Introduction

This is a report based on a trip by boat from Kitamaat Village, BC, to the Kitlope. The trip lasted seven days, July 12 to 18. Two versatile, flat-bottomed herring punts with outboards were used. The group consisted of the following:

Sheree Ronaasen, (project research co-ordinator, lecturer)

John R. Wilson (Haisla chief and elder)

Beatrice "Bea" Wilson (Haisla elder)

Vickie Jensen (Vancouver author and photographer)

Jay Powell (retired UBC professor, Kitamaat Village Council ethnographic consultant)

John Wilson, Jr. (punt captain)

Chris Wilson (punt captain)

Katherine, Allison and Ryan Stewart (nieces and nephews of John and Bea Wilson)

The trip had been planned for several weeks. Details relating to provisions, gas, experienced help, appropriate gear and other issues were well in hand by the day before departure. Embarkation was early in the morning of Tuesday July 12 from the Kitamaat Village boat basin. The carved cedar pole in front of Sammy Robinson's carving shed overlooked departure.

The Haisla First Nation is representative of first nation groups in the northern part of the Northwest Coast cultural area. As such Haisla culture traditionally included the following features:

A) dramatic wood sculptures such as totem poles and welcoming figures, cedar dugout canoes, split plank houses with carved elaborately carved houseposts and sculpted beams;

B) the pageantry and ritual exchange of the potlatch ceremonial, now most commonly practices in Kitamaat village as a settlement feast, at which the names of deceased community members are passed on.

C) band level society with hereditary chieftains who had real power, mythic explanations for the basis of their nobility and matrilineal canons of succession.

D) traditional economic patterns that emphasized use of marine life and the regional rainforest which provided a predictable and rich food supply and the material resources that made their functional and artistically-remarkable Northwest Coast material culture possible.

E) a clan system (five matrilineal clans: Beaver, Eagle, Raven, Killer Whale or Blackfish, and Fish) with crest groups, father-to-nephew inheritance patterns, clan rights to particular territories and individual property ownership.

The Haisla have 19 reserves, ten of which under 10 hectares in size. Their traditional territory is divided into 52 stewardship areas (called wa'wais areas) each of which is associated with a personal clan name and owned by the Haisla who, in each generation, carries that name. The wa'wais areas that will be passed in the course of the trip are mentioned in Appendix 1 (Haisla traditional areas visited in the course of the trip).

Other aspects of Haisla traditional culture will be treated in the course of the report.

Kitamaat Village is the primary village site of the Haisla First Nation with a population approaching 600, a little more than half of the total 1100 Haisla. The Haisla people, is a First Nation which resulted from the amalgamation of the Gitamaat and Henaksiala (or Gitlope) in 1948-9. These two groups were closely related and spoke the same language almost without geographical distinctions. Both groups had been impacted by the contact epidemics. The survivors among the Gitamaat groups had coalesced and from rem The Gitamaat had previously coalesced from the remnants of (1) the X a'isla (The lower Kitimat River people, who had previously maintained settlements at Bisamut'is (Bish Creek), Miya'na x aas (the mouth of Simgas Creek on the lower Kitimat R.), Zagwis (the head of Minette Bay), Paxw (the site of the Alcan plant), Walhsto (south of Kitamaat Village), C'imoc'a (current Kitamaat village) and elsewhere; (2) the Na'labila or Oxwdewala (upper Kitimat River people) and (3) the Geldala (along Kildala Arm). The Gitamaat had settled at Miya'na x aas, a mile above the mouth of the Kitimat River, in the 1870s. They had already been in contact with Europeans since 1793, when Vancouver visited the area, and, increasingly, by traders, surveyors, prospectors, and adventurers.

Christianity had arrived among the Gitamaat in 1874, when Waks Gamalayu returned home from Victoria with a new faith and a new White man's name, Charlie Amos. In 1883, Susan Lawrence, the first white resident missionary in Haisla country arrived and settled at C'imoc'a, which came to be referred to as Kitamaat Mission. Families gradually started to move across to C'imoc'a, a trend that hastened after the arrival of the Rev. George Raley in 1892. Families would travel seasonally to fishing and hunting grounds, foraging areas, traplines, hand-logging camps, canneries, and ceremonial sites. Some families had as many as five or six houses and cabins spread across Haisla Territory. Until the early 1950s, most families especially maintained a house at Miya'na x aas, both for oolichan fishing and because potlatches came to be held there, away from the Indian agent's eyes, after the potlatch was outlawed in 1887.

The other constituent group of the Haisla First Nation, the Henaksiala people was formed of two main branches: (1) the Kitlope (from Misk'usa, at the mouth of the Kitlope River, and other earlier settlements through the Kitlope watershed) and (2) the Kemano or Xemano (from Yamac'isa, at the mouth of the Kemano River). Henaksiala is, clearly, the name by which members of the various Gardner Canal groups thought of themselves and their common language. By the time of official amalgamation in 1948, the two groups had more or less already united in Kitamaat village. The school was an important factor. Although there had been part-time classes with volunteers in the late 1880s, the village school limped into more regular operation with appointed teachers, buildings and domestic arrangements started in 1891. Families gravitated to the village so their children could have access to the school. And, with the opening of stores with staple foods, a post office (1910) and regular mail and freight deliveries, Kitamaat village became convenient and comfortable. The village grew and, by 1948, most families already had a home in Kitamaat Village. Socially, they had already united into a single group, the Haisla. The Kitamaat Village Council is the governing body of the community. It is called a village council because many members were disinclined to be called a "band"; but one regularly hears it called "the Haisla Band".

Note About the "Pronunciation Guide" Given After Each Haisla Word

In order to help those readers who have no acquaintance with the phonetics of Haisla pronunciation, after most Haisla words and names are introduced we provide an anglicized pronunciation guide that may allow newcomers to pronounce the word using only sounds found in English. This is not an attempt to write the words in Haisla phonetics. It simply allows those without any Haisla phonetic training to try to produce the words using sounds friendly to English speaking tongues. "Real linguists" will be indignant at this tactic.

Note on Haisla Orthography Used in this Report

Haisla Phonetics:

Haisla names and words are written in a phonetic alphabet developed to allow the sounds of the Haisla language to be distinguished. Several different scientifically accurate alphabets have been used for writing Haisla. We use the following transcription system, based on a Haisla alphabet devised by Emmon Bach. In writing Haisla words, we use the following symbols:

1) p', t', t'l, c', k', k'w, q', and q'w are ejective or glottalized, i.e. are pronounced with an audible click or snap. Glottalized resonant consonants ('m, 'n, 'l, 'w and 'y) are preceded by a glottal stop. The glottal stop is written ' and pronounced as the catch in "Oh-oh!".

2) g, gw, q, qw, q', q'w, x, and xw are articulated at the uvular position nd pronounced at the back of the throat.

3) Velar sounds, k, x and g are palatalized and pronounced ky, xy and gy when followed by vowels other than i.

4) The is a set of labialized (rounded) velar and uvular consonants: kw, gw, xw, qw, gw and xw, which are pronounced with the lips rounded and followed by a w-type off glide, even in word-final position.

5) c = ts; lh = voiceless laterial fricative, called barred L (a whispered L); x = voiceless velar fricative (the friction sound of German 'ich' or Scottish 'loch'). Other consonants are pronounced much as they are in English.

6) The Haisla vowels are a (as in British 'father'), e (is actually schwa, the centralized vowel pronounced as the u in 'but'), i (as in 'Pepsi'), u (as in 'rule') and o (as in 'oh'). Note that some Haisla texts write the o-sound as 'au'.

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