401_Chris-Arnett_Ganges-Village-History_Oct-2020_Pt1.mp3, 401_Chris-Arnett_Ganges-Village-History_Oct-2020_Pt2.mp3

otter.ai

12.02.2024

no

Outline

Part One

Indigenous place names and supernatural beings on Saltspring Island.
• Chris shares his knowledge of Saltspring Island's indigenous place names, including the meaning of "Ganges" and the significance of being cautious of their use.
• Speaker 2 shares a local legend about a powerful supernatural snake, She Okay, that inhabits the Ganges harbour area.
• According to the legend, the snake killed a white settler's wife and children, and is associated with unusual rock formations and slime in the water.

Ancient burial grounds and supernatural beings.
• Archaeologist theorizes about a powerful, possibly dangerous being in the Ganges River based on place name and origin story.
• Archaeologists uncovered a 2000 year old burial ground in Vancouver, with 2 bodies found in flexed position with Jade artifacts.

Archaeology, cultural heritage, and indigenous involvement.
• Speaker 2 discusses the differences between research archaeology and cultural resource management (CRM), with CRM being the most predominant and problematic due to its focus on business models rather than academic research.
• Speaker 2 expresses concerns about the impact of CRM on cultural heritage sites, including the destruction of a cemetery and the lack of proper recording and preservation of artifacts.
• Speaker 2 discusses the importance of involving First Nations communities in archaeological work, particularly when dealing with ancestral remains.
• Speaker 2 highlights the mutual exchange of knowledge between archaeologists and First Nations people, with each group learning from the other's cultural and technical expertise.

Indigenous history and cultural preservation in Victoria, BC.
• Indigenous communities face challenges in preserving cultural heritage during construction projects.
• Owner and new owner discussed, possible people power.

Early black settlers in Saltspring Island, BC.
• George Richardson, a black settler from the United States, was the first non-Indigenous person to settle in Ganges, Saltspring Island, in the 1860s.
• Walter Isaac, another black settler, preempted land next to Richardson's property, and the Tolson brothers later bought both of their properties and developed the area into a ranch.
• Kate, a surveyor, created the first map of the village, showing the area occupied by the indigenous people and the spirit eyelets or rock formations left out of the properties.

• The white settlers occupied the good land around St. Mary's Lake, while the black settlers were left near the native settlement due to conflicts and prejudices between the groups.
• The Cowichan Valley was a hub of activity during the summer months, with groups of people migrating to the Fraser River to harvest clams and herring.
• These groups traded with Native people from the BC interior, exchanging clams and herring for Jade and soapstone artifacts.

Indigenous history and culture in the Puget Sound region.
• Archaeological sites in the islands date back 5000 years, with older sites hidden underwater due to sea level rise.
• Speaker 2 discusses indigenous people's oral traditions of arrival on Vancouver Island, including stories of people emerging from the ground and sky.

Indigenous history, slavery, and cultural adaptation.
• Williams and Winds were black settlers who served in World War I as laborers, despite being denied entry into fighting units due to their race.
• Speaker 2 reflects on the history of slavery in the context of European contact with indigenous peoples, noting that accounts of native slavery come from the post-contact period and that Europeans introduced the concept of slavery.
• Speaker 2 highlights the tension between those who embrace European cultural practices and those who wish to maintain traditional ways, with slavery being one of the contentious issues.

Indigenous societies and the impact of European colonization.
• The speaker highlights the difference between the state and non-state societies, with the former characterized by inequality and separation of power, and the latter by distributed leadership and expertise.
• Indigenous populations faced exploitation and commodification of their people and resources by European colonizers.

Indigenous slavery in the Pacific Northwest.
• Speaker 2 discusses the history of potlatches in indigenous cultures, emphasizing the importance of sharing and sustainability.
• Speaker 2 highlights the impact of European arrival on indigenous societies, including the commodification of slaves and the destruction of traditional practices.
• Speaker 2 argues that enslaved people in the 19th century were not the "backbone of the economy" and were not introduced by Europeans, but rather were a marginalized group accommodated in a new system.

Indigenous history and culture in the Gulf Islands.
• In the 1840s, the establishment of Fort Victoria led to an influx of people from the Gulf Islands, including the Haida, who were exposed to conflict with settlers due to misunderstandings of protocols.
• In the 1860s, George Richardson and Walter Isaacson experienced harassment from native people who robbed their crops, leading to the naming of Richard Main Island after HMS Satellite.
• Speaker 2 discusses the history of the land, emphasizing the importance of seasonal access to resources and the practice of exogamy in Coast Salish culture.
• Speaker 2 and Unknown Speaker walk through the area, discussing the battle and the significance of the land.

Part Two

Burial practices and archaeology in a coastal area.
• Speaker 1 discusses burial practices in ancient cultures, mentioning the presence of gravel and rocks in the area.
• Speaker 1 discusses the history of a burial ground in Canada, including the discovery of human remains and cultural deposits.

History and land ownership in British Columbia.
• Speaker 1 discusses using ground penetrating radar to non-invasively explore historical sites, mentions specific properties and their history.
• Eliza Linacre, 15, witnessed a fight between settlers and native people after the settlers arrived in the area.
• McCauley, a high school student, was denied a lift to Victoria by the Heisler family, who were concerned about providing protection on the trip.

A historical battle between settlers and indigenous people in Canada.
• Speaker 1 describes a violent confrontation between settlers and a group of Indigenous people, resulting in the deaths of several settlers and the injury of one man who was able to escape and seek help.
• Eliza tells the story of how her family and others were attacked by the Indigenous group, resulting in the deaths of several and the injury of one man who was able to escape and seek help.
• Speaker 1 discusses a battle between Cowichan and Hyslop people in Ganges harbour, with the Cowichan protecting settlers from the Hyslop.
• The bodies of the Hyslop people were buried on an island in Ganges harbour, with the settlers writing a letter to the governor expressing their concern for their safety.
• In 1860, Native people fired on a gunboat at Walter Spit, leading to a six-week war between the colonial government and an indigenous group on the south end of Cuprite Island.
• The Elsa Bella mochi group, led by a small group of warriors, were defeated by the British colonial government, resulting in the rounding up of the group within six weeks.

Colonialism, violence, and displacement in Saltspring Island history.
• Speaker 1 describes how some indigenous people in Vancouver Island killed non-indigenous people, including Willie Robinson, and how some historians have questioned the motives behind these killings.
• Missionary Thomas Crosby wrote a book detailing the Robinson murder, naming the man who killed him, Queen, and providing insight into the indigenous perspective on the event.
• Speaker 1 discusses the history of Saltspring Island, BC, including the displacement and murder of black settlers in the 1860s and the departure of native people for good.
• An elder's account of the last permanent native residents on the island, who died of measles rather than infecting their community, challenges the commonly held belief that they were murdered.

Indigenous identity, language, and culture.
• Elder from Malahat shares alternative story with truthful elements, challenging traditional notions of indigenous governance.
• Speaker discusses the history and evolution of Chinook Jargon, a trade language used by Indigenous peoples in the Pacific Northwest.
• Speaker 1 discusses the impact of European colonization on Indigenous cultures, including the introduction of patriarchy and the adoption of European ways of life.

