could tip them into the mass graves that soon became commonplace. Some were burned in their houses, whole families at a time; entire villages at a time. Some lay unburied where they fell. One Victoria newspaper lamented in 1863 that from 1,000 to 1,200 corpses of first nations’ smallpox victims still lay unburied on an acre of ground “a stone’s throw from the schoolhouse.”

A few brave missionaries — forgotten heroes in this public crisis — risked their lives treating the sick under desperate conditions.

The oft-vilified Hudson’s Bay Company, accused in popular revisionist history of causing the epidemic by distributing infected blankets in an attempted genocide, actually expended its stocks of smallpox vaccine in what became the province’s first major public health initiative, vaccinating as many first nations as possible.

But politicians in denial about the risks had failed to respond quickly to the epidemic when they had the chance in Fort Victoria, and then succumbed when cowardly municipal leaders, pandering to a panicked non-native public, drove the sick away at gunpoint, dispersing up the coast and into the Interior a deadly disease that might have been contained.

The epidemic began with the arrival of a grimy paddle steamer from San Francisco in mid-March. Byron S. Johnson, a British adventurer who arrived in B.C. about the same time in 1862, described the crowded, filthy, fetid, lice-ridden conditions aboard gold rush ships that served as disease incubators:

“Our bunks consisted of three tiers of filthy canvas stretchers, supported by upright frames; these stretchers extended along both sides of the ship and down the centre, in a fore and aft direction. They were occupied by the unfortunate people four abreast ...”

Johnson rolled in a blanket on the exposed deck in preference to the foul conditions below.

The SS Brother Jonathan carried freight and 350 passengers bound for the raucous boom camp of saloons, brothels, tents, false-front emporiums, waterfront dives, flea-infested flophouses, liveries and stables that had sprung up around sleepy Fort Victoria with the discovery of gold on the Fraser River in 1858.

A week after passengers disembarked, the Daily British Colonist reported one case of smallpox. A second case was reported on March 22 and several more cases had occurred among the new arrivals by March 26.

Governor James Douglas, who had seen the ravages of smallpox during his time with the Hudson’s Bay Company in what is now Washington state, “strongly recommended” that the Colonial Assembly vote urgent and instant measures to prevent an epidemic. He wanted mass vaccinations, a special smallpox hospital, and mandatory quarantines.

The assembly voted funds for a hospital but refused enforced quarantines as an infringement on personal liberties.

Douglas released the Hudson’s Bay Company’s stocks of smallpox vaccine, called an emergency meeting with Songhees chiefs and directed physician Dr. John Sebastian Helmcken — who thought Douglas was overreacting — to start vaccinating first nations.

The meeting was attended by the Songhees Tyee, Chief Chee-ah-thluc, other chiefs, their wives and daughters and “all the Indian doctors.” It’s a testament to the respect with which Douglas was held that despite reluctance, all 30 immediately agreed to be vaccinated in a ceremony at Helmcken’s office and set a public example. The doctor then vaccinated 30 more Songhees.

On the mainland, Oblate father Leon Fouquet raced through the more than 100 settlements between what’s now Vancouver and the Fraser Canyon. He vaccinated as many as he was able — newspaper reports said 3,400 people between New Westminster and Yale — and other missionaries vaccinated the Musqueam and first nations at Cowichan and Nanaimo. Rev. William Duncan vaccinated Tsimshian around his mission at Metlakatla, blunting the epidemic there.

This campaign worked. The Sto:lo, Quwutsun (Cowichan), Sne-Nay-Mux (Nanaimo) and Musqueam were largely spared, although one in five Tsimshian still died despite Duncan’s vaccinations.

But for the rest, the efforts were too little and too late. On April 1, a first nations woman living in Victoria fell ill. The disease began to spread faster than people could be vaccinated, in part because of crowded, unsanitary conditions, but also because first nations had little natural immunity.

Unfortunately, in addition to the permanent Songhees villages around Fort Victoria, large encampments of visiting North Coast first nations had set up near the fort to trade. Tsimshian, Haida, Stikine Tlingit, Heiltsuk from Bella Bella and Kwakiutl from Fort Rupert on the northern end of Vancouver Island were all present.

The smallpox ripped through these camps like a lethal whirlwind.

Anglican missionary Alexander Garrett visited the Tsimshian camp when nobody showed up for his mid-April church service. He found his parishioners in a crowd on the beach. They stared thunderstruck at the putrefying corpse of a white smallpox victim, presumably washed ashore after being tossed into the harbour from an infected ship.

On April 25, Garrett’s journal records a visit to the camp. He found it in tumult and panic: “The smallpox was raging with virulence; twenty had already died; I saw eleven more cases in various stages of the disease. The patients were mostly removed to little tents or huts by themselves, and shut in as if left to die.” A day later, about 300 were reported sick with the virus.

By now, Helmcken had vaccinated more than 500 Songhees. Douglas moved swiftly to order a smallpox hospital erected near the northerner’s camps where the sick could be cared for. The Songhees fled and quarantined themselves on an island off Victoria.

Garrett recruited a white smallpox survivor as an assistant and began caring for the ill. But his diary confesses that he and his helper were, in fact, little more than despairing grave diggers, burying on average five patients a day.

Anglican Bishop George Hills visited the Haida and Heiltsuk camps. The sick, burning with fever, threw themselves into the sea. The helpless dying lay packed together. The stench was intolerable.

“I have never witnessed such horrible scenes of death, misery, filth and suffering before,” Hills later wrote.

One of Victoria’s newspapers complained about “festering corpses” on the beach below the parliament buildings. Public policy succumbed to the basest instincts as the non-first nations population panicked.

Northerners were forced into their canoes and ordered away from Fort Victoria, escorted by a Royal Navy gunboat. The dead were abandoned. The sick were packed into their canoes with their possessions and departed for their home villages.

On May 1, the Tsimshian burned their camp and left. The Stikines left on May 11. On May 12, the Haida and the Fort Rupert Kwakiutl were forced out. The rest of the northerners were driven off on May 13 and local police burned about 100 lodges, although not the Songhees village.

Many of those expelled, perhaps most, never made it home.

Travellers reported big, 15-metre seagoing canoes from the North Coast pulled up on the beach and filled with putrefying crews. Children were put ashore alone on isolated islands in hopes they’d avoid the plague and died there. Bodies littered the beaches of the Inside Passage from Victoria to Haida Gwaii — one captain counted a hundred corpses along the shoreline north of Nanaimo and the disease took hold there in the first days of June.

Fortunately for the Sne-Nay-Mux, recently arrived Anglican missionary John Booth Good obtained smallpox vaccine from the Hudson’s Bay Company and took immediate public health measures, “vaccinating young and old for days” and persuading Nanaimo’s chiefs to impose strict sanitary precautions.

“In this way they were saved from destruction; whilst, in places further north, where no such superintendence and aid could be rendered, whole villages were decimated and in some cases not one escaped.”

“The pestilence spirit” of Haida myth was riding the expelled canoes north.

A month later, smallpox was raging through the Pentlatch near Comox, the Lekwiltok at Cape Mudge on Quadra Island, across from Campbell River and among the T’Souke, west of Fort Victoria and among the Sechelt and Sliammon on the Sunshine Coast.

Royal Navy Captain George Henry Richards, conducting an admiralty hydrographic survey, put in at Fort Rupert on northern Vancouver Island in June and found horrifying conditions similar to those that had appalled Bishop Hills in the south.

Richards’ journal noted that fear of the raging epidemic was so palpable that some Kwakiutl literally dropped dead of fright at the sights before them.

“Scores of them died and lay for days and weeks in the same spot unburied and uncared for; until the others through actual dread of their own lives from the fearful efflusion pulled down the houses of the dead and scattered the pieces found inside, throwing the bodies in the sea to float away,” he wrote.

Richards ordered his doctors to deploy ship’s medical supplies to vaccinate hundreds of terrified people. It was to no avail.

