(Many meetings took place to prepare for the Delgamuukw trial such as this chiefs’ meeting in Kispiox in 1985. Discussions centred on strategies that would put Gitxsan governance on equal footing with Western levels of jurisdiction.)
Neil Sterritt: We held a number of meetings and we’ll have to continue to hold more. Some we’ll hold in a large assembly like this and some of the meetings we will hold just with an individual House and the hereditary chief of that House to explain in detail what will happen as we move towards the court case…
…Now what you’re asking us to consider is whether we should stop all the logging that is going on right now. Now that’s a major political decision. And if that’s what the hereditary chiefs want the tribal council to incorporate into the statement of claim or to do, then obviously we would have to try and do that.
Narrator: Albert Tait agreed with Stanley Williams. Said that we didn’t
need maps. We had it all in our heads. Our uncles taught us our lands. Then
the white man came and imposed their laws on us. But our land is the same as
the land of our grandfathers and our laws remain…Peter Muldoe spoke of
northern territories. He named some creeks and who the territories belonged
to…Ken Muldoe thanked everyone on behalf of the Gitxsan Wet’suwet’en
Tribal Council.