Part One

Speaker 1 0:00
it through Ganges. So Chris has been on the island for many years, his credit personal interest in different spheres in history. So I'm sure we'll get some of that today too. So Chris

Speaker 2 0:19
thanks for coming out. So yeah. I'm going to talk today about this place. And first of all, I'd like to acknowledge that even though I use lots of native language, I don't really speak it. I'm not fluent in the language. But over, I studied to learn the places this place has a Saltspring has a lot of place names. There's about 27 different indigenous place names for different parts of the island. The island wasn't known by anyone name was known. You identify the island was identified by the place you were visiting. Right here, does anybody know the name of this place? I'm gonna teach you the name. And it's really almost like show, right? And you'll see this spelt many different ways. This was sat next people have a way to spell it. To meet them. Speaking people have a way to spell it. There's different different spellings, but it's the same word. There's only one word shocked. She out. And so what does that word mean? I can almost sense though I haven't even turned on the damn thing. We're talking about the Ganges stork name digitus. Placing means both means saying the shots in language and the commitment language, which are the two languages that we spoke here in former times. And in some people still speak these languages, a lot fewer than used to be means to be cautious of it.

Speaker 2 2:17
References something so what are they being cautious of? Now this is a kind of an interesting thing I always used to ask elders about was that word meaningful? Because people haven't lived here for a long time. Your memories of Saltspring are attenuated because, you know, people largely moved away from the island. That word and so as I began to do more research in the island over the years, I came across an account of a was called a Tino King. She Okay, which is a powerful supernatural snake, lived in Ganges harbour, the head of the harbour here. And if you ever go down there at low tide, it's very unusual rock formation that comes out into the day, they're too long looking weird. That could be the serpent, a manifestation of it. Don't quote me on that, I'm just assuming because it's a very unusual rock formation at the end of the day. But anyway, there's another aspect of the day here that's very interesting and unusual that some of you may have noticed in the summer months, there's a lot of slime in that day, doesn't get a lot of circulation, a lot of gunk floating on the water. It's nasty stuff people who say, Oh, it's pollution and that, but it's a natural thing. It's just because there's no way for this water to circulate. And in former times, indigenous people associated that natural phenomena in the water with this supernatural being the general term for the supernatural being I call it a silky, that just means powerful snake. For the class of being it's called a slap that covers a splat look them is a supernatural being that just inhabits a place. And they're all over the place. If you know where to look. Or all over the place, if you know where to look. Most people don't know about them. They're located off of the hands of rocky points where there's Eddie's there in dangerous places up in the woods and waterfalls, any kind of spooky place. And we all know these places, when you're out hiking, you know, you get a weird vibe here. That could be a slap. But, you know, but after people live here, you know, when people have lived here for 1000s of years, they began to know where these things were in the landscape. And they were very important part of the landscape really influenced the way people moved about how they interacted with things because they're always aware of this snake. And according to this elder who told the story about this serpent in the 30s, he claimed that there was a white settler that lived here with his family and that this snake killed his wife and the two children. I've never been able to call her out corroborate that. But I look into so anyway, how would this being kill people? So, two heads Snake has several key it's very powerful being but it can, it can kill you, or it can give you great supernatural power, depending on your, the way you react to it. And it was accounts for this thing, it was sort of surface in the bay, and it was squirt some black stuff out at you. And if you got it on, you know, you know, we might give you this power, it might not kill you. So when people went out to encounter these things are always very prepared. But if you weren't prepared, and you did the wrong thing you didn't kill. So it's kind of an interesting story. I mean, I don't know if it's still out there, probably not, who knows. But right there that's the void. And I guess, if possible, go go down there. I mean, yeah, that's a good question. Because people would deliberately confront these beings, people that want it to be Slom Indian doctors, you know, medicine man, some of the European terms, we use people who wanted to, you know, gain extra supernatural power, they knew where these things lived. And they would go out and deliberately confront them or not confront them just put themselves in the presence of these beings with without fear, and hopefully you would, you would have a positive experience. But anyway, that's that's never been corroborated by any indigenous person. That story, I have assumed it based on the place name. Be cautious of it. And the fact that this being did live in the head of Ganges harbour and may still have some presents. So I just sort of put two and two together because I'm an archaeologist and all we do is look for patterns. You look for patterns and landscapes patterns and origin stories and stuff and you just kind of what do these things mean? How do you interpret them? That's sort of how I put that together so she ought cautious of it. So what about she'll do people live here of course again, you know, this place has changed a lot like where we're standing now was mud flats. Some of you have to remember it when they did this park and what 1967 Centennial project so they filled in this area what was here before will fulfill Ganges road here. From that place the pizza place up to mow its store. That's a that was a spit of sand. With water on either side. No water uses just a flat gasoline alleyway, there. The shoreline was the sidewalk basically, along spit that went out to a bunch of rocky they're almost eyelets were moments is and where Greece point is, and we're gracile it is. So there's been very little archaeology done here. Whenever it's done, it's kind of impact assessment oriented, like we remember when the the store there was or that little stores are all torn down. And we're gonna build that big. Can you remember the name? Marks? Yeah. And and in doing that, the uncovered a 2000 year old burial ground. And portions of it are still there. So what does that store now in the corner? Regular pods is the excavated a 2000 year old, they encountered a 2000 year old cemetery. And they found burial pits there were lot round sort of pits that are lined with cobbles. And some of them had two bodies in them in a flexed position with Jade artifacts and and other items buried with them. So these were important people buried in this place. And they they removed I believe three Graves from the footprint of the building. But the archaeologists I talked to, to see that they extended under the sidewalk towards gasoline alley. So there are still 2000 year old burials under the road there and the sidewalk. And she was pretty sure I mean, she could see them in the profile. And, you know, they recovered a lot of data from those burials. But it was done very quickly. And this is one of the problems with archaeology today. There's two kinds of archaeology done in British Columbia. There's what they call research archaeology, which is what I do. I'm just a nerd. You know, I'm interested in something I will go learn about it. The other type of archaeology, which is the most predominant one is cultural resource management. And it's a business model of archaeology. And it's, it came about in the 80s, when there was a lot of development happening in, in the woods. And in communities, it was just a lot of growth, a lot of building led to development. And of course, in the course of this work, they were encountering people, you know, the workers are encountering, you know, evidence of past, you know, culture, baths, people that lives that have lived here. And so there were a lot of confrontations, I was involved in some of these wars in the woods, where people like, for example, up in the Stein river valley, in central or in the southern interior, they want to lock this huge valley. And it was a pristine Valley, we want to build a road into it. In doing so they would have destroyed a lot of really important cultural heritage sites. And so a lot of these a lot of companies formed to kind of mitigate the impact of developments. But of course, when you're working for the developer, you know,

Speaker 2 11:12
you're kind of biased in favor of their project. So, for example, over here, when they encountered the cemetery, they should have shut that thing down and worked for 10 years on it. My opinion, because archaeology, research, archaeology, the real archaeology, it's very time consuming, and expensive. And basically, involves making a three dimensional map of what's under the surface. That wasn't done there. The good with the sort of had to, which was basically record the burials as best they could record the artifacts, move the burials out, and then just, you know, build the place. And so the business model is not good, because it's time is money. And in archaeology times, money is just a bad model. It's a business model. But now it's very, very big business. It's billions of dollars to billions. Nobody even knows how much archaeology is worth today. But with all the gas and oil development up in the north, it's worth big, big bucks. And very few people are doing research archaeology, and one of the few I know a few other people, but it's not, it's an academic, it's not a good way to make money. But if you get your BA in archaeology and get hired by some CRM firm, you can, you know, make a good living. But I don't know I have, I find it a bit problematic. I shouldn't say it's all bad. I know, there's some outfits, particularly ones that work on behalf of First Nations groups. Some are actually First Nations companies, they do good work, because they're very mindful of what they're doing. And yeah, so two types are killed. The good and the bad. Leave a little bit of room for questions in between. Oh, yeah. Any questions so far? For such a small group?