“It is distressing to be able to afford them no assistance or relief — it could only be done by erecting a building to receive them and supplying medical assistance and comforts, neither of which are in our power, but gov’t. ought to do something,” he wrote, unaware, in the days before telecommunications, of the calamity which had befallen the entire coast as a result of political dithering and denial.

By August, smallpox was among the Heiltsuk at Bella Bella and moving inland, up the inlets and rivers to the Nuxalk at Bella Coola and into the Chilcotin Plateau.

If the modern medicine of the day was helpless, the disease confounded traditional tribal doctors in its virulence. One informant told ethnographer Thomas McIlwraith in the early 1920s how a Nuxalk shaman in 1862 was so overcome by his inability to offer any help to the first smallpox victim that he apologized to the community and publicly shot himself with his musket.

What followed these events was a scenario in which the living often envied the dead.

The virus obliterated entire villages. Whole tribes disappeared. Remote settlements were deserted. Survivors starved because the disease took the young and the healthy first and no one was left to harvest food resources. An informant told one historian that so many died among the Heiltsuk at Bella Bella that nobody was left to count them and that “women lay down dead, and the little baby was still sucking their tits, and she’d be dead.”

Of the first nations who dwelt along the B.C. coast, at least half and perhaps more were dead by the end of 1863. Six of every 10 Tlingit on the Stikine River had perished. Almost seven of every 10 Heiltsuk and Haida were gone. Only 15 per cent of the settlements on Haida Gwaii were still occupied at the beginning of the 20th century.

When Capt. Richards made a melancholy return to Fort Rupert three months after the epidemic had begun, he found the once-bustling village eerily silent: “Of the fine muscular, stalwart, fellows that 4 years ago numbered 400 men, now not 50 can be mustered.”

The World Heritage Site at Ninstints, a village off the southern tip of the Haida Gwaii — named for a Haida chief so rich and powerful he gave an unprecedented 10 potlatches — was abandoned by its 30 demoralized survivors in 1884. The great lodges, Raven-house and Ninstints’ own Thunder-rolls-upon-it, fell into ruin and are now just overgrown holes in the ground fronted by a fringe of decaying totem poles.

And this was true from Puget Sound right up the Alaska Panhandle and across B.C.’s Interior. In most regions, the names of lost villages outnumber those remaining by three-to-one and in many cases by 10 to one. Near Lillooet, near Williams Lake, on Prince of Wales Island, on Haida Gwaii, up the mid-coast inlets, around Victoria, across northern Vancouver Island and the adjacent mainland — the lists of lost villages are mind-numbing.

These mass deaths tore irreparable holes in the cultural fabric of societies in which oral traditions were the custodians of the genealogies, laws, histories and literature of entire peoples.

And then, settlers moved in to occupy apparently vacant lands in some of the richest regions of the province, justifying the annexations with claims that the few dispirited survivors — today we’d call it a mass post-traumatic stress disorder — did not make adequate use of them or that settlement sites had been abandoned.

Here, writes eminent geographer Cole Harris, was “a profound settlement discontinuity, measured not, as it would have been in Europe, by decaying cities, wasted fields, and overgrown orchards, but by the abandonment of countless seasonal settlement sites, the unnaming and renaming of the land, and the belief of some that their world was coming to an end, and of others that it was opening towards a prosperous future.”

Those momentous events, which began in April of 1862 and ran through 1863, shaped the B.C. that we inhabit. Their aftershocks continue to shudder through the political and social bedrock of our present in the form of unresolved land claims, inadequate reserve lands as populations finally rebound from their nadir a century ago, and the legacy of marginalized and impoverished communities that have been alienated from resources and are frequently blamed for their impoverishment.

All of which raises an equally momentous question for us today:

Why our massive fascination with what, in the larger scope of things, was the relatively small tragedy of the Titanic?

Why this collective cultural amnesia about the titanic catastrophe that redrew the demographic map of B.C., erased and diminished whole communities and even tribes, their languages and their historic narratives, and destroyed traditional economies?

Surely this is worthy of acknowledgment by the institutions of the society that came to prominence in its aftermath?

Perhaps the failure to do so is because of who the suffering victims were, and because acknowledging the role of this cataclysm in creating our B.C. — Boyd called the 1862 epidemic the first nations’ “final disaster” — requires confronting some of the unpleasant foundations of “the best place on earth.”

shume@islandnet.com

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Christian Discovery and Dominance

2012-04-08T23:15:00.001-07:00

The Rights of Indigeneous Peoples
Internationally and in Canada

Assumptions, Historical Underpinnings and Implications

1. Introduction

"In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue."
A refrain learned and chanted by school children throughout the "western" world; a simple ditty, yet, on the one hand it evokes visions of horror, greed and injustice, while on the other, visions of heroism, opportunity, and wealth.

Also, on the one hand, as a result of "Columbus sailing the ocean blue;" we have one class of people dependent upon the largess of governments and, on the other hand, another class of people who have become wealthy and famous because of that system. Yet both are "welfare recipients" ie receive payments directly from their respective federal governments. Indigenous peoples and lawyers; one poverty stricken and discriminated against, the other rich and occupying a special "niche" within the discriminate society.

However, it is not the purpose of this paper to discuss nor to make judgements on the morality of the situation. But, since the beginning of the sixteenth century, these are issues which have been the focus of attention from jurists, social behavioral scientists, clergy, and others. Yet one of the major difficulties encountered when dealing with the rights of indigenous peoples lies within the phrase itself. These "rights," are they ones which the colonizers are morally obligated to extend to indigenous peoples, or are they legal rights which the various states within the classification of indigenous peoples, may assert for themselves as part of their "self-determination?" Posed another way, "Are the rights of indigenous peoples to be the subject or the object of international law?" It is the intent of this writer that the reader answer the question. So, the focus will be on the various views and opinions concerning the rights of indigenous peoples, will present an analysis and, when applicable, discuss their implications.

But before proceeding there needs to be a clarification of some terms. First, "dominant society." What are the underlying assumptions giving rise to such a term, and what are its implications? In short, it implies an assumption that this other society somehow evolved from within an existing society and, over time, came to dominate that original society. Quite the contrary, the so-called "dominant society," in relation to indigenous societies, is an external one. To carry this a step further. If we eliminate the first assumption, i.e., that of a society from within a society gaining dominance, we must find a replacement concept which will provide some factual, or even some theoretical, basis which will lend substance to the concept. In this situation there is none. Thus we must examine the relationship between the "dominant society" and its subordinate in a context removed from social theory. We begin by asking, "if this other society did not evolve, or ’spring,’ from within the society which it came to dominate, but instead is an external society which has imposed itself upon the society it dominates. Where do we look to find a conceptual term describing the resultant relationship?"

To better highlight the problem, we resort to analogy. In this case, say, for example, if Canada’s Asian immigrants were to gain a numerical superiority and the Asian cultural values, practices, and imperatives were to gain dominance, while those of western European origin were to become subordinant. This would be a situation wherein the societal norms or mores of the original society were overwhelmed from within a political system. However, if those same immigrants from Asia were not "citizens" of Canada but, instead maintained their national identities as being something other than Canadian, the situation will then have moved from the realm of social theory to that of politics and law. At this point the benign term "dominant society" begins to take on a more ominous aura; however, this situation is not peculiar to Canada but is one repeated throughout the "colonized" world.

For example, in the United States of America, Johnson V McIntosh, 21 U.S. (18 Wheat) 543, 5 L.Ed. 681 (1823), a case wherein one person named Johnson acquired land from an Indian tribe, another, McIntosh, acquired title to the same land from the U.S. Government. There was a disagreement over the title and the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court. Chief Justice Marshall, deciding in favor of McIntosh’s title from the U.S. Government said,

"Conquest gives a title which the Courts of the conqueror cannot deny."

How does this square with the concept of "dominant society?" Apparently it does not square, but why? Since the above term, "dominant society," is one found in the area of the Social Behavioral sciences, maybe that field might offer some clues to resolving the inconsistency.

