Arts/Review

‘Spirit’ readable account of land claim

THE SPIRIT IN THE LAND. The Opening
statement of the Gitksan and Wet’su-
wet’en hereditary chiefs in the Supreme
Court of British Columbia May 11,
1987. By Gisday Wa and Delgam Uukw.
Reflections, Gabriola. 90 pp, paper. Avail-
able at the People’s Co-op Bookstore.

Supportive of, but confused by, the
intricacies of the arguments surrounding
the case for Native land claims? You're in
good company. But a new book by Native
authors promises enlightenment.

The Spirit in the Land is the opening
statement by hereditary chiefs Gisday Wa
and Delgam Uukw, of, respectively, the
Wet’suwet’en and Gitksan peoples, and of
their lawyers to the B.C. Supreme Court
almost three years ago. Dry stuff? Not at all.

In: fact, The Spirit in the Land weaves

Immigrants’
story staged;
Latin art

Footlights: The Firehall Arts Cen-
tre and Tamahnous Theatre presents
Chevy, a play about two Chinese
immigrants who come toa small B.C.
town, at the Firehall Arts Centre in
Vancouver. Chevy, by Wen Jee —
whose “innovative use of English
compels audiences to experience the
frustrations of confronting a language
barrier” — runs March 9-April 1.
Phone 689-0926 for reservations and
times.

eke sk ae

Concert: The Rogue Folk Club
presents British folk and folk-rock
legends Martin Carthy and Dave
Swarbrick at The W.I.S.E. Hall in
Vancouver on Tuesday, March 8, 8:30
p.m. Tickets are $11, $9 members,
phone 736-3022 to reserve.

xk * *

The Vancouver East Cultural Cen-
tre Gallery features the artistic works
of Latin America in “Imagenes”, run-
ning March 5-April 1. Featured are
Savladoran artist Ablerto Cerritos,
Argentinian Nora Patrich, Jose Ven-
tura of El Salvador,.and Sandra
Patrich. Sponsored by the Latin
American Research Centre (P.O. Box
1139, Station A, Vancouver, V6C
2T1). Gallery is open 12 noon to 6
p.m. daily, and for evening perfor-
mances at the theatre.

* Fe *

Tube: Knowledge Network airs, on
the Equinox series, “Command and
Control’, an investigation of the sys-
tems controlling the 50,000 nuclear
weapons in the world’s arsenal, and
how an accident could ‘trigger a
nuclear war. It’s on Wednesday,
March 7, 9:05 p.m.

Seattle’s KCTS public television
presents, on Frontline, an examina-
tion of the lives of three Canadian
men who are victims of the drug thal-
idomide. “Extraordinary People” airs
for 65 minutes on Tuesday, March 6,
8:10 p.m. Closed-captioned. Nature
gets an airing with the National Geo-
graphic Specials program, “Journey to
the Forgotten River”, on how animals
cope with drought in southern Africa,
on Wednesday, March 7, 7 p.m.; also
The Challenge to Wildlife, on the
future of species facing a growing
human population, same date, 8:10
p.m. 95 minutes.

10 « Pacific Tribune, February 26, 1990

history and culture into a readable format
that sheds light on Native beliefs while reliv-
ing the injustices under which the territories
of the Gitksan and Wet’suwet’en were
seized in the late 19th and early-20th centur-
ies.
Brief statements by the chiefs are fol-
lowed with chapters outlining the history of
the claim, and the nature of the evidence
and of the legal argument, as presented by
the chiefs’ counsel.

The court case, still ongoing with a
judgement anticipated this year, arises from
the fact that the provincial government has
refused to negotiate land claims (it has
in turn named the federal government as a
co-defendant). In his statement, Delgam
Uukw captures the essence of the province’s
attitude:

“The Europeans did not want to know
our histories; they did not.respect our laws
or our ownership of our territories. This
ignorance»and disrespect continues. The
former Delgam Uukw, Albert Tait, advised
the Chiefs not to come into this Court with
their regalia and their crest-blankets. Here,
he said, the Chiefs will not receive the
proper respect from the government.”

Bolstering the chiefs’ testimonies about
cultures razed to the point of extinction, and
the rebuilding of those cultures which the
land claims issue partially represents, are the
historical examples the counsel ‘1ses to
establish the case that the lands were never
ceded to the Crown in the first place.

Instead, they were taken in the most
underhanded manner, the counsel argues in
noting, for example, a government scheme
to allegedly hand over Crown land in the
Bulkley Valley to returning veterans of the
Boer War between 1901 and 1905. Known
as South African war scrip, the plan allowed
a Boer War veteran to take up farming in
160 acres of uncultivated land anywhere in
the province.

