1063 replies to this topic

[amor de cosmos]

The archeological team dug deeper – finding more proof below the known occupation level. The samples were sent to the University of Victoria for radiocarbon dating.

Those samples point back 13,000 years ago, which is over 2,000 years before records of proven occupation.

“Why is there so much charcoal here, we are in a hyper marine-wet-coastal climate where forest fires are very rare or non-existent. We had my collaborators Terri Lacourse at the University of Victoria and her students did a very detailed – sliced the core into 1 cm slices and analyzed and counted the charcoal bits in there and discovered many peaks of charcoal were statistically significant below the period of known occupation,” said Mathewes.

One major implication of the findings says those here were already adapted to using marine vehicles, hunting and fishing before 13,000 years ago.

*snip*

“The archeological evidence of the animals that were used include marine fish like halibut, salmon and others. What really surprised me was there were bones of albatross in here,” he said.

Another implication challenges what the scenically accepted Clovis First Model – that inhabitants first came through the Bering Strait, through the ice-free corridor to the interior and then adapted to a coastal and marine lifestyle.

“Now it looks like it’s the other way around, people came down using watercraft knowing how to use marine resources. That is a major change in thinking from a land-based to a marine but to marine to probably more land-based,” said Mathewes.

There are still archeologists that oppose the early coastal migration findings like found at Kiglii Gwaay but there are other recent discoveries in North America dating back 16,000 years ago.

Scientific beliefs are shifting that people have been on the coast much earlier than believed.

includes 2:00 vid
https://aptnnews.ca/...in-haida-gwaii/

i have a book on vernacular architecture (ie traditional buildings designed without architects) from way back in 1975 where the author, a historian of city planning or architecture & not an archaeologist or anthropologist, says there's an "incontestable" polynesian connection, but doesn't explain why

While the tradition has socioeconomic determinants analogous to those in Polynesia, here their effects are highly pronounced. (The historical contacts between groups on the transoceanic routes are still very far from clear, though they are nonetheless incontestable; certainly, though, the Northwest Coast Indian culture came to manifest analogous developments in the interrelationship of art, architecture, and society, and did this with a wealth of variations.)

enrico guidoni, primitive architecture p.112

could the coast natives have arrived somehow by boat, and the rest arrived by the bering land bridge? just putting it out there. can we detect any similarities between these french polynesians & our west coast first nations
https://www.youtube....bed/qiRjToougLY

polynesian cultures from the maori in new zealand & cook islands to the hawaiians also have equivalents to totem poles, called tikis, or anito in the phillippines

edit: i never wondered what a maori meeting house looked like, or whether they even had them. turns out their name for it is wharenui, which means "big house". sounds kind of familiar. just sayin


https://commons.wiki..._meeting_houses

Edited by amor de cosmos, 25 September 2019 - 08:19 AM.

[Rob Randall]

Polynesians could have made it here but they would have had to island hop all the way and we know many of the islands like New Zealand and Hawaii were inhabited only relatively recently, like in the last couple thousand years. Easter Island I think was even later.

 

But wouldn't modern DNA testing determine that?

[Mike K.]

Science: believing it has everything figured since 1871.

[Rob Randall]

Anyway, if this type of thing interests you, Guns, Germs and Steel is a great starting point.

[amor de cosmos]

so the SENĆOŦEN name for elk lake is X̱E,OL,XELEK i think i may have figured out how it breaks down
 
X̱E, : i'm less sure about this bit. i could only find a couple words with this which makes me think it may have been mistranscribed. if it's actually XEN, which is much more common, that would mean 'fast' (the X is between a regular h & the ch in loch & rounded, the N is regular ng)
OL,: this is a 'limiting' particle, which is used when the speaker doesn't want to imply anything more than what he/she actually says. once again saanich is much less wordy than english, as they say all that with one syllable (even though it's spellled with an O it's pronounced 'ahl')
XELEK: root word meaning 'drift' (the K is between a k and the ch in loch, and a bit rounded)
 
if that first syllable actually means 'fast' then it would mean something like "fast drift without making reference to anything else such as fishing, water skiing, swimming, etc" which is funny because i remember rower friends complaining that unless the lake was calm & mirror-flat they could never row a straight course and the buoys marking the 2000m section along the back would never been in a straight line. they said no matter where they were they'd always get blown towards the highway

Anyway, if this type of thing interests you, Guns, Germs and Steel is a great starting point.

i may have had a copy of that at one time. if i did I didn't get around to reading it. i've still got a copy of collapse though, that's sort of a sequel to guns germs & steel

Edited by amor de cosmos, 26 September 2019 - 04:05 PM.