Speaker 3 13:06
interested? feel about having the remains of their ancestors removed? And is there a protocol to follow?

Speaker 2 13:18
Yeah, very good question. Because in this part of ECE, you don't do any archaeological work without constitution with First Nations. So they have to be involved in some capacity. Usually, it's just as a field worker. And in the case over here, I knew the architect there, he's not around anymore. He told me it was just a big huge headache. And he's just picking it costs 50,000, it costs 1000s 1000s of dollars, to because there are 14 different first nations that have an interest in this place. And these are First Nations defined by the Indian Act, they're all bands. So there's a bunch of you know, there's five bands in the Saanich Peninsula, there's four or five over here, and so on. So archeologists today, if there's an area where all these bands have an interest, they're obliged to involve members from each one of those bands in the work. And it usually is involved in hiring see a couple of people to act as field assistants, and they usually do kind of the labor screening stuff or excavating, very rarely are indigenous people, kind of the heads of these projects are involved in the planning and stuff here, but consulted and they often bring in ritual experts, for example, when they find graves, they always bring in what they call who are people that work with the dad, because in all these communities, there are people with hereditary hereditary roles. And one of the rules in these communities is the undertaker Grave Digger, the people that deal with the dead. So as an archaeologist and I've worked, done a lot of CRM on this island with CRM companies so I worked in CRM. And we, all of our workers were Undertaker, which is really interesting because in these communities, they recognize we're dealing with the dead. So the people that work with us also, you know, have to have that specialty, dealing with the dead. So all of our workers are predatory grave diggers, and we learned lots from them. And they learned lots from us. For me, it's a mutual exchange, because we bring a lot of our, our technical expertise, our archival disparities. And they bring, of course, a lot of cultural components that you can't really read about or study without, you know, knowing people face to face. So, yeah, so yeah, it's a good question. So they're involved in lighting. That was only a recent thing that only came about in the in the 80s, and 90s.

Speaker 3 16:02
Like, I'm thinking, somebody decided they were going to dig up planters field. Yeah, it all depends, you know, but what do the indigenous people find acceptable in terms of something like this?

Speaker 2 16:15
Can't speak for indigenous people as a collective, because it's all different. For example, look what happened here, when white guy tried to build a house on race Island, where there were very a lot of protests, a lot of disagreement. On the other hand, over Ron Swanson in the 1980s, when they expanded the Washington First Nation wanted to build some condos at the end of the causeway there. And they were going to highway upgrading and build some over passes and things through this area that they thought was devoid of any cultural stuff, they actually did some test pits, there's no there's nothing here. So when he started stripping away the ground to build the road, and found like a huge cemetery. 61 intact burials, 796, scattered human remains just found in the digging with the trenches. So a massive burial site, very disrupted. And actually the eventually, the to Austin, First Nation shut it down, because there's so many variables being encountered. But, and I also know over in SECAM, they were building a sewer and the reserve there, and they encountered a burial ground with 30 people. So they hired CRM group to come in and remove the burials who are in the way, you know, every situation is different. It all depends. I think there's some politics involved sometimes. But it really depends on the situation, how people feel about

Speaker 4 17:53
maker reminder, too, that a promise was made to put a block on that building. Yeah. And that's never happened that would, that would acknowledge those grave sites under that. And we're on, we're talking to that, that was the that was the owner, then it's a new owner now, and we're talking to voters, but at some point, we may look for people power to

Speaker 2 18:16
black, that's what they wanted to do. And it could be great. It could be in Hulkamania I'm so in chocolate language, it would be very appropriate, because they're still there. That is the cemetery. And it's one of maybe a few around here. So. So try and describe with the village look like here. We know, there were people living here, First Nations people up to 1860. Because we have accounts of that. And they would be living here at the end of the spit. And they were also living at the head of the harbor. In front of harbor house harbor house is a very important site. I've dug over there with doing CRM stuff. And when you go down the ground, it's like digging through layers of concrete. Because you're digging through compact house floor where people have lived. And we took a bunch of radiocarbon dates. And you have this continuous level of occupation that a whole bunch of floors beginning around 1400 ad, and then they continue right up to contact which was 1859. So this village of showed was here till 1860s. And people moved away or something happened. I'm still figuring out what happened to the actual people have shaped what happened to them because they were here up to 1860. There were houses standing here in 1860. And the first settlers who came here, arrived in the very first arrived in November 1859 were harbor houses now. And so in 1850 1858, all this area was surveyed illegally by the colonial government because we're No land sale agreements with the people here. Your land sale agreements with people over in Saanich in Victoria, not here. But anyway

Speaker 5 20:11
this whole island, just amazing.