Even for non-Natives, the plan was a
scam. The counsel quotes a letter from a
veteran who charged: “If the government
had studied to devise a scheme by which a
large acre of land would be turned over to
the hungry ‘land sharks’ no more effective
scheme could have been adopted.”

Great sections of Bulkley Valley were
subsequently acquired by real estate inter-
ests who had purchased the South African
war scrip from veterans, the lawyers note.

They argue that government surveyors
ignored Native dwellings in assessing the
land, with the result that: ‘““Wet’suwet’en_

hunters and trappers and fishermen
returned to their homes at the end of
summer or early winter, having completed
their season’s fishing at Moricetown or
Hagwilget, to find white settlers in posses-
SION see

The chiefs’ lawyers also use the provin-
ce’s own defence statements to show a con-
tinuing colonial attitude regarding Native
land claims and title. They quote a former
chief commissioner of lands and works,
Joseph Trutch, who in 1867 declared that:

“..the Indians have really no right to the ~
lands they claim, nor are they of any actual
value or utility to them, and I cannot see
why they should. . .retain those lands to the
prejudice of the general interest of the col-
ony...” ‘

“His ghost rattles within their pleadings,”
the. plaintiffs’ counsel observes of the
government’s position.

An informative foreword provides a
sound introduction to the subject, and sev-
eral black-and-white photos and art repro-
ductions are located throughout the book.

— Dan Keeton

Chilling play concerns bondage

COLD COMFORT. Directed by Paul Cre-
peau and Mark Leiren-Young. Written by
Jim Garrard. With Peter Lacroix, Graham
Caswell and Margaret Langrick. At the
Station Street Art Centre, 220 Prior St.,
Vancouver, at 8:30 p.m., Tuesday through
Saturday with Sunday matinees at 2 p.m.,
until March 3.

Cold Comfort, a Canadian play at the
Station Street Arts Centre in Vancouver, is,
as the title suggests, chilling. It is also fasci-
nating and very. funny.

The fascination lies in watching and lis-
tening to a frightened, angry man who
drinks whisky like warm tea to dull the pain.
We learn that he drove one evening many
miles out of town with his wife and small
daughter, pushed the wife out of the truck,
took the daughter home, read her a bedtime
story, tucked her into bed and gave her a
kiss goodnight. The wife’s punishment was
either due to her inability to control opening

time at the local movie theatre, or her hus- ,

band’s drinking, or both. You’ve heard
about guys like this but have you seen them
in action?

This play gives you the opportunity to
watch — froma safe distance. We hear this
story and many others from the young girl,
who is now a young woman of 16 living

with her father in a garage on a highway
somewhere in northern Saskatchewan. She
is lying in an old metal bathtub up to her
shoulders in bubbles while a great blizzard
howls around our ears. The young
Camembert-eating travelling salesman

beside her is all ears (and eyes), having just ,

been plucked from the snow storm by the
father in his tow truck. The father has dis-
appeared back out into the night after leav-
ing the younger man as a “gift” for the
daughter who has been complaining that
she never gets to talk to anyone. :

As the story unfolds we come: to under-
stand that she has been very isolated, never
gone to school and seen no one because,
“Daddy doesn’t like anyone to know his
business.” The black humour in the play is
provided by the juxtaposition of the calm
sweetness of the young woman upon the
quasi state of terror in which she lives. The
salesman decides he must liberate her from
this living situation but both he and the
daughter underestimate the father’s att-
achment to “his little girl” as the plan for the
escape becomes unravelled when “Daddy”
gets wind of it.

The most important feature of this play is
the public exposure of one young woman’s
dependence on this father. We begin to
understand her (and thereby other people’s)

terrible dilemma when dealing with men
who emotionally and physically trap them.
The father is a classic torturer — one
moment very rational and seemingly
“normal” — the next cruel and dangerous.

Toronto playwright Jim Garrard has;
woven a tight family “psycho-drama,” one
of three the author calls his “bondage
plays.” No words are wasted. His mastery
of the genre is obvious and thought-
provoking.

The script is competently brought to life
by the co-directors Paul Crepeau and Mark
Leiren-Young and the three actors. Peter
Lacroix and Graham Caswell are very con-
vincing in the roles of Daddy and the travel-
ling salesman. Margaret Langrick, as the
daughter, delivers her part in this live pro-
duction with confidence and authority.
(Langrick is currently in the running for a
Genie award for the same role in the film
version of this play.)

Cold Comfort runs until March 3 at the
Station Street Art Centre, 220 Prior St. at
8:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday with
Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. Tuesdays are
two for one; Wednesdays and Thursdays $9
(wealthy)/$7 (not so wealthy); Friday and
Saturday $10/$8 and the Sunday matinees
are pay what you can. .
— Liz Thor-Larsen