Behavioral scientists generally agree that an "abused child" will grow up (absent treatment) to become an abuser. If this principle is true for individuals, it might just possibly be true for entire societies as well. Dr. Pamela Colorado-Morrison, Phd., Brandeis University, tells us that trauma victims (Adult Children of Alcoholics, rape victims, etc.) tend to either blank out the experience altogether or attempt to "deny" the experience by referring to it in non-threatening terms. Could such terms as "dominant society," "indigenous or aboriginal peoples," or, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the continuation of the label "indians," be examples of holdovers from traumatic experiences suffered by Europeans/Britains? For example, in the ordinary course of events how do we explain the behaviour of Columbus when first meeting the peoples of the Carribean? On October 12, 1492, he made the following entry in his ship’s log;

"It appears to me that the people (of these islands) are ingenious and would be good servants."

The above entry came after passages referring to the kindness and hospitality with which they, the Spaniards, had been greeted. For, two days later, on October 14th, he wrote;

"These people are very unskilled in arms, with fifty men they could be subjected and made to do all that one wishes. . . (He) ordered seven to be taken and carried to Spain in order to learn our (Spanish) language and return unless your Highness should choose to have them transported to Castille or held captive on the Island."

(Footnote # "Native American Alsoholism: An Issue of Survival," A Doctoral Dissertation presented to The Faculty of the Florence Heller Graduate School for Advanced Studies in Social Welfare/Brandeis University, by Pamela Colorado; December 1985).

Were Columbus’ actions standard practice in Europe when encountering peoples in their own homelands or merely a pecularity specific to Columbus? In any event, the stage was thus set for a controversy which has continued for nearly five centuries.

Another area requiring clarification is the purpose of Columbus’ original voyage leading to the "discovery of America," and the assumptions underlying that purpose. As is generally known, Christopher Columbus was attempting to find a new trade route to India. Thus, since the purpose was trade, we can logically conclude that the crowned heads of Europe, or, more specifically, Columbus, was operating under the assumption that "India" was under the dominion of a "ruler" or rulers and, that the lands of India and its resources were owned and controlled by such ruler(s). However, this was not the case, instead, Columbus found a land populated by a people without a visible "ruler." So, were the reactions of the Europeans to this state of affairs the result of their perceptions of "sovereignty?" For . . . (pages 5 & 6 missing)

(Footnote # Pages 1007 - 1008 of "Report of the Secretary of the Interior, Being Part of the Message and Documents Communicated to the Two Houses of the Congress at the Beginning of the First Session of the Fifty-fourth Congress. Volume II. : Washington: Government Printing Office. 1896).

Why was Dr. Jackson so adamant about not wanting the indigenous peoples of Alaska to be called Indians? And, who were the "friends of Indians?" During the period of history when Dr. Jackson was working so hard to "re-label" Alaska’s indigenous peoples, the term "Indian" had become somewhat synonomous with "self-governing units." Also, during this time was the era of the great numbers of immigrants arriving in the United States. In order to speed up the process of naturalization, there were many organizations formed for the sole purpose of assisting immigrants in that process. Thus, the "friends of Indians" was just such an organization, devoted to "civilizing" and assimilating Indians into the American system. So, it was a two-pronged effort. The underlying assumptions were that if the Indians could be denied an opportunity for self-government while at the same time "assisted" in becoming assimiliated "Americans," settlement of Alaska and access to its resources would be much easier than in the other states of the U.S.

II. Historical Underpinnings

In many ways the experiences of the indigenous peoples of North and South America, and other parts of the globe which were colonized by western Europeans, provide a parrallel to the experiences of those western Europeans under the Roman empire. Thus if we are to gain a fuller appreciation for the problems and the difficulties in finding solutions to the problems of today’s "indigenous peoples," and insights into assumptions employed by "white" scholars and jurists, it is important that we examine the history of the Roman conquest of their countries. For the Roman empire, which dominated all of Europe for over 500 years, left indelible imprints upon the peoples and institutions of Europe. For example, N.B. Doucet, in his compilation of the Fundamental Principles of the Laws of Canada (1841-43, 1847), p-?, states;

"Until the constitution of the French code civil, the Roman law prevailed in numerous provinces of France as the acknowledged law. . ."

Great Britain and Canada (Doucet, supra.) have also adopted Roman law. However, the adoption of legal principles is but one side of the coin, the other involves the "world perceptions" of the adoptees. Thus is is important to examine not only the character of the "inheritors" to the Roman empire, namely, the Saxons, but also the perceptions the Romans held in regard to the peoples they subjugated in Europe and Britain.

N.B. Doucet, supra., provides a history of Julius Caesar’s first invasion of Britain. From Doucet we learn that Julius Caesar, in the short span of only three years over-ran all of western Europe to where he could see the white cliffs of the neighbouring island : and the conqueror of Gaul aspired to the glory of adding Britain to the dominions of Rome. So, on the twenty-sixth of August, in the fifty-fifth year before the Christian era, Caesar sailed from Calais, with the infantry of two legions. To cross the strait was only the work of a few hours; . . . the beach, after a short struggle was gained; and the untaught valour of the natives yielded to the arms and discipline of their enemies." Doucet continued, "We are told that the Britons were quarrelsome, rapacious, and revengeful; that every nation was torn by intestine factions; and that pretexts were never wanting to justify oppression, when it could be committed with impunity. It was this rancourous hostility among themselves which accelerated their subjugation to the power of Rome. "There is not," says Tacitus, "a more fortunate circumstance than that these powerful nations make not one common cause. They fight single and unsupported, and each in its turn is compelled to receive the Roman yoke.

Such were the Britons, who by their bravery and perserverance baffled the attempts of the first, and the most warlike of the Caesars. From that period to the reign of Claudius, during the lapse of the ninety-seven years, they retained their original independence.

Doucet further states, "By the Roman writers all the natives of Britian are indiscriminately denominated barbarians, a term of indefinite import, which must vary its signification with the subject to which it is applied. Though far removed from the elegance and refinement of their invaders, the Belgic tribes of the south might almost claim the praise of civilization in comparison with their northern brethren. . . beyond the borders of the southern tribes, (the) faint traces of civilization gradually disappeared. The midland and western nations were unacquainted with either agriculture or manufacture. . . they went almost naked: and sheltered themselves from the weather under cover of the woods, or in the caverns of the mountains. Their situation had hardened both their minds and bodies. . . (W)hen Severus invaded their country, the Roman legions were appalled at the strength, the activity, the hardihood, and ferocity of these northern Britons. . .

About the years A.M. 400, the great fabric of the Roman power was shaken to its foundation. Hordes of barbarians, under different denominations, issuing from the unknown regions of the east and the north, Vandals, and Alans. . . had poured from the summit of the Julian Alps, into the flourishing plains of Italy. It became necessary to recall the troops from the extremities to defend the heart of the empire; and the cohorts which had seen stationed along the walls of Britain, fought and triumphed under the command of Stilicho in the bloody battle of Pollentia."

History may be used for many purposes; the preceeding was but a thumbnail sketch of western European history, but it does offer some insights into the basis of the European views of the aboriginal peoples of the "New World." The following (as with the preceeding) will be presented primarily for the purpose of gaining a better understanding of todays application of such terms as "aboriginal title," "tribal sovereignty," "rule or doctrine of discovery" and the opportunity to be able to distinquish between indigenous "civil" and "political" rights and an idea as to why the use of the label "Indian" in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

III. Historical Sources of Laws and Policy

We begin first with the inheritors to the European and British portions of the Roman empire, namely the Saxons. N.B. Doucet, supra., at pp. 90, 91, 92, provides us with the following description;

"About the middle of the second century the Saxons, an obscure tribe of barbarians, occupied the district between the Elbe and the Eyder on the neck of the Cimbrican Chersonesus; in the course of two hundred years the same appellation had become common to all the nations from the extremity of the peninsula to the Weser, the Ems, and the Rhine. They formed a kind of voluntary association, which was loosely held together by similar interests, and congenial pursuits. Pillage by land, piracy by sea, was their only profession; and though the imperial (Roman) fleet had often been employed to check, it could never subdue their dauntless and enterprising spirit. But as the power of Rome declined, the audacity of the Saxons increased: from plunder they proceeded to colonization; and the men who had depopulated, afterwards repeopled the better portion of Britain. Adventurers from each of the associated tribes were among the colonists; but the majority consisted Jutes, Angles, and Saxons.