[spanky123]

^ I thought that local FN did not have a written language.

[amor de cosmos]

it didn't until 1978 when there were only a couple speakers left, and a member recognized that if they were to preserve any of it he had to come up with a way of writing it down.

[Victoria Watcher]

it didn't until 1978 when there were only a couple speakers left, and a member recognized that if they were to preserve any of it he had to come up with a way of writing it down.

 

so they culturally appropriated our keyboards?

[amor de cosmos]

more like a natural response to a multi-decade multi-government official policy of cultural extermination. if he didn't come up an entirely-new alphabet it was probably due to lack of time or know-how

[spanky123]

more like a natural response to a multi-decade multi-government official policy of cultural extermination. if he didn't come up an entirely-new alphabet it was probably due to lack of time or know-how

 

Or the fact that the entire written language was created by a couple of people!

[amor de cosmos]

do you mean what we know of SENĆOŦEN today is based on what just a few people knew at one time, or that the alphabet was created by one person? I guess either way it doesn't really matter since even though the guy who created the alphabet wasn't a trained linguist it still works, and a 1984 phd dissertation on SENĆOŦEN derived mainly from the input of just a couple informants was acceptable to the university of hawaii so why should I have a problem with it? here is the relevant part from the introduction. the studies I have on other FN languages seem to be similar

The main informant for this study was Mrs. Elsie Claxton (x̣ət̕θx̣át̕θəlwət), born in 1911 or 1912 at the East Saanich Reserve on Saanichton Bay. Mrs. Claxton is reputed to be the most knowledgeable speaker of " old time Saanich." Her English is very limited since her parents kept her away from the white-man's school and provided her with a traditional education. Mrs. Claxton knows the Cowichan language and understands the other dialects of North Straits, Lummi, Songish, and Sooke. Lummi seems to her to be closer to Saanich than the other two. She is unable to understand Lushootseed or Klallam. She never used English until her children started going to school so her five oldest children (all adults) are native speakers of Saanich. Some of them are still fluent and have created with others at West Saanich Reserve language lessons for children in an English-based orthography of their own devising.

All work with Mrs. Claxton was conducted with the help of Mrs. Vi Williams (ɬíqəlwət) of the Cole Bay Saanich Reserve. Mrs. Williams is a native speaker of Cowichan and is also fluent in Saanich and English. Her husband, the chief at Cole Bay, is a fluent native speaker of Saanich. Mrs. Williams has spent quite a bit of time herself tape recording elders telling traditional tales, local history, and genealogical and ancestral name information.

Mrs. Claxton and Mrs. Williams have worked together for a number of years teaching traditional crafts (spinning, knitting, beadwork, etc.) to the younger generations at the East Saanich Culture Centre. When speaking together or to other local elders they speak only Saanich, though occasionally one hears an odd phrase or two of English mixed in.

Before answering a question of mine about the meaning or use of a particular word or phrase, Mrs. Claxton and Mrs. Williams would often discuss the problem at length in Saanich. Although I have yet to transcribe most of these discussions, they have proved of invaluable assistance in the preparation of this sketch.

http://saanich.montl...tline/index.htm

[jaylow]

So every kid from South Island FN bands went to one school on Kuper Island? I am sure that some did but what percentage of Esquimalt and Songhees FN members were moved to Kuper Island to attend residential school? I suspect that it is very low.

I don't know the history of every kid.
And i'm not here to do the homework either.

just because you, one person, believes reconciliation is done, does not make it so.
and if anyone hasn't watched this show...it may change some beliefs:
https://aptn.ca/firs...video/season-2/

[spanky123]

I don't know the history of every kid.
And i'm not here to do the homework either.

just because you, one person, believes reconciliation is done, does not make it so.
and if anyone hasn't watched this show...it may change some beliefs:
https://aptn.ca/firs...video/season-2/

 

I don't know the history of every kid.
And i'm not here to do the homework either.

just because you, one person, believes reconciliation is done, does not make it so.
and if anyone hasn't watched this show...it may change some beliefs:
https://aptn.ca/firs...video/season-2/

 

Not saying that at all. Don't you feel a sense of "stolen valour" though when people who never attend a residential school line up to receive the same benefits and 'reconciliation' that you do?

