Secwépemc People, Land, and Laws: Yerí7 re Stsq’ey’s-kucw

This is a monumental work—and for many people it’s impossible to conceive of how it would have come together. Can you tell us a bit about your process of research and writing?

This was a book that took a long time, in some sense, for both of us it is a life-long work of love, kinship, and dedication to the ancestors that taught us.

Ron: It literally goes back to the time, some 65 or more years ago, when I tslexemwílc as I explained it in the prefaced Ron’s Story of our book. It goes back to my remembrances of childhood in Skeetchestn and Tk’emlúps (Kamloops), being raised by my great-grandparents, Sulyen and Edward Eneas who were both born in underground pithouses in the late 1870s, and being fortunate to be raised into a Secwépemc speaking household by these elders. After seeking an education and then being called back home to Skeetchestn by the elders in 1982 to lead the community as kukwpi7 (chief), I decided to enroll in a PhD program at Simon Fraser University, eventually completing my thesis and degree in 2008. It enabled me to have conversations about experiences, memories and stories with a good number of elders in our language. We have carried on our work with our elders since, working on stories, ecological knowledge, and other topics.

Marianne: I was not born and raised in Secwepemcúĺecw, but into a European minority language community from Northern Germany. My second upbringing—which I honour to this day—was in Haida Gwaii, where I was formally adopted into the Yahgu ‘laanaas Raven clan in Massett, and where I continue to collaborate in research and language revitalization in the community. The beginnings of my becoming a member of the Secwépemc community by marriage and kin go back to late 1984, when I started research in the Simpcw Secwépemc community, recording knowledge of land use and occupancy, stories, ecological knowledge, kinship and all sorts of topics. Marianne’s story at the start of the book explains my formative introduction to Secwépemc people, collaborative research and finding out. Throughout the 1980s and into the present, Secwépemc communities throughout the nation asked me to record their elders’ knowledge.

After we gave an invited presentation on 10,000 years of Secwépemc history at a Shuswap Nation Tribal Council Law Conference in 2007, we were asked to turn our presentation into a book. Thus, the effort