(T)heir whole time was alternately devoted to indolence and rapine. To earn by labour what might be acquired by force, they deemed unworthy the spirit of a freemen, and consigned the culture of their land with the care of their flocks to the meaner labour of women and slaves. . . (T)he warlike exertions of these tribes were at first checked by their want of arms; but during three centuries of intercourse or hostility with the Romans, they had learned to supply the deficiency. . .

Upon the establishment of the Saxons and Angles in South Britain, after the year 450, the whole of that part of the island was divided into seven kingdoms and, the laws of England divided into four distinct branches or heads: the common law, civil law, canon law, and statute law. . . (T)he common law is of such antiquity, that it was coeval with the first peopling of Great Britain. From the earliest records of Saxon times may be traced many of the rules and principles of law which are acknowledged in the present day; as the jurisdiction and proceedings of courts, the distribution of powers and offices among the ministers of justice, and the like . . . By the civil law is to be understood the civil and municipal law of the Roman empire, which owing to peculiar circumstances, was first partially admitted into England, and finally established so as to form a branch of the jurisprudence. . . (T)he canon law is a body of ecclesiastical laws, originally compiled from the decrees of councils, bulls, and decretal epistles of the Holy See, and the opinions of the ancient fathers. . . (S)ome parts of this law were adopted at an early period by the Saxons, but far the greater part was introduced at the same time with the civil law.

Although the preceeding is pecular to Britain, the rest of Europe, including Spain, was under the domination of the Roman empire for a longer period than was Britain. Also, in north America, the civil law does not play such a crucial role in the determination of the rights of its aboriginal peoples as does the common law. However, as we will discuss later, many of the concepts of law applied to aboriginal peoples in the determination of their rights have their roots in Roman private law, and feudal law of the Middle Ages, are still found in international and Canadian legal principles.

Applications

Upon Columbus’ return to Spain, despite the fact that he "thought" he had reached India, the situation was not as anticipated. The lands, as assumed, were populated, but unlike the stories of India, there were no "rulers" present. This altered situation required a new set of assumptions and, since the law "abhors a vacuum" appropriate legal theories were devised.

Because, as earlier stated, there was no army nor evidence of the existence of a "ruler," it was assumed that the land was terra nullius; territory belonging to no state. This was the one factor which was to "color" the perceptions of western jurists and government leaders for the next half-millenia.

During the Middle Ages, up until the sixteenth century, the ideas of state and kingship prevalent in Europe tended to place the ruler in the position of a private owner. Since feudal law, as the applicable "public law," conferred ultimate title on the ruler, and the legal doctrine of the day employed analogies of Roman private law, in the sphere of property, to describe the sovereign power. (Footnote # Principles of Public International Law, by Ian Brownlie, Q.C., D.C.L., F.B.A., F.R.G.S./3rd. Ed., Clarendon Press/Oxford, 1972, p-131). However, Hugo Grotius, writing a century after Franciscus De Vitorio had published his "relictos" (infra. p-?), relied heavily upon the principle enunciated by Vitorio that the "princes possess no authority save that derived from the state." : reiterated by stating;

"Now both by natural and by divine law (according to the thoroughly sound conclusion which we borrow from the aforemention Vitorio) all civil power resides in the state, which is by its very nature competent to govern itself, administer its own affairs and order all its faculties for the common good. Princes on the other hand, are invested with no just power that has not been derived from the power of the state through election of individual rulers or of dynasties."

The doctrine of discovery, which we will see later, advanced with such vigor by the western European powers, including the Americans, was unequivocally rejected by Vitorio in his treatise De Indis. To invoke the doctrine, Vitorio points out, it is necessary to demonstrate that the territory is uninhabited - terra nullius. Since, clearly, the lands were already occupied the doctrine could not be applied.

Vitorio’s views on the matter represent the position in international law at that time, that "discovery" of an inhabited area was not a claim which could be seriously maintained. If anyone had "discovered" the lands in question it would have been the people already there.

In spite of subsequent attempts to put forward such claims there is serious doubt, contrary to what Justice Marshall said in the U.S. Supreme Court case Johnson v McIntosh (1823), infra. p-?, as to whether the doctrine was ever accepted by the competing states themselves. Discovery, by itself, was for the most part not considered sufficient to establish a valid claim.

Early (and present day) commentators have tied the political and civil rights of "indigenous" peoples to "title to land," whereas, western European, Canadian, and American governments tie their right to determine those political and civil rights to "discovery." David Case in his, "Alaska Natives and American Laws, University of Alaska Press (1984), p-48, stated:

"The ’rule of discovery’ held that the nation first landing on or discovering a land in the new world acquired title to the land and dominion over the original inhabitants exclusive of any other discovering nation."

Compare the above statement with the following;

"The fact that the native people were here first is at the core of the notion of aboriginal rights or aboriginal title. Building on this idea of original use and occupancy, Peter A. Cumming has defined aboriginal rights in ’Native Rights and Law in an Age of Protest,’ (1973) 11 Alta. Law Rev. 238, 239 as the result of their original use and occupancy of lands."

(Footnote #?, Draft chapter on aboriginal title for the proposed Indian, Metis, Inuit Law Casebook; by David W. Elliott, Assoc. Professor, Department of Law, Carleton University, February 1982).

Somehow, the two just do not seem to square. It appears that the assumptions here is that somehow the "discoverers" acquired greater rights than the people "discovered."

However, to get back to the rule of discovery. Case states the rule but fails to mention that the "rule" was rejected as early as 1532 (40 years after Columbus "discovered" America). Yet Case states the "rule" but does not question its validity?

The original concept, which, as earlier stated, is of Roman origin; Terra Nullius, land owned by no state, i.e., "vacant," "empty" lands. Not necessarily vacant and empty of human habitation, but more in terms of an absence of a sovereign.

The principle was first applied by the Romans, when they conquered Europe and Britain; Quite simply the Romans claimed any lands which were "vacant" and "empty" of human occupancy. Later the principle evolved to one which applied to "lands owned by no state," hence they were "vacant" and "empty" of any "true laws" or "true government."

Fr. Vitorio is considered by many to be the "father" of modern international law and, with justification, can also be labelled the "father" of aboriginal rights. In his most famous work, his treatises, De INIS and De JURE BELLI ("De Indis et de Jure Belli Relictiones," 1532), Fr. Vitorio, commenting on title by "right of discovery," stated;

". . . this seems to be an adequate title because those regions which are deserted become, by the law of nations and the natural law, the property of the first occupant. . . (N)ot much, however, need be said about this third title of ours, because, as proved above (infra. p-16), the barbarians were true owners, both from the public and from the private standpoint. Now the rule of the law of nations is that what belongs to nobody is granted to the first occupant, as is expressly laid down in the aforementioned passage of the institutes. And so, as the object in question was not without an owner, it does not fall under the title we were discussing. Although then, this title when conjoined with another can produce some effect here, yet in and by itself it gives no support to a seizure of the aborigines any more than if it had been they who discovered us."

The principles thus laid down by Vitorio and reflected in the official cedulas and bulls later appeared in the texts of subsequent eminent international jurists. Writing fully a century after Vitorio, Hugo Grotius drew heavily on Vitorio’s works and on numerous occasions referred to Vitorio by name. In one of his early classics, "De Jure Praedae Commentarius," concerning the question of Portuguese influence in the East Indies, Grotius expounded;

"Therefore since the Portuguese lack both possession and title to possession, since the property and sovereign powers of the East Indies are not to be regarded as things that had no owner prior to the advent of the Portuguese, and since that property and those powers - belonging as they did to the peoples of the Indies - could not rightly be acquired by other persons, it follows that the said peoples are not Portuguese chattels but free men possessed of full social and civil rights (sui iuris)."

