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A2 Terrace Review — Wednesday, June 19, 1991

Kitwancool submits claim,

reclaims old village name

: 7” \TWANCOOL IS NO MORE. -
On June 15, after. presenting documents outlining |

their land claim to representatives of the B.C.
government, the village chiefs ceremonially changed the
name of the community from Kitwancool to Gitanyow.

by Michael Kelly

' The change is a return to the
original name of the place at the
south end of Kitwancool Lake. In
the Gitksan language Gitanyow
means "village of many people".
That name was changed in the late
1800's after a disastrous war with
another native group to the north,
the "Tse ‘Tsaut, which left the
Gitanyow people victorious but
decimated. The name of the village
was changed to Git gun higuu’l,
"village of reduced numbers", later
becoming Kitwancool because the

white men couldn’t pronounce the.

Gitksan name.

‘The weekend ceremony was —

attended by village residents, emis-
saries of neighbouring native
groups, and provincial, federal and
local government representatives, a
total of about 300 people who
gathered under warm, overcast
skies in the village’s new, partially
finished school .to witness the
Gitanyow chiefs present their land
claim research documents to B.C.
Native Affairs. Minister John Sav-
age. Copies of the documents were
also given to native leaders from
Skidegate, Hartley Bay and
Aiyansh, Skeena MLA Dave
Parker,” Terrace Health Care
Society chairman David Lane, the
mayors of Hazelton and Stewart,
Terrace mayor Jack Talstra, and
federal Indian Affairs officer John
White.

Each of the house chiefs spoke to
the assemblage on the history of
their houses and relations to the
land, The speeches in Gitksan
were translated by Elmer Derrick,
a member of one of the Gitanyow
houses and a resident of Kitse-
gukla.

Derrick explained the house
system, saying, "Our community
functions, because of the houses
we have, the mutual and moral
support of many houses and their
members. We're here to celebrate
the beginning of a journey. In
many decades past leaders have
gone before us, many chiefs have

stepped forward to answer the land
question.
"The journey we're starting is

going to be challenging for all of

us. We hope to achieve a just and
honourable settlement.”

The presentations and speeches
were followed by a feast.

Derrick Jater said," Feasts are
carried on to enact and exercise
our laws. For people in govern-
ment, an understanding of the feast
helps clarify the questions that
come up in court.

"People wonder why we don’t
become part of society. It’s
because we are different. We do
this [present the claim] with hon-
our and dignity, take it with you in
the spirit in which it is offered, in
friendship.

"Our laws tell us that we own
the land. We have undertaken to

exist under the system; we don’t -

reject the constitution, We are
trying to find our place."

Derrick also addressed the “gravy
train" issue. Looking around the
unfinished interior of the school he
said, "When we ask for something,
we are told we have too much

already... We are determined to.

secure some of the services com-
mon to everyone. When we talk
about land claims, suddenly these
things — pensions, family allow-
ance, band council funds — are
threatened. We never believed that
we are a burden. It is we who are
burdened by jurisdiction."

He explained that changing the
name of the village is a type of
baptism and a symbolic leaving of
the jurisdiction of the Indian Act.
The process of settling the land
question, he said, will require the
support of all people of the North-
wes.

The Gitanyow claim was sub--

mitted to the federal government in
1977, largely as result of work
done by Dr. Peter Williams, intro-
duced to the ceremony June 15 as
the president of Kitwancool.
Williams sat through the proceed.
ings in a wheelchair. He is 91

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years old and:a Doctor of Law.
On Sept. 3, 1927, Peter Williams
and three other Gitanyow Indians
were sentenced in provincial court
in Smithers to serve between ore
and three months in jail for

assaulting public officers and ob- |

structing a Dominion survey. A
report of the court proceedings
states that the group entered the’
camp of surveyors in the valley
and took their instruments.
Williams later refused to hand over
what was alleged to be a loaded
pistol to an RCMP officer. He
served his time in Oakalla prison.

The Gitanyow land submission
takes note of several such stories
— the surveyors were in the pro-
cess of staking land for the pur-

pose of establishing reserves, a

process the Gitanyow resisted for
decades.

The land research paper cites
archacological evidence and the
oral tradition that about 1,000 the

" one of the Gitanyow houses moved

from Kaien Island, the present site
of Prince Rupert, up the Nass
River valley and eventually settled
along the Kitwancool River, estab-
lishing a large and prosperous
community. Another, it says,
migrated from Gitanmaaks (Hazel-
ton) up the Kispiox and to Kitwan-
cool. Another house came south-
ward from the Skeena headwaters.
During the wars that resulted in
changing the name of the village,
the Gitanyow also acquired terti-
tory north of Meziadin Lake.

The research points toward estab-
lished fishing, hunting, trapping

and berry-picking areas and camps “#4

on the northward-flowing tributary
creeks and rivers of the Nass. The
paper states, "For some years now
the Nisga’a Tribal Council. has
claimed that their people lay
ownership to the land which drains
into the Nass River, from the
watershed which divides the
Skeena and the Nass drainage. The
Kitwancool, cautious to prevent
any injury to the Nisga’a case
which went before the Supreme
Court of this country, did not
speak out. The ownership of this
territory musi now clearly be
defined 1o both the Federal and
Provincial Governments."

The paper then identifies several

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Elmer Derrick, Chief Robert Good: A baptism, a symbolic
leaving of the jurisdiction of the Indian Act.

sites in the Cranberry and Kiteen
areas, explaining that a migration
of Kitwancool people took place in
the 1800’s, with many of the vil-
lagers moving to the Nass estuary
in search of cannery jobs. Some- of
them stayed in the Nass valley,
and those who still live there pos-

sess ancestral rights within Kit-
wancool,

The concluding section of the
research submission is taken up
with transcripts of hearings and
meetings between the Gitanyow
chiefs and various land commis-
sions that came through the terri-
tory between 1913 and 1915. In it
the chiefs repeatedly resist offers

from the government to establish
schools and medical services in the
village, suspicious that such collab-

oration would prejudice the land |

question. They eventually accepted

those services, still demanding to

know when there would be an end
to the reserve system and a return
of at least part of the land they
formerly held through their house
system.

It’s a question that is yei to be
answered, and June 15 marked the

beginning of what may be a new

line of inquiry.
At the conclusion of the day’s
events Terrace mayor Jack Talstra

— Continued on page A3

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