Speaker 2 20:18
That's really nice to have a local here. So, yeah, so first settlers 1859. And they were the liquors. And they were from Australia. And so when this place was surveying, all of this area was divided up to 200 acre lots. This was called the Ganges settlement, Ganges harbor settlement. And it was a big, so wherever we are today, there was 100 acre 200 acre property that ran along here up to Drake, and then over to Rainbow Road. And it was preempted by a black man, the George Richardson, who's from the United States, we think we're not even sure where he's from. There's very little known about him. But he was the first settler. Not of George Richardson. Anyway, so George Richardson live here, and he was visited in 1860. By the ankle condition, and they recorded he had a few acres in cultivation. And I believe that his house was located next to the gas station, this little rise of land their little sort of rock thing. I believe that his cabin stood on that piece of land, because it was inland a bit and and protected somewhat. And next to him on the other side of Rainbow Road, there was another 200 acre preemption, and that was preempted by a guy named Walter Isaac, another black settler. So this area of Saltspring Island Ganges first non Indigenous settlers were black man from the United States, but we know very little about it. We know a lot about Lewis Stark, and those other names that come up in the in the literature, but George Richardson, we're not sure, apparently lived here until the 1880s. And he sold his land to the Tolson brothers, long all of this area. And they were rich guys that came over here. So the remittance man types came over from England. And they turned Richardson's former property into an area they called the ranch, it was kind of a party place. And they they took over his old cabinet and built another house there. And they're very interesting guys, the tools. I think some of their houses are still here. It's been a while since I've revisited that stuff. But they when they came here in 1880, they stayed in Georgia Richardson's cabin, which was over there, by that Nolan was telling you about. So Georgia Richardson. So why, why were the blacks here and not elsewhere in Jana? Because at this time Saltspring is being preempted by lots of people. Do you guys know what preemption is? Yeah, well, for those who don't know, it's gonna be a little reminder. The land was divided up into 200 acre lots, and you would choose the law, and then you would improve it. So you staked out your lot, then you improved it by clearing it in sort of a three step process. So you do a little clearing you plant some gardens, and then you went to the second stage, which is some certificate. And then if everything went well, over a number of years, you got to buy the land for about a buck and acres of really ridiculously low prices. And a lot of people never finished their preemptions, they would just get a piece of land, work and do whatever and then say Oh, heck with this, I'll just walk away and go somewhere else, because you could do that. Meanwhile, of course, native people were stuck on tiny reserves. And which brings me to the village here, when these things were laid out. And I have the first map that was done by a guy named Kate, who was a surveyor. And a lot of you've seen, it's in the archives got lots and the names. And it's interesting when these ranges were last laid out this part, the village have showed area, the spirit here and these rock eyelets or whatever, were left out of the properties. And it was a small area and I believe the intention was to make this a reserve because we're people living on it. And it just suits the pattern that we've seen everywhere else. Because the the the original settlers were all obliged to occupied lands were not occupied by natives were not occupied in the past by natives like that was a deliberate thing that was in the original instructions by the Surveyor General. So they were very aware of the indigenous ownership of this land, and very careful to try and avoid conflicts. So the white settlers came in the white picked up all the good land around St. Mary's Lake, and up on the north end down the south end. But the black settlers got stuck near the native settlement because it was the most dangerous place. And there were not good relations between the natives and the blacks. Because the whites told the natives that the blacks were slaves. And the native culture at that time was the slave culture. Because they adapted slavery from the Europeans who were all slavers. Up until the 19th century with different countries divested themselves of slavery. But so it was a prejudice against the blacks. And it was also a prejudice because they occupied this area, which was very important to the indigenous people. This area shields, families that lived here, but shields, small Ganges Harbor, all of the area around here, was visited by numerous people. Other people that had connections with the families here, so these be people from Saanich, from my accent, Island, from Nanaimo, from fault. Lots of people had connections to this place. And when I used to when I interviewed you the elders, back in the in the in late 20th century, I interviewed lots of people who were still fluent in the language and still had the teachings and stuff and the knowledge. They said that, you know, this area was used by everybody wasn't an exclusive place, because we were so rich. And one of the end, one of the most important items produced here were clams and caring. And these were, this place is famous for smoke plans and smoke carry. And this place was also very popular in the summer, because in the late summer in the sockeye runs happening, all of the people lived on Southern Vancouver Island, couch area, Connecticut, all the people around here, dismantled their houses and moved them on mass over to the Fraser River to a place called patinas. Next time you go through that George Massey tunnel, think about Latinas. It was a it was a village, just about a mile east of that tunnel, composed of people from all over Cowichan Valley and Fanelli all around here. And it was a village that was two miles long. So it was a huge amalgamated village that was established every summer on the Fraser River. So the Cowichan are some groups when they went, you know, on this migration, they would come into Boothbay and some of you may know this already, but there was a portage between booth canal and just out here, not the Ganges creek where that bowl does you know that. So they would come in at high tide to about sharp road there. And there was corduroy logs set along the route. They were ponds and creeks. And I talked to us and they said it would take about an hour or two to drag your canoes from booth canal here into Ganges, as opposed to about seven hours with paddling around the island. So a lot of groups would come through here during the summer and enroute to the Fraser. And so while they were here, they would go down to the harbor here and dig clams and smoke them and prepare them they would harvest herring and stuff and do the same. And they mess up huge amounts of food that they took with them on their way to to Platina. So over on the freezer delta and use these items to trade with Native people who came down from the BC interior with their food with their items, which were Jade and soapstone. So Jade and soapstone were traded for clams and herring from this area. And those of you who study archaeology around here you find soapstone artifacts, you find Jade artifacts all the time, from about 4000 years ago. So these connections have been going on for millennia. This is not a new place. There was a Ganges was established in 1912 or so. And people have lived here for at least 4000 years, maybe 5000 years, maybe even longer. All of the sites on the shorelines here are 5000 years old. Older sites are below sea level. Sea level here has risen over the last 9000 years or 9000 years ago the sea levels started to rise and then they kind of leveled off around 5000 years. So there's a lot of archaeological sites in the islands and thinking one over and Pender very famous site on the fender canal to be found To evidence of 5000 years of occupation, but the archetype of archaeologists who investigated that site said he was just dealing one component of the site, the rest of it was all drowned underwater. Same around here. The oldest older sites, though, will be up the hill, they could be very, very old.

Speaker 2 30:20
Because once the ice began to melt here, and people began to come down the coast, you know, the tops of all the mountains and stuff around here exposed. And on some of these places, they have found, you know, really old lithics what they call Clovis, these are like 11,000 year old artifacts. And these have been found down in Puget Sound, on Whidbey Island, high areas. So I wouldn't be surprised one day, someone's up here, they'll find all beach terraces, and you can find some very old stuff. Most of the sites around here, but 1000 years old, around the coast, and that date, that's about the beginning of what they call the Coast Salish kind of culture kind of crystallized about 5000 years ago, because everything kind of came together, the sea leveled off. So clam beds, establish salmon runs started happening. So people just, you know, have lots to eat, lots to do, and lived here quite happily until nine indigenous people showed up. That's us. And we're the one Edom when either, which means basically, you were there, and now you're here. And some people translated as arrived out of nowhere. Whereas the indigenous people in their traditions, they've been here so long. There's there's two traditions that they came down from the sky, which kind of ties in with what I was saying earlier. If people were coming down here, when the ice is melting, and mountains are being exposed, they literally would almost be coming down from the sky. So it's kind of a metaphor that all like Mount Primo, everybody knows about Primo. That's one of the mountains with first people came down and she Horlicks was his name. And all of the mountains had different people landing on him. Many of the stories are forgotten. But there's a few that are still recalled by certain families. So know, those stories. And the other place where people emerged was on Connecticut island where they emerged literally out of the ground. And between like two cedar logs, so these are all allegories about, you know, people that have been here for so long. That have been here for a very long period of time, more than she owed. So I've wanted to mention something about this Cenotaph. She knows a lot of names on here from World War Two and World War One. World War One names are really interesting, because it kind of gives you the sense of the diversity of the people on this island. Reverend Wilson, wrote a really good account of soul spring back around 1900. And he gave some really interesting demographic information. So he named two major groups on the island. The most numerous were British ancestor, yay. And the second most numerous group were colored. And what he meant by colored was people of mixed ancestry, native and non native, they made up the second largest group in the island. I just wanted to point out two names here. The lumley's These were two young men. They are wion Salish ancestry. They were born at Isabella point. And the two of them joined up in amongst the first wave of assaults, fingers to join up and World War One. They were both killed by the same shell 9016. They're both in their early 20s. And that's why the lumley's kind of disappeared from the south end, because that family was never able to recover from the deaths of these young men. But yeah, to indigenous Hawaiian individuals here. The other one I want to show is a whim. Oops. Sorry, yeah, we're cheating with walk right past. JD wimps James, James Douglas wimps. William and Emily winds were too early black settlers, who lived up in the north end for their sons went enlisted in the latter part of the war and went to France. Now they were black, and they were not able to serve in the middle What's your unit or any fighting units? I think they wanted to join up the fight. But they were put in a Labor Battalion, the second battalion of the Canadian Engineers, and it was all black unit. And they just basically worked as laborers. And JD Williams, he wasn't killed in action, he died of disease. In fact, I did some work in the past on these men, and I think almost half of them died, the disease were not killed in action, which those of you who study in a war, and that's the case of war, the casualties, by disease, often a number of the people filled International. But lots of other interesting names, every one of these has a story. Of course, the Cenotaph, of course, used to be over there. Any more questions about

Speaker 4 35:55
that? I understood that you said that first nations people were a slave culture. Because what they learned from the white person, I always thought that slave culture went back a lot further. Yeah.