Grotius was not alone among subsequent international scholars in following Vitorio’s lead. (See also the works of E. De Vattel, Soto, Gentili). The important principles relating to aboriginal rights thus articulated by Vitorio and adopted by Grotius and other international scholars created an international legal framework which continues to be relevant. Felix Cohen, "The Spanish origins of Indian Rights in the law of the United States" (1941); stated;

"In the first place, we must recognize that (our) Indian law originated and can still be most clearly grasped, as a branch of international law, and that in the field of international law the basic concepts of Modern doctrine were all hammered out by the Spanish theological jurists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries."

The doctrine of discovery was first articulated in American law, by Chief Justice Marshall in the case of Johnson v. McIntosh, supra., which, in 1928, was considered and rejected by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Island of Palmas case, supra. The International concept of "conquest" was central to Marshall’s reasoning in Johnson, supra., wherein he reasoned;

"On this discovery of this immense continent, the great nations of Europe were eager to appropriate to themselves so much of it as they could respectively acquire. Its vast extent offered an ample field to the ambition and enterprise of all; and the character and religion of its inhabitants afforded an apology for considering them as a people over whom the superior genius of Europe might claim an ascendancy. The potentates of the old world found no difficulty in convincing themselves that they made ample compensation to the inhabitants of the new, by bestowing on them civilization and christianity, in exchange for unlimited independence. But, as they were all in pursuit of nearly the same object, it was necessary in order to avoid conflicting settlements, and consequent war with each other to establish a principle which all should acknowledge as the law by which the right of between themselves. This principle was, that discovery gave title to the government by whose subjects, or by whose authority, it was made, against all other European governments, which title might be consummated by possession.

The exclusion of all other Europeans, necessarily gave to the nation making the discovery the sole right of acquiring the soil from the natives, and establishing settlements upon it. It was a right with which no Europeans would interfere. It was a right which all asserted for themselves, and to the assertion of which, by others, all assented.

In the establishment of these relations, the rights of the original inhabitants were in no instance, entirely disregarded; but were necessarily, to a considerable extent impaired. They were admitted to be the rightful occupants of the soil, with a legal as well as just claim to retain possession of it, and to use it according to their discretion; but their right to complete sovereignty, as independent nations, were necessarily diminished, and their power to dispose of the soil at their own will, to whomever they pleased, was denied by the original fundamental principle, that discovery gave exclusive title to those who made it." (This statement certainly does not reflect the international reality either theoretically or in terms of the State practice of the time.) "While the different nations of Europe respected the right of the natives, as occupants, they asserted this ultimate dominion to be in themselves; and claimed and exercised, as a consequence of this ultimate dominion, a power to grant the soil, while yet in possession of the natives. These grants have been understood by all to convey a title to the grantees, subject only to the Indian right of occupancy. . . (N)o one of the powers of Europe gave its full assent to the principle, more unequivocally than England . . . confined to countries "then unknown to all Christian people" . . . (T)hus has our whole country been granted by the Crown while in the occupation of Indians. These grants purport to convey the soil as well as the right of dominion to the grantees.

We will not enter into the controversy whether agriculturists, merchants, and manufacturers have a right on abstract principles, to expel hunters from the territory they possess, or to contract their limits. The United States . . . maintain, as all others have maintained, that discovery gave an exclusive right to extinquish the Indian title of occupancy, either by purchase or conquest. . . conquest gives a title which the courts of the conqueror cannot deny. . .

In the above statement, Justice Marshall, in effect, equates "discovery" and "conquest." In "The Concept of Aboriginal Rights in the Early Legal History of the United States," 27 B.L.R. 637 (1978), Berman states:

"However extravagant the pretension of converting the discovery of an inhabited Country into Conquest may appear if the principle has been asserted in the first instance, and afterwards sustained; if a country has been acquired and held under it; if the property of the great mass of the community originates in it, it becomes the law of the land, and cannot be questiones."

Clearly, as Berman states, supra. at 638, "the equation of discovery to conquest amounts to a nimble transmutation of definition that itself stands as a conquest by judicial fiat."

It is apparent that "discovery" alone was never a tenable claim in international law with reference either to inhabited or to uninhabited lands. Contrary to Marshall’s reasoning, the doctrine of conquest, from an international perspective, is clearly quite distinct from that of discovery. However, this did not deter the "discoverers."

C.L. Andrews, in his book, The Story of Alaska, The Caxton Printers, Ltd., Caldwell, Idaho (1944), p-29, commenting on the "discovery" of the Alaskan coast by Vitus Bering in 1736, avers;

"The basis for Russian claims to their possessions in America had been laid."

So me might ask, "what was the legal basis for Russia to make such a claim?" Well, since, in the judgement of the Europeans of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, there were no states "visible" in this "new world," then, quite obviously, the lands were "vacant" and "empty" to be taken by their discoverer. The first European nation to formally employ this Roman law relating to acquisition by finding (which, thereafter, became the norm) was Great Britain.

In 1496, England’s monarch granted a commission to Jean Cabot to discover countries unknown to "Christian people," and to take possession of them in the name of the King of England. Two years later Cabot "discovered" the north American continent . . . to this discovery the English trace their title. (Johnson v. McIntosh, supra..)

As the numbers of European nations joined the "race of discovery" and the numbers of "voyages of discovery" swelled, reports of atrocities, i.e. dispossession of lands and resources, and outright slaughter of indigenous peoples, began filtering back to Europe. Finally they reached a magnitude which could no longer be ignored. Also, during this period there were growing debates questioning the legality of Spain’s, as well as the actions of other "discovering nations." It was during this early period of discovery when the Catholic church issued a number of Papal Grants or Bulls. These grants, or bulls, were the result of an assumed power by the Pope to regulate the discovery and acquisition of lands which, in European terms, were "unexplored" and "unknown." Best known are the Bulls of Pope Alexander VI of 1493 which assigned to Spain exclusive rights in land discovered or to be discovered west of the meridian one hundred leagues (300 miles) west of the Azores and Cape Verde, apart from lands already possessed by any Christian king or prince by Christmas, 1492. This assumption of power by the Church was not without basis. Walter Ullman, in "The Growth of Papal Government in the Middle Ages" / London: Methuen (1955) states that basis:

The religious authority of the Pope was considered naturally superior to the secular power of the various princes; the Pope was deemed to be the source and standard of all ministerial and judicial jurisdiction and final court of appeal in disputes between Europe’s princes."

In the exercise of this power, the Pope, decided a complex appeal involving jurisdictional limits in the New World, holding that Spain rather than Portugal should have jurisdiction because of Spain’s efforts in initiating the discovery of the New World.

(Anguns Documentos, edited by J. Ramos-Coelho/Lisbon: Academia Real des Scientias de Lisboa 1892/7-8). This decision came to be known as the Papal donation or Papal entitlement theory.

Francis I of France initiated the discussion of legitimate jurisdiction in tribal America when he demanded that the Pope show him the clause in the Bible which entitled only Spain and Portugal to divide the new World between themselves. Juan Lopez de Palacious Rubios, one of the foremost jurists of that era, stated that the Crown’s jurisdiction did not rest either on the discovery of the new land or the conquest of the natives, but solely on a contractual notion, the Papal grant of jurisdiction to Spain by Pope Alexander VI and the principle of restitution . . . (restore the Indians their freedom and properties based on the extent to which the [Spanish] subjects had been enriched.) The sole right of the crown was to bring the Christian faith to the Indians, not exploit them. This opinion of Palacious Rubios explained the source and extent of Spanish jurisdiction in the New World, however, it failed to address the nature of the interest of the aboriginal peoples in the New World under the concept of Papal Donation (Quest for Justice-Aboriginal Peoples and Aboriginal Rights, Edited by Menno Boldt and J. Anthony Long [James Youngblood Henderson-The Doctrine of Aboriginal Rights in Western Legal Tradition/pp-185, 220]) (Papal Bulls are sometimes cited in modern day arbitration proceedings, however, their effect is minimized by the requirement for effective occupation.)

