Table Of ContentMAPS OF EXPERIENCE
The Anchoring of Land to Story in Secwepemc Discourse
In many North American indigenous cultures, history and stories are
passed down, not through the written word, but through the oral tra-
dition. In Maps of Experience, Andie Diane Palmer draws on stories she
recorded during travels through the hunting and gathering territory of
Secwepemc – or Shuswap – with members of the Alkali Lake Reserve
in Interior British Columbia to examine how various kinds of dis-
course allow knowledge to be carried forward, reconstituted, reflected
upon, enriched, and ultimately relocated by and for new interlocutors
in new experiences and places.
Maps of Experience demonstrates how the Secwepemc engagement
in the traditional practices of hunting and gathering creates shared
experiences between individuals, while re-creating a familiar social con-
text in which existing knowledge of the land may be effectively
exchanged and acted upon. When the narratives of fellow travellers are
pooled through discursive exchange, they serve as a ‘map of experi-
ence,’ providing the basis of shared understanding and social relation-
ship to territory. Palmer’s analysis of ways of listening and conveying
information within the Alkali Lake community brings new insights into
Indigenous language and culture, as well as to the study of oral history,
ethnohistory, experimental ethnography, and discourse analysis.
(Anthropological Horizons)
andie diane palmer is an associate professor in the Department of
Anthropology at the University of Alberta.
Anthropological Horizons
Editor: Michael Lambek, University of Toronto
This series, begun in 1991, focuses on theoretically informed ethno-
graphic works addressing issues of mind and body, knowledge and
power, equality and inequality, the individual and the collective. Inter-
disciplinary in its perspective, the series makes a unique contribution
in several other academic disciplines: women’s studies, history, philos-
ophy, psychology, political science, and sociology.
For a list of the books published in this series see p. 251.
Maps of Experience
The Anchoring of Land to Story
in Secwepemc Discourse
Andie Diane Palmer
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS
Toronto Buffalo London
www.utppublishing.com
© University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2005
Toronto Buffalo London
Printed in Canada
ISBN 0-8020-3559-0 (cloth)
ISBN 0-8020-8435-4 (paper)
Printed on acid-free paper
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Palmer, Andie Diane N.
Maps of experience : the anchoring of land to story in Secwepemc
discourse / Andie Diane Palmer.
(Anthropoligical horizons)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8020-3559-0 (bound). ISBN 0-8020-8435-4 (pbk.)
1. Shuswap Indians – History. 2. Alkali Lake Indian Reserve No. 1
(B.C.) 3. Oral tradition – British Columbia – Alkali Lake Region
(Cariboo) I. Title. II. Series.
E99.S45P34 2005 971.1’7500497943 C2005-901357-5
This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian
Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to
Scholarly Publications Programme, using funds provided by the Social
Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
The University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its
publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario
Arts Council.
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its
publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book
Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Notes on Language, Transcription, and Pronunciation xvii
1 Introduction: A Discourse-Centred Approach to Understanding 3
2 A Brief History of Responses to Colonialism 27
3 Living on the Land 57
4 Maps 83
5 Story 118
6 Memories 136
7 Cross-Cultural Comparisons 159
Appendix: Selected Transcriptions 170
Notes 207
References 217
Index 229
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Illustrations
Photographs
1 Esk’et: Alkali Lake Indian Reserve No. 1 xi
2 Angela George at Tsecyelk’w 40
3 Ollie Johnson dipnetting at dusk on the Fraser River 62
4 Dipnetting at The Point 63
5 Bringing salmon back to The Point trailhead 64
6 Preparing salmon for smoking 65
7 Racks of salmon in the smokehouse 65
8 Angela George picking saskatoon berries 69
9 Elaine Ignatius gently taps soapberries into an open umbrella 70
10 Angela George with a home-made soapberry whip of shredded
bark 71
11 Alfie Bowie enjoying soapberries in camp 71
12 Angela George scraping the outer bark of a balsam fir 73
viii Illustrations
13 Dorothy Johnson picking sage along Dog Creek Road 75
14 Site D: A cave above the Dog Creek Reserve 104
15 Site G: Angela and her grandchildren walking between remnants of
pithouses 112
16 Site G: Three pithouse rings 114
17 Jimmy George and Alfie Bowie at Gustafson Lake camp 164
18 View of the Fraser River from Dog Creek Road 169
Maps
1 Peoples of the Northwest Coast and Plateau culture areas 30
2 James Teit’s map of Shuswap territory (1909: 45) 32
3 Secwepemc territory (based on information from Teit [1909] and
Duff [1965]) 34
4 Sketch map of Alkali Lake Reserve No. 1 (RG 10, vol. 3681,
file12395-3) 38
5 Sketch map of Harper’s Lake (RG 10, vol. 3681, file 12395-3) 47
6 Alkali Lake Indian Reserves 48
7 Key sites along Dog Creek Road 117
Figures
1 Guide to pronunciation in Secwepemctsín xxiii
2 Government notice to Indian food fishermen 66
Preface
Leaving the town of Williams Lake, British Columbia, is Highway 20,
which supplanted the ‘grease trail’ that Interior Peoples once used as a
trade route to exchange goods for the oolichan oil brought by the Nux-
alk People from Bella Coola. Highway 20 stretches west across the
high, semi-arid Interior Plateau all the way to a precipitous drop down
to the Northwest coast. This road connects with an ancient trail just
before it reaches the east bank of the Fraser River. The old foot trail
along the Fraser’s bank became a horse path, then a wagon road, and
now parts of it are even paved.
There are many stories associated with this path. In the Elders’ life-
times they once made camp and picked berries along the ancient trail
on their way to ‘town,’ to Williams Lake, to trade, purchase supplies,
or see the big annual Stampede that came with the first white settlers.
Then, they say, it could take two days to get to Williams Lake, with the
family in a wagon. They took the trip slowly, stopping often, and made
camp on the hill over the Stampede grounds when they arrived. They
came from their houses near springs and streams on the sidehills by
the Fraser River, some thirty miles, or fifty kilometres, from the grease
trail.
The land, once more heavily forested with jackpine and fir, is now
mostly grassland and juniper, cleared to make way for the ranchers’
free-ranging cattle, later for the harvest of the trees themselves, and
finally for the power lines and the houses. Travelling along this old
trail further out of town, one passes split-rail and Russell and snake
fences, some a hundred years old – in this dry climate, they do not rot
quickly. They are built above the earth, propped on top, as the hard-
pan, alkaline soil is hospitable to neither postholes nor posts. This is
Description:In many North American indigenous cultures, history and stories are passed down, not by the written word, but by oral tradition. In Maps of Experience, Andie Diane Palmer draws on stories recorded during travels through Secwepemc – or Shuswap – hunting and gathering territory with members of the
