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Land-claims testimony proves private ordeal for native clan chiefby TERRY GLAVIN
Summary of document:
Gitwangak Wolf Clan Chief Tenimgyet hosted a traditional Gitksan feast in a downtown Vancouver office building Tuesday evening, symbolically closing the bent-cedar box that contains his family's most precious possessions.
Under fluorescent lights in a third-floor office suite across Hornby Street from the Robson Square law courts, about 40 guests ate chicken and oolichan grease, dried seaweed, cake and blueberries. There were gifts, speeches, prayers and songs.
It was a feast of thanks, a prayer for blessings, and Tenimgyet's chance to say goodbye.
Tenimgyet, whose English name is Art Matthews, was returning to his job at Westar Timber's Kitwanga sawmill near Terrace today after spending three weeks in Vancouver as a key witness in the boldest land-claims case ever heard in a B.C. courtroom.
For the past eight trial days, three of which consisted of cross-examination by lawyers for Attorney General Brian Smith, the 47-year-old sawfiler endured the painful task of recounting his ada'ox, the contents of his symbolic treasure box.
Ada'ox is a Gitksan word for which there is no easy English translation - it consists of histories, the origins of names, maps, sagas, symbols, myths, laws, genealogies, social rank and duties. And ada'ox is guarded fiercely.
Since last May, ada'ox has comprised the bulk of the evidence submitted by 13 native witnesses to date in a landmark B.C. Supreme Court case in which 54 hereditary chiefs representing 76 houses of the Gitksan and Wet'suwet'en are claiming ownership of 57,000 square kilometres of land in northwest B.C.
The use of ada'ox (pronounced, roughly, adowk) has posed a legal conundrum at times for B.C. Supreme Court Justice Allan McEachern - an exception to the hearsay rule that the judge allowed but describes as "almost unknown in our law."
And it was the subject of an unsuccessful move by the chiefs to have the court transcripts copyrighted to prevent misuse of ada'ox.
But the plaintiffs are forced to open their bent-cedar boxes, as they say, because the provincial government's lawyers' position is as unequivocal as the native stance.
The attorney general's office has told the court there is no such thing as aboriginal title, no such thing as a distinct Gitksan or Wet'suwet'en people and no such thing as distint Gitksan or Wet'suwet'en law. Ada'ox is dismissed as a mere collection of folktales.
As a result, lawyers for the chiefs have been obliged to demonstrate a continued practice of ownership in the tribal territories that began several thousand years ago and continues to this day. So the hereditary chiefs have relied on their ada'ox to prove the point.
Evidence the Tenimgyet drew from his ada'ox for the court proceedings includes an account of a fierce lion that made its way up the Skeena River countless generations ago. It devoured a weeping woman and threatened the countryside until it was chased into the river and drowned.
The account is vital in determining place-names within Tenimgyet's house territory, and the story itself belongs to his house.
Another chapter from his ada'ox that provides instruction in hunting and conservation methods, along with providing precise locations of Tenimgyet's house boundaries, is the account of a young woman kidnapped by grizzly bears in what is now called the Sand Lake area, northeast of Gitwangak.
The knowledge of bear-hunting methods among Tenimgyet's house members derive from lessons learned during the young woman's captivity. Tenimgyet's name means half man half bear.
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