Finally, the King of Spain asked a Spanish priest, Franciscus de Vitorio, for an opinion concerning the rights of the "Indians." De Indis and De Jure Belli were written by Vitorio in response to the King’s request. In that treatise he stated;

"I ask whether the aborigines in question were the true owners in both private and public law before the arrival of the Spaniards . . .

The people in question were in peacable possession of their goods, both publicly and privately. Therefore unless the contrary is shown, they must be treated as owners and not be disturbed in their possession unless cause be shown . . ."

Fr. Vitorio’s use of the term "true owner" is significant in that it is consistent with the applicable public law of the day which, as earlier stated, "placed the ruler in the position of a private owner," i.e., conferred ultimate title on the ruler. Stated another way, it suggests the presence sovereign. However, such notions might have interfered with commerce so other reasons were sought as justification for the taking of the lands and resources of indigenous peoples. (The lack of Christian faith was put forth by some as a cause; see Cabot’s Commission of 1496.) Fr. Vitorio responded accordingly;

"The upshot of all the proceeding is, then, that the aborigines undoubtedly had true dominion in both public and private matters, just like Christians, and that neither their princes nor private persons could be despoiled of their property on the ground of their not being true owners. It would be harsh to deny to those who have never done any wrong, what we grant to Saracens and Jews, who are the persistent enemies of Christianity. We do not deny that these latter peoples are true owners of their property, if they have not seized lands elsewhere belonging to Christians . . . the conclusion stands sure, the aborigines in question were true owners before the Spaniards came among them, both from the public and private point of view."

Grotius, supra., mirrored the conclusions of Vitorio a century later;

"This is the conclusion expounded by the Spaniard Vitorio with irrefutable logic and in agreement with other authorities of the greatest renoun . . . Vitoria declares that Christians whether laymen or clerics may not deprive infidels of their civil power and sovereignty merely on the ground that the latter are infidels unless they have been guilty of some other wrong."

Later in the same chapter he supports Vitorio’s belief that "it is heretical to hold that infidels are not the owners of the property that belongs to them." . . . and that "the act of snatching from them, on the sole ground of their lack of faith, those goods which have been taken into their possession is an act of thievery and rapine no less than it would be if perpetrated against Christians." "Thus," he says, "Vitorio correctly maintains that the Spaniards acquired no greater right over the American Indians in consequence of that defect of faith, than the Indians would have possessed over the Spaniards if any of the former had been the first foreigners to come to Spain."

Fr. Vitorio also addressed the issue of "title by right of discovery" (See David Case, infra, p-8);

"Not much, however, need be said about this third title of ours, because as proved above, the barbarians were true owners, both from the public and from the private standpoint."

Thus, according to Fr. Vitorio, neither "discover" nor "divine right" was legally sufficient to establish title in Spain so long as the "Indians" respected the natural rights of the Spanish to engage in commerce; only a "just" war would be sufficient to establish title by conquest.

The alternative was title obtained by "free and voluntary choice," namely treaties. These theories seem to have been accepted by most of the European nations, however, not without reservation.

For, the idea that land should be acquired from Indians by treaty involved four assumptions; (1) that a state exists; (2) that both parties to the treaty are sovereign; (3) that acquisition of aboriginal lands by outright purchase would subject the purchaser to the jurisdiction of the seller; and, (4) only through political processes could the acquiring party acquire dominion, provided it was ceded by the original sovereign. However, assumption number (3) might be viewed somewhat inappropriate, for during the Middle ages, continuing on through the period of absolutism in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a treaty ceding territory had the appearance of a sale of land by a private owner, and sales of territory did in fact occur. (Principles of Public International Law, supra.,)

James Youngblood Henderson (supra.), a contemporary writer, tends to agree with Palacious Rubios and ignore the notion of the existence of a "state" as asserted by Fr. Vitorio. He wrote that public laws were the outgrowth of a need for order or to avoid turning society into a "free-for-all," which he calls the Principle of Order. Further, that this "principle of order" had to be balanced off against a Principle of Freedom. He then went on to state;

"The legal system of the democratic state thus created, in my view, four fundamental principles of law . . . tort, restitution, contract, and property. These principles define the universal structure of human relations, and they also provide a standard for evaluating the performance of any legal system in dealing with aboriginal rights in North America. These four principles should have assured the integrity of tribal property from unconsented-to intrusions by the Europeans in Canadian law."

The reasons for the failure of the Europeans to recognize the existence of "states" in the "new world" were purely ethnocentric. They were seeing the world entirely from their own frames of reference, which was a world slowly emerging from the Middle Ages and feudalism into the age of absolutism. Therefore, any social or political ordering which did not comport to their definitions of the world simply did not exist. Tribes, in near diametric opposition to the European conceptions of the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries were and are, by their very nature, "divided sovereignties." (This notion of "sovereignty did not emerge in Europe until the nineteenth century). (Footnote # Principles of Public International Law). The modern doctrine of sovereignty derived essentially from two lines of development which heralded the end of the medival period. On the one hand there was the rise of the new national states anxious to assert their total independence in a new age of economic expansion and to reject all Feudal notions of overlordship or papal interference; on the other, a departure from the medival idea of law as being fundamentally custom, and legislation as merely a form of declaring the existence of new customs. On the contrary each natural territory was now recognized as constituting both a self-sufficient unit and an independent legal entity. So that the notion naturally followed that, within each nation-state, there must be located some supreme power, the decisive feature of which was its virtually unlimited capacity to make new law. (Footnote # Introduction to Jurisprudence, Fourth Edition, Lord Lloyd of Hampstead, Q.C. . . ., London, Stevens and Sons, 1979). Thus it is entirely understandable that the "discoverers," who were primarily interested in commerce, then later, in acquiring territory for their respective sovereigns, would be more interested in furthering the interests of their respective sovereigns than learning about the social and political orderings of the peoples they encountered.

As earlier stated, Fr. Vitorio is generally considered the "father of International law" and that his perceptions of the fundamentally equality of the rights of all human beings is now universally entrenched in the international covenants on human rights. (Footnote # James Youngblood Henderson - The Doctrine of Aboriginal Rights . . . etc, p-187, 8).

Read original scanned version
federalindianlaw001.pdf

Other Related Information:

Handbook of Federal Indian Law by Felix S. Cohen, 1941
Table of Contents: http://thorpe.ou.edu/cohen.html

Chapter 3--INDIAN TREATIES, pages 33-42
http://thorpe.ou.edu/cohen/3cohen33.pdf

"The point then, once conceded, that the Indians are independent to the purpose of treating, their independence is, to that purpose, as absolute as that of any other nation." -- 1828 Attorney General William Wirt., pg 34

See also:

"Currently your governments are funding INAC (Indian and Northern Affairs Canada) Band Councils and Treaty Societies but ignore the Traditional Hereditary Government, which we admitted with the apology, our Canadian system systematically destroyed. At the close of the Supreme Court of Canada Appeal Court ruling on the BC Supreme Court trial; Delgamuukw v. British Columbia [1997] 3 S.C.R. 1010, it was clearly demonstrated the Hereditary system of governance still exists and is superior to the INAC Band Councils. . ." "INAC and our Courts, with funding by both levels of government, have allowed the Band Councils, Treaty Societies and the Hereditary System of Governance to engage in legal conflicts." -- Merv Ritchie, 2012
http://www.terracedaily.ca/cgi-bin/show_pop_article_print.cgi?ID=9470

Haida Canoe makes Historic Voyage

2012-04-05T08:45:00.002-07:00

Family and National Re-Unification.

In 1825 Imperial Russia and the British Empire entered into a Treaty setting the boundary between the trading territories of the Russian/American co. and the Hudson Bay Co. at 54^o40’ North Latitude. Later, in 1867, Russia ceded its trading territory and sold the assets of the Russian/American Trading Co. to the fledgling United States of America. That line (54^o40’ N) served to not only divide the waters of the body of water called Dixon Entrance, but also it cut Haida territories in-two. Now there is a dispute between Canada and the U.S. over who controls Dixon Entrance. On July 25, 1989 at 1755hrs., PDT, two Sea-going Haida canoes parted that imaginary line and re-united the Haida Nation. Dixon Entrance is Haida territory.

