A few words in the Gitxsan language
- Wilp: ‘House’ – the primary social, political, and economic unit in Gitxsan society. All members are related matrilineally to a female ancestor of the Wilp. Gitxsan inherency, known as Gwalx Yee’insxw, is established by virtue of being a member of a wilp. The majority of Gitxsan rights reside in the wilp. A Gitxsan citizen’s identity derives from and is the wilp. It is the Wilp that owns the names, territory, adawaak, ayuuks and gyadim gan. The Wilp always bears the name of its chief and is typically part of a larger clan group (pdeek) that cuts across national boundaries. There is no higher authority than the Wilp.
- Lax yip: the territory over which a wilp are the traditional stewards. Each Gitxsan wilp holds rights and title to and thus has jurisdiction over its territory and resources therein in accordance to ayookw (Gitxsan Law). Lax yiphl wilp refers to the wilp’ lands, waters, and the resources thereon. Wilps own a series of territories (lax yip) as well, which they take care of and which provide the sustenance of their people. The lax yip often consists of drainage basins delimited by height-of-land and stream boundaries.
- Ayookw: Gitxsan laws that dictate behavior. Each Gitxsan wilp and its citizens are required to behave in accordance to Gitxsan Law. The laws include citizenship, adoption, marriage, property, use of resources, and conduct at feasts with principles for spiritual, social, political and economic relations. The Ayookxw has been taught both directly and indirectly in daily and ceremonial living
for centuries. - Simgiigyet: wilp spokespeople or “chiefs”. The Simgiigyet play a large role in the complicated Gitxsan universe, through training, grooming, and working the leadership role. Simogyet is the male wilp chief with Simgiigyet or simgighat being the plural form. Sigidim Naak are female wilp chiefs or a chief Matriarch with the plural being Sigidim Hanaak. The Simgiigyet maintain the Gitxsan title that was defended in court and affirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada in the 1997 Delgamuukw decision.
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I’ve been traveling to northern British Columbia, Canada regularly since 2014, looking into the intersections of First Nations sovereignty struggles and environmental defense. One project is gathering footage for a documentary on decolonization and the reassertion of First Nations governance. This summer, I was able to sit down with Sharon Ness of wilp Tsi Basa and Richard Wright of wilp Luutkudziiwus in Gitxsan territory to talk about some of the complexities of how relations have been unfolding over the last decades. As Sharon and Richard tell, Tsi Basa, Luutkudziiwus, and other wilps share common experiences of ongoing attempts by multiple corporations to use their territories and extract their resources without consent, of federal and provincial officials disregarding their obligations to consult with First Nations, and of a few fellow Gitxsan illegitimately claiming the authority to negotiate over their lax yip and in their names. Often wilp engagement starts with wilp members suddenly discovering resource extraction or construction on their territories over which they were not consulted and to which they would not have consented.
Tracking the dynamics of history, representation, and strategic misrepresentation of First Nations voices in a context of colonial suppression is challenging. Government and industry are highly motivated to find individuals, legitimate or no, willing to sign agreements that legitimize their resource extraction activities. First Nations have won many legal battles in the fight for sovereignty, reigning in this process of disenfranchisement. The Gitxsan, along with the neighboring Wet’suwet’en, were the central players in the Delgamukw Supreme Court case (1997) which reshaped the legal landscape for the non-treaty First Nations of BC, establishing that these nations have rights over all of their traditional territories and that there needs to be consultation by government and industry before using these territories. It further established that the colonially imposed Band Council governments are not legal authorities on territories where the traditional government had been able to maintain itself in continuity through the long period of overt, violent cultural suppression. One of the repercussions of this was a scramble by government and industry to find people willing to represent themselves as traditional authorities in order to sign agreements. In the Gitxsan case, a few Gitxsan colluded to create the Gitxsan Treaty Society (GTS) and the Gitxsan Treaty Office to begin treaty negotiations with the Canadian government and to sign resource use agreements with industry for private gains. They have been doing so in the name of all Gitxsan and covering territories of all the wilps without consulting the other wilps, depositing the numerous and enormous industry and government payouts into their own personal accounts. These industry checks are commonly $40k to $100k per signature, and this corruption of and misrepresentation of First Nations government is a current plague affecting communities throughout BC (see my blog post and a Discourse Media article on a Haida feast dealing with these problems, as well as a short film on the feast). As industry just wants to the quick appearance of legality, they are more than happy to work with whomever will sign.
The different wilps have each pursued their own fights, often involving direct blockading of their territories against intrusion and pursuing associated legal battles. Luutkudziiwus in particular maintains the Madii Lii Camp, one of the better known First Nations land-reoccupation and protection projects in BC. Tsi Basa and others have attempted similar actions but have been hamstrung by court injunctions and restraining orders delivered without opportunity for challenge.
A twist of the story is that as the legal requirements of the Delgamukw ruling began to have effect, numerous Gitxsan wilps reported discovering that members of the GTS were “stealing names”… laying claim to simgiigyet names already taken by others, then signing treaties with these names without consulting with the wilp (see Jang 2017 and Vancouver Observer 2014. For example simgiigyet Luutkudziiwus (Charlie Wright) discovered that Gordan Sebastian, the head of GTS, had claimed the name Luutkudziiwus without the consent of the wilp and was using this to try to sign agreements over Luutkudziiwus territory (including Madii Lii). Tsi Basa has a related story. A wing chief living outside the community was signing agreements through GTS as if they were the head chief, without informing or consulting with the wilp. Tsi Basa stripped the wing chief of her name in a feast, the place where Gitxsan governance and ayookw is conducted. Despite Tsi Basa publicizing this stripping to government and demanding consultation, the false representation continues, defying ayookw.
With each court case costing millions and with industrial profits measured in the hundreds of millions, industry rains down these conflicts on the wilps, knowing they don’t have the financial resources to fight them all individually. Moving forward is a complex path of direct action resistance, legal fights in Canadian courts, and assertion of traditional ayook, all under the time pressure of needing to stop destructive actions on their territories while there are still resources left to protect. While reinvigorating ayookw, Gitxsan are also having to adapt ayookw to new circumstances. Gitxsan and other First Nations are stripping community name holders of their positions for violating the obligations and process of their positions, something that would have been unheard of before colonial meddling in their cultures. Similarly, while the Gitxsan have had a tradition of discretion in terms of not publicly airing their internal affairs, external meddling and strategic misrepresentation are forcing Gitxsan to be more public about their governance and internal affairs.
The topics Sharon and Richard cover in the interview are complex and convoluted, reflecting the shifting and obfuscated legal landscape. As such, it is hard to meaningfully cut the interview down to a quick set of soundbites. Click on the photo below for a link to a 25 minute edited version of the interview. You can also click here for a link to the entire 1.5 hour interview.
I’ll share other interviews over the next months from First Nations sovereignty struggles.