[DavidSchell]

pathetic 

[Wayne]

Anyway, if this type of thing interests you, Guns, Germs and Steel is a great starting point.

 

Incredible book!

[Victoria Watcher]

Dick wants to see mayors and councillors of neighbouring municipalities in attendance on Monday evening, and hopes the series will spark similar discussions in other places.

 

The city’s second dialogue, on Nov. 18, focuses on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and what it means in Victoria.

 

On Jan. 20, the conversation moves to reconciliation and new Canadians.

 

In the fourth discussion, on March 2, participants will be asked to consider the appropriate context for monuments to controversial historical figures, such as Victoria’s Sir John A. Macdonald statue, which was removed from the steps of City Hall in August 2018.

 

The May 4 conversation gives the floor to representatives from the Victoria Native Friendship Centre, who run the Victoria Urban Reconciliation Dialogue.

 

In the final session on July 8, participants will look to the future to identify collaborative reconciliation activities for residents and the city to engage in.

 

Monday’s conversation will be held in the council chambers at City Hall from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Registration for the event is now full, but the city intends to webcast the discussion.

 

 

https://www.timescol...ngen-1.23961126

 

 

ok that's a lot of talking.  but what are the goals here?  what are we negotiating?  what's on the table?

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 30 September 2019 - 04:39 AM.

[amor de cosmos]

from your link
 

Florence Dick of Songhees Nation is organizing the first session with Victoria Coun. Marianne Alto. Dick said it was important to start the learning process at the beginning. She wants people to understand that Indigenous people were living on this land long before settlers, so they can start to understand what reconciliation means and why it matters.

*snip*

Dick hopes the series will change the way Indigenous Peoples are viewed.

“People still need to learn that we are not savages. We’re not alcoholics and we are not dumb,” she said. “It comes down to breaking that cycle of discrimination against First Nations.”

At the end of the discussion, participants will be asked to think about what they learned, how it made them feel and what they will do going forward.

[Victoria Watcher]

that's quite a bit of non-specifics though.  "what they will do going forward".

 

look i think you'll find it's a very tiny percentage of the population that thinks natives are savages.

 

alcoholics and dumb might be the way a larger proportion view some of them.  but i'm not sure many apply that blanket characterization to individual members of that community. but there is a lot of troubling cases.

 

 

 

What we found

• On average, Aboriginal women were younger than non-Aboriginal women when they first tried alcohol (13 years vs. 16 years) and drugs (14 years vs. 16 years).
• A greater proportion of Aboriginal women than non-Aboriginal women had an identified substance use issue (94% vs. 71%). In particular, Aboriginal women were more likely to have a moderate or substantial to severe substance use issue (see Figure).

 

 

 

https://www.csc-scc....14-26-eng.shtml

 

 

Four years later, that has manifested in what local health director Clifford Bird described this week as a crystal meth addiction crisis affecting 600 Montreal Lake members, around half of the population.

 

 

https://globalnews.c...climate-change/

 

 

There was also a difference in the proportion of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people with 'no certificate, diploma or degree'. Among Aboriginal people aged 25 to 64, 28.9% had 'no certificate, diploma or degree' while the proportion for non-Aboriginal people in the same age group was 12.1%. 

 

 

https://www12.statca...11003_3-eng.cfm

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 30 September 2019 - 07:52 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

Five Indian Residential Schools were located on Vancouver Island. Right up to the 1970s, Islanders lived alongside institutions that subjected Indigenous children to beatings, torture, starvation, ritualized humiliation, sexual abuse and even human experimentation.   

 

Below, using numbers painstakingly compiled by the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, is an accounting of the 202 students who were sent to a Vancouver Island residential school and never came home.

 

https://capnews.ca/h...ential-schools/

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 02 October 2019 - 04:29 AM.

[amor de cosmos]

a few more details
https://aptnnews.ca/...to-be-released/