Speaker 2 36:10
And that's, that's the the orthodoxy. And I'm dealing with this right now teaching, of course, right now at UVic. An online course. Third year courses, indigenous archaeology is the first one. first course in indigenous archaeology taught in North America, believe it or not, it's kind of crazy. So I feel quite guilty to teach this course. And what we do in this course, is challenge a lot of the assumptions are killing just about the past. And so how do archaeologists interpret the past around here, we have a very rich ethnographic record. The first settlers came here, the first Europeans, the coaches are still flourishing. And all their customers are intact. You know, a lot has been written down. And a lot of anthropologists were too we know a lot about the people, their social structure, their religious beliefs, we have all this information. And this is where this notion of slavery came because slavery was introduced. Because, in my opinion, I mean, there's no evidence for slavery prior to European contact, all of the accounts we have of native slavery come from post contact period. And so that's very interesting. So you got to think back to the contact period. All the Europeans that came here were slavers were slave nations, the English, Spanish, and certainly the Americans. And so indigenous people. You know, they appropriated a lot of European institutions in order to survive. Because you had to get on board, you know, and I noticed from my own indigenous history in New Zealand, the same thing. When the Europeans showed up, we knew they were very powerful people. And we knew we couldn't fight them. But we will. And we also knew that we had to get on board with the new world order, because it was a way to adapt. How would you survive unless you could match the power and the practices of European and this is what first nations have been struggling with ever since first contact, and you see it on every reserve, you visit today, this division between people who were more acculturated towards European ways, and those who want to maintain the older ways. It's a real conflict. And slavery is one of these things. So every I met lots of native people who, oh, yeah, we have slaves and all that, and some are even proud of it. But when you go back to the historical records, and when you go back to the first Europeans, who actually wrote down what they saw, they never mentioned slaves. And the guy then thinking it was Moses, you know, he was a Spaniard who did the first ethnography of the West Coast, wrote in about 1790, describing the new channels on the West Coast. No mention of slaves. You mentioned, you know, high ranking people and commoners. I mean, there were specialists, but there was no there was no separation between power in the people. That's the big difference between the state and the non state. So in the state, state is characterized by inequality, and a separation of power from the people. That's what the state is all about. In the non state, which is the way that people lived here. There's no separation of power and authority. It's all combined. There's no hierarchies. There's hierarchies of hierarchies of expertise, for sure, but it was distributed kind of evenly throughout the whole culture. For example, say in the village of showers we can imagine five houses here. Each one of those houses would be a separate political unit, separate family with its own teachings, its own expertise, its own talents. One would be a host of reef net fisherman, the other would be maybe a house of warriors. That'd be a house of deer hunters, and other houses, storytellers. And so when there were situations that involve leadership, in whatever, whatever it was situational, was the reef net fishery, the guy who knew about the reef net fishery was the guy in charge, and everybody followed his directions, the village was attacked, leadership would would go to the the Warriors, because you want the warrior to defend the village, even though most of the time they were badass guy and unpleasant people. But you know, when it came to a fight, you wanted these people to do their thing. Rest of the time, people try to avoid these guns. But everybody had a place. Europeans came. And Europeans, you gotta remember when he showed up, they came on a tide of disease, and depopulation, like massive. This island, and this whole area in 1782, was hit by a smallpox epidemic, you think COVID is bad. This one killed nine out of 10 people within who knows what period of time. So you gotta imagine the impact that that catastrophe would have on the whole social structure. Nine out of 10, it was just thrown into disarray. That's 1782. So the populations are coming back because the people are strong, resilient. But as they're coming back and starting to, you know, reoccupied places and just reorganize, the Europeans come in, with all of their new ways of doing things, new economic order, which involves slavery, and involved commodification of things. Slavery is tied to this. Because prior to slavery, slavery, the relationship between individuals, Native people, and nature, say the animal world, fish world was one of reciprocity and respect. animals and fish were your relations, they were relatives, you know, so you had to develop protocols, you're gonna kill them, you can eat them, trees, whatever, you had to develop protocols, the spirits of those entities. Europeans came in, they did not recognize this and treated these things as commodities. The best example is the sea otter. Sea Otter used to be a relation. Once Europeans came in, it was a commodity. And people began to choose between the new order of commodification are maintained the old ways, and of course, the people who maintain the old ways did not survive as well. The ones who adapted to European ways flourished in the adapted a lot of European practices, including slavery, because slavery is commodification of people. And it just does not fit with indigenous teachings, the idea of commodification of things. It's really unheard of, of course, they traded and stuff, but it was a different thing was commodification. And, of course, when indigenous people began to get involved in the fur trade, the they ignored other aspects of the culture, the traditional harvesting of foods were given up in favor of hunting for this one commodity. Warfare increased, because slaves had a value to Europeans and to other people. And so they became part of this new economy. Because Europeans had slaves, we're gonna have slaves. So everything began to crumble, the Potlatch changed. And potlatches originally instituted way back in the ancient times, was a way to redistribute wealth amongst the people never have a situation where guy in charge of a reef net who just catch all the fish for himself, I mean, why would he What would even do with it, like the idea of sharing was was foremost utmost foundation in the culture. And it's based on this idea of nature's generous and give nature gives us all these things, all these animals that we have protocols with stoicism, gifts. So it's it's incumbent upon us to do the same. And that's the way they taught. I mean, that's the way they live. Nature was a teacher. And they were able to do it sustainably for 1000s years. And I know that as an archaeologist because I dig in the ground and go down to three meters, you see a continuous example of sustainability. Long, big players emitted no change, no change, no bang at 59 at all and destroy through it. And whether we'll ever get back to that. Who knows, but that's one thing I'm interested in is those teachings and how the to influence people's practices. So that's what I use in my teaching my I don't use, you know, models of self interest or

Speaker 2 45:12
greed or whatever. I try to interpret the the archaeological record in terms of indigenous value system. And it's a new way it's a new thing to do. Most people don't look at the past this way. They interpret the past based on these assumptions about how Native people are. So when you hear the Native people have slaves, native people were always fighting in wars. That's all baloney. Of course they had, there were differences of opinion between people in the past, but the large scale warfare happened with the arrival of Europeans. And a lot of was based on this idea of commodification and getting slaves and stuff to increase here, your wealth and final word on slaves. In 1860, there was a census done of all of the people in Saanich and Cowichan, inelegant Island, some three or 4000 people. And guess how many slaves we found out of all those people, 4000 people was like seven slave. Slaves were not the backbone of the economy. Slaves were kind of collateral damage they were. Yeah, they were not important. They were, I believe, introduced by Europeans. That's a long winded answer. But you won't find that in any books. Yeah, teaching a class, everything they're learning, they could just steal it from me, but I don't care. It's not my ideas. They're just, they're out there. Just how to interpret data.