The two vessels, Lootaas "Wave-Eater" and Seal Hunter, commanded by Andy Wilson (Skidegate) and Christian White (Massett), sailing under the flag of the Haida Nation (all crew members carry Passports issued by the Council of the Haida Nation) departed from the port of Massett, Haida Gwaii (B.C.) at 0330hrs., PDT, enroute to Hik Taw Hundlaay, Haida Gwaii (Hydaburg, Alaska) 70 miles to the north. This was the first such voyage undertaken by Haida mariners in nearly 100 yrs.

Xuud Gadjuu - Seal Hunter
Photo: Christian White

Lootaas, Haida canoe
Photo: Andy Wilson

Haida population, due to epidemics of small pox, rocky mountain spotted fever, measles, chicken pox, and spanish influenza, crashed from a few (20-30) thousand to an estimated mere 600 souls; the canoes rotted on the beaches and even if the canoes had been sea-worthy, there were too few men left to undertake such a voyage. Today, Haida’s number approximately 10,000.

This was a "Family Affair" to which the news media, with one exception, was excluded. Upon arriving near its destination, the fleet of two canoes and three escort vessels (two under American Registry and the other under Canadian) stopped and American Customs cleared the three motor vessel escorts. A traditional ceremonial landing was made at Hik Taw Hundlaay. The arrivees (paddlers) were from three of the four Haida communities Dlii uu Haadi (Skidegate), Aa uu Haadii (Massett) and K’iis Haat’aaii (Hydaburg, Alaska); not represented was another group of K’iis Haat’aaii (Kasaan, Alaska). On shore, the greeters included members of all four Haida communities. Children, teenagers, adults and elders; arrivees and greeters alike, openly, and with pride, wept tears of joy as they hugged relatives. This was followed by two days of feasting and speech making. Then it was time for Wave-eater and Seal Hunter to depart. At 0400hrs., ADT, last farewells and best wishes for a safe journey were made and the two Haida vessels departed southward.

At 2130hrs., PDT, on July 28, 1989, amid prayers, speech-making, ceremonies, and feasting, Wave-Eater and Seal Hunter arrived safely at Massett, Haida Gwaii. Canadian Customs and Immigration was equally as respective as had been the American officials.

The Voyage across "Bull-Head spawning grounds" (Dixon Entrance)

Both Canada and the United States of America claim ownership of Dixon Entrance, the body of water in the Northeastern Pacific Ocean separating British Columbia from Alaska ("A-B" line at 54^o40’ North latitude). The Haida government states that "Bull-Head spawning grounds" is neither American nor Canadian, it is Haida Territory! To make the fact clear to the two outside claimants, and to others, two Sea-going, Haida canoes, sailing out of the port of Massett, Haida Gwaii (B.C.), at 1755hrs. PDT, dispelled that imaginary "A-B" line, thereby asserting Haida owner-ship and re-unifying North and South Haida Gwaii. Both the United States’ and Canadian Customs services respect the Haida claim by not attempting to enforce their respective rules, except to check the vessels carrying U.S. or Canadian registry. Likewise, in keeping the Haida Law and in cooperation with the global drug trafficing concern, the Council of the Haida Nation insured that no controlled substance (drugs) was carried by any member of the voyage.

An equally significant aspect of the voyage is that it was the first such voyage undertaken by the Haida mariners in nearly 100 yrs. The population of Haida Gwaii, due to epidemics of small pox, rocky mountain spotted fever, measles, chicken pox and Spanish influenza, was reduced few (10 to 20) thousand to an estimated mere 600 souls; the canoes rotted on the beaches and, even if the canoes had been sea-worthy, there were not enough men left to undertake any type of sea voyage. Thus, after nearly 100 yrs. the Haida nation is now re-unified. This was a "family affair" to which the news media, with one exception, was excluded. A traditional, ceremonial landing was made at Hik Taw Hundlaay, Kiis Gwaii (Hydaburg, Alaska) - Kasaan Haat’aaii not represented on the canoes. On shore, the greeters included Haidas from all four Haida Provinces. Children, Teens, Adults and Elders; Arrivees and Greeters alike openly, and with pride, shed tears of joy as they hugged their relatives. This was followed by two days of feasting and speach-making. Then it was time for Wave-Eater and Seal Hunter to depart. Amid prayers, speach-making, ceremonies and feasting, the two canoes and their crews arrived safely at Massett, Haida Gwaii at 2130hrs. PDT on July 28, 1989.

read the original scanned letter....
source: HistoricHaidaVoyage001.pdf

see also:
"Andy Wilson, who has looked after the canoe for the last 20 years, has been on all three voyages the Loo Taa has made: from Vancouver to Haida Gwaii in 1987, from Masset to Hydaburg (a Haida village on Prince of Wales Island in Alaska) in 1989, and down the Seine River to Paris, France later that year."
http://northword.ca/april-2008/paddling-into-the-present

Hlan Gwan (Klink Wan)

2012-03-06T23:04:00.001-08:00

Hlan Gwan
(Klink Wan)

1897

Haida totem pole of bear, 1904

Haida village, Klinkwan, September 6, 1910.

Haida totem poles and houses, Klinkwan, Alaska, ca. 1900-1909.

Beaver mortuary pole, 1918

Guskun (Kasaan)

2012-03-06T23:04:00.000-08:00

Guskun
(Kasaan)
Skowl Bay

Buildings and totem poles as seen from the beach, 1885

Kaigani Village of Kasa-an, as seen from the east, 1885

Kasa-an grave markers and totem poles, as seen from the beach, 1885

Kasa-an totem poles and house, 1885

Kaigani Village of Kasa-an, as seen from the water, 1885

People standing on beach with Haida totem poles and dwellings in background, Kasaan, ca. 1899

1899

Haida home of chief named Sanhyte, at mouth of Karta stream, 1904.

Haida wood carving of whale grave totem, 1910.

Haida totem poles and houses, Kasaan, 1913

Haida man and boys stand inside Chief Sanhyte house, 1914.

Haida Chief Sonihat's totem pole relocated in Los Angeles, California

Haida Chief Sonihat's house frame, Kasaan, 1938.

Haida structure made with totem poles, Kasaan, 1915.

G̱awk’an (Howkan)

2012-03-06T23:03:00.005-08:00

Gawk’an
(Howkan)
Long Island

Haida boys near totem poles, canoes and houses, 1897

grave totems, 1897

Haida village with totem poles and canoes, 1888

Haida totem poles, 1904

Haida totem poles in front of houses, 1906

Haida wooden eagle and human figures, Howkan village, Long Island, ca. 1925.

Massett

2012-03-06T23:03:00.004-08:00

Massett
Haida Gwaii

Haida village with totem poles and canoes drawn up on the beach, 1900

Hydaburg

2012-03-06T23:03:00.002-08:00

Hydaburg
Hik Taw Hundlaay, Haida Gwaii

Haida children pose in canoe in front of house

Established by the Haida people in 1911, Hydaburg has basically remained a Native community. The economy there was based in fishing and timber.

Old Kasaan

2012-03-06T23:03:00.000-08:00

Old Kasaan, or "beautiful town", was situated on Skowl Arm, Prince of Wales Island. Chief Skowl was a firm defender of Native customs against Russian Orthodox missionaries during Russian rule. At the end of the nineteenth century, Kasaan had seventeen lodges and sixty of the finest poles in Alaska, and was a favourite stop for summer tourists during the Gay '90s. It was set aside as a U.S. National Monument in 1907, and so proclaimed in 1916. Deserted and neglected, in 1954 the U.S. Government abolished its status as a National Monument and left the old site to the encroaching forest. (see http://www.civilization.ca for more info.)

