In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Chapter 9 Cultivating in the Northwest Early Accounts of Tsimshian Horticulture james mcdonald The literature on Northwest Coast peoples prior to European contact provides the general impression that these people were mariners, not oriented to the land. Of course this is not true. The land was a well-utilized resource, full of game to hunt, plants to gather, and many other resources, all carefully managed by titled property holders, the people called “chiefs” in English. This chapter discusses the plant-management practices of the Tsimshian people. The available evidence suggests forms of plant cultivation were integral to the indigenous Tsimshian economy. My intentions are to explore the role plant care had in the aboriginal economy, and to consider the colonial context that distorted and contributed to the interruption of management knowledge and practices. Very early in my work with the Tsimshian community of Kitsumkalum, I was surprised to encounter historical information about their gardening practices. Some of this information was recorded in published and archival sources, but much of it lived in the oral archives of the Tsimshian Nation. As we spoke about their household economies, people frequently told me about their own gardens or reminisced about the gardens tended by their parents and grandparents. Elders shared their knowledge of gardening local plants and of caring for berry bushes. On hikes, friends taught me to gather and eat roots, berries, and other plant products. Taken as it came, in bits and parts, the pieces of information were not remarkable in themselves and I may not have made muchof itbutIwastryingtosystematicallycovereverysectorof theTsimshian economy for a study on the impact of colonization (McDonald 1985), so I was inclined to record everything I learned. Consequently, over time, a body of informationwascollectedwhich,whenIcollatedthepieces,revealedthenature of Tsimshian plant management practices, including gardening practices, and how integral plant cultivation was to the indigenous Tsimshian productive economy. 240 This chapter presents that information, using the Tsimshian community of Kitsumkalumas the central reference point. The information does not provide a full account of precontact gardening practices but it establishes two key points: (1) The Tsimshians did manage plant resources in more ways than simply conserving them during foraging. In other words, Tsimshians traditionally took care of certain plant species and assisted their growth. (2) The deeply entrenched stereotype of the Tsimshians as a fishing people without cultivation techniques is wrong, profoundly wrong; but the published record treats the Tsimshian as if they were and are unconcerned with plant management and cultivation. This paper will focus on a sector of the Tsimshian economy that, historically, has been ignored and made invisible by outside observers. The People Tsimshian territory encompasses the lower Skeena River and the archipelago of islands spilling out of its mouth, from the Nass, south to the Estevan Group. ThepeoplelivedinlineageHousegroupsthroughoutthisterritoryduringmost of the year to harvest the abundant resources that supported their complex social organization, and then consolidated themselves for the winter season into several towns. Each town was associated with a particular “tribal” population , called a galts’ap, and territory. On the Skeena there were at least eleven such tribes. The lower nine formed a loose confederation during the merchant period of Tsimshian history, and became known as the Port Simpson tribes, after the name of the Hudson’s Bay Company post where they settled. A tenth tribe that is said to have gone extinct is often included in this group. Kitsumkalum is the next group upriver and has a strong alliance with Kitselas, the most eastern Tsimshian galts’ap on the Skeena. During the nineteenth century, Franz Boas did fieldwork in Port Essington , a cannery village closely associated with the Kitsumkalum people. Boas gathered information from Kitsumkalum fishermen and canners and some of his early descriptions of Tsimshian society are based upon information and narratives collected from unidentified Kitsumkalum sources. Despite this contact, Boas makes little specific reference to that galts’ap. He listed “G.its!Emaga’lon” as one of the tribes of the Tsimshian proper, found below the canyon of the Skeena River (Boas 1916: 482), and provided a description of their town as having had three rows of houses, arranged side by side, facing the water, with the street stretching in front of the houses parallel with the river (Boas 1916: 395). (I identify the town Boas describes to be the now abandoned Robin Town located at Kitsumkalum Canyon rather than the contemporary village at the mouth of the Kitsumkalum River.) He also mentions that some of their hunting grounds and berry...

Share