Speaker 2 46:51
Well, they didn't take slaves to the 90s. But when you hear about slavery, qualify it for the time period, no one ever looks at the time period. And archaeologists, a lot of them assume that what was happening in the 19th century, was also happening 2000 years ago? How do you know that? There's no way. I mean, there's actually no proof that any slavery I mean, how would you prove slavery in the archaeological record?

Speaker 5 47:20
If we thought it might have been handed out anecdotally, previously, as I may have the so called slaves had the ability to work their way through the society. Leaders. They weren't captured me, in a retribution squabble between seeing certain clans without side or another, another group, and they would become able to actually quite quickly, they

Speaker 2 47:53
live in the house with the families like it's very different than the the institutionalized slavery of non Indigenous people. And it was just a way to accommodate this new practice. You know, they had slaves now, because you know, you're competing with Europeans, for a very different system. And like I said, it's been disrupted by play. Nine out of 10 people did, it was horrendous and amazing. The people came back, but they did. And so the depopulation happened and then one of the Main St. Cord thing that occurred here, in 1840s. Was the establishment of Fort Victoria, prior to that, Fort Langley for land at 27, Fort Victoria at 40. So what do you think happened when those places were there like Costco and Walmart today, so everybody started coming down. The Haida. People from way up in Sikkim, way up in Douglas channel, the pipe walk where people headed down this way to Shaw, and Fort Victoria, and Fort Langley. And of course, coming down this way, the pass through the Gulf Islands here. They had no relations here, no connection with the people, lots of conflict because they didn't understand the protocols. And it actually at parties that got so bad, that there was a leader named machine. Some of you heard that name arbitrarily holds that name. But this was a name held by a sandwich man 1940s. This machine came to Saltspring island. He came to Pender Island, he went to main island, he gathered all the people and took them to FAU on the Saanich Peninsula to as a temporary measure. The people here are all exposed to attach to people here and Ganges harbour, and they're you know, they weren't numerous so they're very vulnerable to attack by these people that are coming down to shop with Word Victoria. So the went to sow it. So that name is an interesting name. The translation means fortified house. That's what so it was all these amalgamated. All these people that came from different parts of the Gulf Islands went there. And they built their houses that each one was required to the fence the whole village with a big palisade. And each family had to build its own section of palisade. That's what that name means solid, fence toasts, and they always intended to come back. This is a temporary measure of 18 4318 for whatever it was. But by the time they want to come back, Europeans have moved in here, black settlers, and occupied all the lands. And getting back to George Richardson, Walter Isaacson 1860s. They were harassed pretty severely by the native people who robbed their crops. So they grew big crops here, George Richardson had a couple of acres of stuffed potatoes or whatever, and the native people would just help themselves to the products. Because the party, you know, their point of view was their land. And so they sent a message to Victoria and the extent it can vote up here, HMS satellite, she came up here, and left handed me main islands named after him Richard main, he must an account of Ganges in 1860. And it's really interesting, he talks about the settlers complaining that the the the Indians had never lived here. And they believe, and they were saying the Indians, you know, we moved in here in 1859. And then the natives came in and started building houses everywhere. So we were here first, but you so but of course, they didn't understand the seasonal use of these places. Some people have to temporarily others would come and use it when the resources were here. Because you know, resources come and goes as part of the indigenous economy. You never sort of in one place, you access many different places. Because every family every house, like I said, was a political unit. And every house had its economy based on this seasonal access to resources all over the place. So if you had a house here in Ghana, in Sheoak, that family would have connections to the Fraser River maybe to Bellingham area, may be able to suit, it all depends who they marry. And then the Coast Salish culture, when you married, they practice what they call the exogamy, which is marriage outside of your community. So people are encouraged to marry outside of the community outside of your, of your house. And it was to establish relations and extended families in different areas. So in times of privation, you know, if your resources failed here, you would have this network of relatives and all your children say, say you were a man from Connecticut, you married a woman from Saanich well, your children would have access to the resources of both parents. So they'd have access to resources and Saanich you'd have access to resources you know, wherever. So well done by very complicated ancient process of stewardship and beneficial ownership where everybody was taken care of. And nobody ever still nobody went hungry. If if one person went hungry everybody here but there was plenty for everybody the starvation the inequality and that all occurred well, lot of people are deaf. So yeah.

Unknown Speaker 53:53
Walk through another point. Or do you want to talk about the battle again, but it might be the time Yeah. Well, it depends which all you want to do. I mean, I mean, I can talk about the battle again, he's right here. Tell me where it is. I mean,

Speaker 2 54:14
you want to walk? Why don't we? Why don't we just walk up there and then down or over to Rotary Park if you're into it that ghastly sculpture.

Unknown Speaker 54:41
Night

Part Two

Speaker 1 0:00
Either way rice is up there to that rise. That's all mitten and deposits and stuff but it's also a burial area to hear all those rocks put in great silence

Speaker 1 0:28
under the ice cream store burial you know they're everywhere when people have lived in a place for 5000 years and during that time period some of the practice was to bury people literally in the house or in the or close to the house underground they didn't have a problem with it they live with the dead we just walked down the street take it over are they doing

Unknown Speaker 1:02
protesting terrorists

Speaker 1 1:30
Anyway, before they put the gravel here there's men in here. But if you scraped away this gravel enough you'd punch on so it's funny I brought a school group here and these guys so this area's now within the old boarding house right? This was built in covered burials under it because all these rocks here, you know, this is a place where people did not land on these rocks. And so when you have places like Canada Jason to a village as a burial ground in Greece Island is the only remaining portion of this burial ground but it extended all along here. And early settlers found you know, Bones off the dock here that was and you know, when you had epidemics there's a lot lots of dad around but but yeah, there's a bit of exposure and when I first came here in 1988, there was a see these holes over here. They were doing some underground electrical or something. And I saw a human pelvis one of those so anyway, let's walk over to the water

Unknown Speaker 3:07
water

Unknown Speaker 3:17
oh yeah, yeah

Speaker 1 3:30
yeah, there's all cultural deposits all under this year, which is good. It's just all sealed in the ground just fine. That's the thing about archaeology. You can't do it right, just leave it

Speaker 1 3:49
and actually, I'm working on a project now over a Pelican Island. We're looking at an old village site. We're using ground penetrating radar because we're trying to develop ways of non invasive digging, but you know, it's Ratan. So what we're looking at. I mean, we've got imagery that goes down about three meters you know, vertical and horizontal, but we don't really know what we're looking at. So we have to ground truth, but we're working on so eventually, you know, they'll be able to use ground penetrating radar over places without digging and you'll be able to see what's there. It's not

Unknown Speaker 4:31
right yo yo.