Haida totem poles and lodges at the village of old Kasaan, ca. 1897.

Haida totem poles at Old Kasaan village site, ca. 1925

Villages and Towns

2011-12-11T12:15:00.001-08:00

Alaskan Haidas are called "K’íis Xaadas - "K’íis" are lava rocks that have been melted (fused) into one rock. Thus the term means a couple of things - one is "very old" and the other is "a complete unit by itself". So they are the "Old Ones". The rocks are found on Langara Island, hence the name K’íis Gwaay.

The people of Masset inlet and the north end of Haida Gwaii generally are called by their southern kinsmen Gaw-Xaat’áay, 'big bay people,' and those living around the southern point of the group are called Gunghet-haidagai (Ga'ñxet xā'idagai), from the name of one of the most southerly capes in their territory. All of these latter finally settled in the town afterward known to whites as Ninstints, and hence came to be called Ninstints people.

The principal towns known to have been occupied from 1774 to recent times, although not always contemporaneously, are the following, the Kaigani towns being marked with an asterisk, and remaining towns (reserves) in bold:

Chaahl (on Moresby island)
Cumshewa
Dadens
Gahlinskun
Haena
Hlielung
Gawk’an (Howkan)*
Kaisun
Guskun (Kasaan)*
Kayung
K’áyk’ Áanii (Kaigani)
K’iusta

Hlan Gwan*
Kung
Kweundlas*
Masset
Naikun
Ninstints
Skedans
Skidegate
Sukkwan*
Tigun
Yaku

Of these only Gawk’an, Guskun, Kayung, Hlan Gwan, Masset, and Skidegate are now inhabited.
In addition there was formerly an immense number of small towns hardly distinguishable from camps, places that had been occupied as towns at some former time, and mythic or semimythic towns. The following is a partial list of these:

Aiodjus
Atana
Atanus

Chaahl (on North id.)
Chatchini
Chets
Chuga
Chukeu

Dadjingits
Dahua
Daiyu
Djigogiga
Djigua
Djihuagits

Edjao
Gachigundae
Gado (2 towns)
Gaedi
Gaesigusket
Gaiagunkun
Gaodjaos
Gasins
Gatgainans
Gitinkalana
Guhlga
Gulhlgildjing
Gwaeskun

Hagi
Heudao
Hlagi
Hlakeguns
Hlgadun
Hlgaedlin
Hlgahet
Hlgai
Hlgaiha
Hlgaiu
Hlgihla-ala
Hlgadun
Hlkia
Hluln
Hotao
Hotdjiboas
Hoya-gundla
Huados

Kadadjans
Kadusgo
Kae
Kaidju
Kaidjudal
Kaigani*
Kasta
Katana
Kesa
Ket
Kil
Koagaogit
Koga
Kogalskun
Kostunhana
Kundji (2 towns)
Kungga
Kungielung
Kunhalas
Kunkia
Kuulana

Lanadagunga
Lanagahlkehoda
Lanahawa (2 towns)
Lanahilduns
Lanas-lnagai (3 towns)
Lanaungsuls

Nagus

Sahldungkun
Sakaedigialas
Sgilgi
Sindaskun
Sindatahla
Singa
Skae
Skaito
Skaos
Skena
Skudus
Stlindagwai
Stunhlai
Sulustins

Ta
Te
Tlgunghung
Tlhingus
Tohlka

Widja

Yagun
Yaogus
Yasthng
Yatza
Youahnoe(?)

An estimate of the Haida population made, according to Dawson, by John Work, between 1836 and 1841, gives a total of 8,328, embracing 1,735 Kaigani and 6,593 islanders.

Dawson estimated the number of people on Haida Gwaii islands. In 1880 as between 1,700 and 2,000.

An estimate made for the Canadian Department of Indian Affairs in 1888 (Ann. Rep., 317) gives 2,500, but the figures were evidently exaggerated, for when a census of Masset, Skidegate, and Gold Harbor was taken the year after (Ann. Rep., 272) it gave only 637. This, however, left out of consideration the people of New Kloo.

In 1894 (Ann. Rep., 280), when these were first added to the list, the entire Haida population was found to be 639.

The figures for the year following were 593, but from that time showed an increase and stood at 734 in 1902.

In 1904, however, they had suffered a sharp decline to 587. Petroff in 1880-81 reported 788 Kaigani, but this figure may be somewhat too high, since Dall about the same time estimated their number at 300.

According to the census of 1890 there were 391, and they are now (1905) estimated at 300. The entire Haida population would thus seem to be about 900.

The entire stock is divided into two "sides" or family clans--Raven and Eagle each of which is subdivided and re-subdivided into numerous smaller local groups. Some names are spelled phonetically and may have changed. Each family clan was descended from one woman.

Mining, Oil and the Military

2011-11-17T22:35:00.001-08:00

Mining

The first mining venture to accomplish and maintain operations of any size was that undertaken by the Japanese fishing firm of Awaya, Ikeda & Company Limited at Ikeda Bay, Moresby Island. The report of the Department of Mines for 1907 comments very favourably on operations of this firm, stating that it was employing "more than one hundred men . . . in mining, mine construction, and prospecting," that it had erected "a large and substantially built wharf capable of receiving the largest of the coasting steamships," and that a 36-gauge tramway had been built connecting the wharf with the mine workings.

The Queen Charlotte News of April 4, 1908, carried a letter from this firm stating that, including the cost of the wharf, mining camp, tramways, tunnels, and the old sternwheeler "Dawson," which had been converted into a bankhouse and office, over $60,000 had been spent at the Ikeda Bay mining project.

This company was also the first to install telephone lines on the Islands connecting the mine-site with the hotel at Jedway, 4 miles distant.

The outcry against Orientals, and Asiatics generally, which was being raised in British Columbia about this time was probably one of the reason why in 1910 the Ikeda firm sold out to a Vancouver syndicate for the reputed figure of $250,000. Under the new directorate that investment possibilities were exploited and a good deal of publicity was given to the venture. However, during the war years of 1914 to 1918 the shortage of labour and the monopoly of transportation facilities by the Imperial Munitions Board made the going difficult. By 1920 this enterprise, which began as one of the most energetic and promising on the Islands, had closed down.

Following World War I a few placer leases were issued, mostly for claims lying along the sandy north and east shores of Graham Island, but no large scale development of these has ever taken place.

Oil Prospecting

For many years prospectors on Haida Gwaii have been intrigued by signs of oil seepage's at various points. When George M. Dawson made his comprehensive geological survey of the Islands in the summer of 1878 for the Dominion Government, he noted bitumen oozing from the beaches of the Tar Islands, just off Ramsay Island in Juan Perez Sound. Oil-boring operations were begun at Tian Head on the west coast of Graham Island in 1913, and though this was not a successful venture, it is still believed that vast beds of oil may underlie certain sections of the Islands. In 1949 interest in the oil possibilities of the North Pacific islands was again renewed, and exploration work was undertaken by the Royalite Oil Company, the initial drilling to be 5 miles north of Queen Charlotte City. Although this first test well has subsequently been abandoned, prospecting of the area continues.

Military Bases

When in 1936, the international situation became more threatening, the Dominion Government began seriously to consider its Pacific Coast defenses. Up to that time the Royal Canadian Air Force had only the one station, that of Vancouver, on the western seaboard. It was then decided to establish an advanced base on the Islands. A suitable site was selected on Moresby Island, at Alliford Bay in Skidegate Inlet. An area of about 160 acres was purchased in 1937, and the following year the development of a seaplane base was begun. This work was still in progress when the Second World War broke out.

The base at Alliford Bay was ready for operations early in 1940, and in May the first aeroplanes were flown north from Vancouver to the new station. Here, with replacements of twin-engine flying-boats in 1941 and long-range Cansos and Catalinas in 1943, routine work continued until the end of the war. This consisted of anti-submarine patrols, transporting personnel and supplies to many spots on the coast, and photographing vital areas. Thus for five years the station was a key point in the Dominion's West Coast defenses. It was finally closed in September, 1945.