Speaker 1 4:59
Ya We can just go over here and we can talk about I really don't like

Unknown Speaker 5:16
it's supposed to be about really

Unknown Speaker 5:25
gonna go with it perfect. I think I told him yeah okay

Speaker 1 5:43
was kind of a neat place to get a sense of these giant 200 acre options, like Rainbow Road is one of the property lines. And another good one looking at is Fern with Fern was good that long road. That's a boundary between one of these giant reactions between Jonathan Biggs and the Samson's. So if you look when you're on the island, you can kind of still see these. So this was all George Richardson and property or preemption, and then Walter Isaacson other black guy had that one. And then the third one over there at Harbor house was Linacre, and Linacre. He was the he his he and his family were the first non Indigenous settlers and he came here in November at 59. And built in cabin approximately on the site of the harbor house. So those are three big preemptions here. So I'm going to talk now about the battle Ganges, which is kind of a really interesting episode in history. So this fight occurred after the settlers were already here, know a lot about it, because Eliza Linacre lived here and she was about 15 years old. And this occurred she witnessed

Speaker 1 7:08
that's all right. So, so 1860, I was talking earlier about how, you know, beginning with the salesman for Victoria, and he plays a lot of Northern native people were coming down here and droves to shop at the Costco in Victoria. And so this continued. So, in 1860, there was a group of Chrysler came down here. Now, you know, the Heiser live Kitimat. So how far away is that? Lots? That's like 1000. I mean, it's huge, right? Yeah. So here's a group of people in their canoe, 10 of them, maybe 12 coming down all the way from Douglas channel. Down, you know, that whole passage and he's hard to imagine to go shopping. So they also have to load it firms will of course, have some shoppers. So on the way down, they stopped at Fernwood, which was then a bustling settlement of Europeans and their native wives 16 settlers, their 16 wives, because you cannot settle here and live safely without having a native wife or a native relation of some kind. And think about the people that came here from Europe and that they knew nothing about this place, the people that ran the show with the local indigenous people. So if you just sit to build a house, you know, you're not made arrangements. For example, James Shaw, who was a settler who tried to settle in Bergling Bay in 1859. He was driven off guy who followed him John Maxwell married couch and women stayed there his whole life and raised his family. Same with the increment families jives lot of Saltspring families does the same thing. The ones who came and married native people were recognized as members of family and recognized by native peoples having full rights to the land for racism to do. So anyway. We're gonna have some Macaulay anyway, he stops off. The Heisler stop at Fernwood, and this McCauley guy says, Can I get a lift with you down to Victoria? No. Okay. According to the story, the high school thought it would be a good idea to have him on the trip because you could offer some protection. And according to the story, they came in here in their canoe. And he had some business with Linacre. That's why he wanted to come in here and high school. We were a little worried about it, but he said don't worry about it. Wake up. So they came in here and apparently the couch and we're camping here on either side of the bay up here. at Harbor house and along here you know, I guess made some threatening motions and McCauley apparently waved some papers and it sort of calmed things down for a bit. So McCauley and the Heisler land at the harbor there, and he goes up through the bush to the Linacre cabin, which was back because none of the settlers lived on the waterfront is too dangerous in those days, so everybody lived back. George Richardson lived way back there. Linacre is live back up in the woods a bit not on the beach. So we'll call he goes up to visit Linacre. And then they hear shots being fired. And bullets flying around the cabin. Some of them hit the cabin. Linda occurs daughter, Eliza tells the story that she was out picking berries with your sister, when two halogen men came running up to them naked, covered in war paint and stuff and said, there's a big fight going on. You got to kind of see it. So they go running down and the fight was on. When she came down the high floor out in the middle of the harbor here somewhere we don't know exactly, but they're being shot out from all sides. And basically just sitting ducks in the canoe. All of them were killed, except for a woman and the her son, and one man escaped. And he showed up at the Linacre cabin, and half his face was shot away, his cheek was dripping or it was hanging down, and his leg was shattered by bullet. And they said, You can't stay here. But but they helped him escape. And he eventually the story is, according to Eliza, that he made his way somehow to Beaver point, and made some sort of raft and was able to gain safety in Victoria somehow, and was reunited with his wife and child who were who were not killed. And they were taken as captives by the couch. And but under the auspices of the colonial government, James Douglas and his he had a lot of connections with couch and they were released and reunited with this guy. And he was a chief from Kitimat. I'd love to find out his name, you know, there's so many little details about these stories that we could research and find out more. But anyway, sort of a happy ending. But as for the rest, they were taken from their canoe. And the bodies were taken to an island in Ganges harbour and covered with stones. Now it doesn't say which island, but I'm pretty sure it would have been great either. Because it was a known burial place. And the first can that was discovered there. You know, we didn't even know that was a burial, while we knew was an archaeological site. But some kayakers one day were coming in, and they saw some white bones on the beach. So what's that? So they went ashore, and they said, Oh, God, so human jaw, you know, they could tell. And then they went in a bit further, and they found a burial, Karen, that have been opened up, and all the bones exposed. And so this and then the police were called in the RCMP, they recognized right away. These were not recent, and contacted archaeologist friend of mine, to confirm that they were there. It was a burial, and indigenous burial. And then when he did a little survey on the island, he found all the burial cares. But it's interesting that we have this account of the A island being used with the bodies covered with rocks. And I have a feeling that some of those burials, there are Hyslop people buried after this battle. So that can be 10 of them buried there. So that's so interesting after that fight. Like none of the settlers were harmed at all. They were perfectly safe. And then after the fight the couch and people that were here left, and so Linacre and his fellow settlers wrote a letter to the governor saying that we're defenseless. What are you going to do? They were worried because the Cowichan protected them from the other because this was not British territory. This was Cowichan territory. And the settlers were very worried that the Cowichan gone, more northern people come down and they be exposed to attack. Fortunately, never happened. gunboat was sent here. And according to there was some sort of demonstration at Walter spit, where there were some more houses like Walter spit was also a major settlement capping ground right up into the late 19th century and maybe even into the 20th century that long spit there was used by Native people for a long period of time. There's burials over there. It's a huge archaeological site. People didn't know anything about it. Really. What's what's going on there. But in 1860, after this gunboat came to kind of reassure the settlers, some of the native people, they're fired on the gunboat, Mr. potshots at, so they fired back in the village. And there's even there's accounts of cannibals being found there. But there was no like, killing or anything, but there was just these sort of demonstrations of force. And in the in the following years after that, the settlers here, there was a lot of unease. There was a group of there was a settler called the Hollins family that lived up by St. Mary's lake. They were down here and they wrote a letter to the governor complaining they were shot out, they were down on the beach here, and it was a canoe out here and that the people that could have just started shooting at them, their indigenous people shooting at the settlers, so there was a lot of a lot of unease. In 1863, there was a war that took place between the colonial government and a group of indigenous people on the south end of cuprite, or delicate Island, a group called the Elsa Bella mochi. The short lived war lasted about six weeks, gunboat attacked the village there, and was defeated after a one and a half hour gun battle. I don't know it wasn't really a defeat, but the gunboat broke off the engagement and left with casualties and left the Liberace holding field. So technically, it's a victory, you'll need the feet of the Royal Navy by an Aboriginal fighting force. But as it played out, the law multi we're a small group of warriors only number about 22 it cannot maintain a war against the

Speaker 1 16:47
British colonial government. And so they were rounded up in a period of six weeks. But during that time, it was a lot of a lot of the settlers left Saltspring Island, Victoria. But the ones who stayed were all threatened, George rich, was an account of him being told by the lamouchi that they were going to come and shoot him one day. So you know, they just were threatening. He said, You know, we're gonna shoot you and you're working out in your potato patch. So he never was he wasn't killed or anything. But same with up to the north end, Jonathan bag. He wasn't threatened, but he felt very uncomfortable left the island because after the Battle of loyalty warriors came to his house and boasted about the fight saying the British and we beat the gun, but it took off and we lost nobody and they lost. So it was considered a victory by the local people. But the British responded with overwhelming force and you know, crushed it. And eventually at the end of this whole ugly episode, seven indigenous warriors were hanging in Victoria, Bastion square. Some to think about where your bathroom Square was, sited, the gallows, and the last, public mass executions and indigenous people in Vancouver Island became 63. And in the following years 1868 There were three black men killed in this island at the start preemption on over there, and I think I think he's on the west side. So starting to sort these out, I'm sorry to find out about it. Because in recent years, some of historians have cast doubt on who killed these men, and even suggesting that they were killed by local settlers who wanted their land. But if you go to the historical records, there's no doubt about it. They were killed by Native people. For what reason? We don't know. They were killed by indigenous people. Not by others trying to get their story. How do I know they're killed? I from a source, a missionary named Thomas Crosby, who was a Methodist missionary. And then like a lot of people he actually learned the indigenous language. He's learned to speak hope to meet them. And he wrote a book, really good book is called. It's called among the hog permainan or something among the whole comedian, and in that book, he talks about the Robinson murder. And those of you who have you heard of that website who killed Willie Robinson? Well, they leave out Crosby's book. And they gave a talk here one day Roussanne Well, the wrote the book about it. I said, Oh, do you read Crosby's account? She didn't even know about it. And of course in there, he's very explicit, even named the man who killed Robinson, man named Queen on him. So anyway, you know, when you do your historical research, you got to do look at everything. And yeah, it was just part of those bad times. And of course, in the 60s, all of the black families left the silence except for a few. And the stark talked about the threats for Native people the essays talked about, who owned Walker's. It was just one of the The unpleasant aspects of the day, one of the, you know, part of the fallout of colonization. And also, the Civil War was over. So, well I say up here and for us your battle that's what I would have done a lot did they left and went back to your homeland? So yeah, so the battle Ganges that that was it, it was just sort of one of these little colonial encounters. Not really much of a battle, kind of almost a massacre, or Yeah, killings. But just to conclude on that the, the the native people, when they were asked, you know, why did you kill these guys? They had some feud with them, they recognize these Isla, from previous trips. So like I said, these people were coming down, or altercations, and yeah, resolved according to, you know, protocols of the day. And, but what happened to the native people here, we don't know. And reading these accounts, you know, of the murders of the black settlers in the 60s. There's constant reference to a group of Indians living on the island, through like, Renegades or something. So who these guys were we don't know. But it could be documents out there. Other accounts that will reveal information about that tumultuous time because it's a really, when you study Saltspring history, the period from 1860 to 1880s, very much known about it. And that was a really critical time when the native people really left the island for good. This part anyway, from living here and just coming seasonally. The the last people to live on the island, you know, continuously were the couple that lived down in Fulford harbor at the point Indian reserve, they were the last permanent native residents on this island. And they both died in the 1920s. And, you know, we've all read the accounts that they were murdered or something. And I interviewed an elder a number of about 10 years ago, 20 years ago. And he gave me a different story. He said that people were down in Yakima, Yakima picking hops, and they bought some clothes from a store and they were infected with measles. This is according to what this elder told me. And so they came back, they were sick with measles. And rather than come back home and infect everybody, they went off and died on their own. And nobody ever found her body. They found the canoe, but they did not find the couple. So that's an interesting story from that elder because ever since I came here, I heard you know, they were murdered or something because they were saving up for a Potlatch, you know, it's, it's written down in several books. But this elder who was a very knowledgeable elder is dead now. gave me this alternative story, which has the ring of truth. No, he's from Malahat. He was there any race? Who Yeah, well known? Well, Malahat, it's one of those places, it's part couch and part Saanich. All the people here, like, you know, today, we talk about all the Saanich in the couch, and then all as if there was these distinct little groups, and they are today, and most of this distinction is is created was created by us. Like, in the old days, there were no Cowichan, there were no Saanich those names were meaningless, really, I mean, they have their origins in cultures in different ways. But they, the people identified themselves by their villages, here from plantlets, your plantlets person. And this only was the creation of the Indian accent and these various Indian agents that they and reserves, that they created these bad governments, which are not traditional governments, their Western governments, because no indigenous government had a chief and a bunch of underlines, that never happened. They had leaders, every family had its own leader. It was a participatory democracy. The idea of a single leader was introduced by the whites, non Europeans. And it's just another kind of issue that it's another kind of the, the legacy of colonialism, which is permeates everything, even, you know, bad councils today, you know, indigenous governments today are not the traditional governments, their Western governments are identified by the language. Not so much. No, I mean, you sort of would, but everybody, you know, spoke. People were multilingual. We've all heard of Shinnok you know, who say Oh, Indians invented Chinook so they could talk to you know, that's all bullshit because Chinook was invented by non Indigenous people. Also they could talk with the indigenous people, they invented a jargon. And it's a trade jargon. It's all to deal with, you know, one of this for two of them that you know is very simple language based on some indigenous words mostly West Coast and Chinook Columbia River, a lot of French and letting it's not a language. Because the native people here, you want to learn someone's language, you'll learn it the way we do. Europeans didn't ever Chinook. Your French you want to speak with the Germans you learn their language is saying here, native people here with multilingual, Saanich and Cowichan are some shots of chameleon are considered to be two different languages. But when you study it, I studied a little bit. Tons of similar words, very similar grammar. There are differences, but not enough to make them mutually unintelligible at all. People. They learned Shinnok to talk to white people, not to each other. Yeah, but as far as identity you identified Well, primarily by your family, the house you were born in? Secondly, it would be the village you're from. And that would be about it. Yes, yeah. Yeah, they had amble when he called handle lateral descent, like I talked about earlier, you would inherit rights from your mom and your dad is a little different up north. Down here. They had, yeah, this bilateral descent.

Speaker 1 26:36
So equally important, women and men and that's another thing that changed the coming of Europeans was the introduction of patriarchy, and all of its implications, because women were held in much higher esteem prior to contact, you know, they had their own kind of thing. They had their own rules when Europeans came in again, unfortunately, a lot of indigenous people adopted the European way because they saw it as the most adaptive thing they could do was a way to survive in the new world which indeed it was. I know that from my own history in New Zealand couldn't go on living the way you did it was impossible. Or if you did, you suffered and it was a hardship because a lot of native people did not have anything to do with the non Indigenous culture that the we're not the majority very few people practice indigenous full on indigenous life today as possible and that's my long winded thing you guys probably have lots of questions we take any any questions before we jump have a beer or two

Speaker 1 27:56
Bob Yeah really right to learn from him oh yeah I think we asked them as we went to cover everything

Unknown Speaker 28:20
anyway, Ganges bought a new place Oh

Unknown Speaker 28:28
Angie's are Ganges. When I say interview Bob ankrum and he always called the Ganges I don't know what they were they call it

Unknown Speaker 28:44
right

Speaker 1 28:54
yeah, it's the smell of the julienne. Oh you're so