Читать книгу Voices of British Columbia - Robert Budd - Страница 12

_____

BRITISH COLUMBIA’S First Nations are steeped in a rich oral tradition that communicates much about their diverse cultures and about the history they created before Europeans came to this land. Although these stories—the legends and traditional narratives—are the property of the individual nations from which they come, they are a fascinating and invaluable part of the province’s historical record. However, to respect the sacred nature of these stories when talking to Aboriginals, Imbert Orchard focussed on people’s individual memories rather than on their broader cultural reminiscences.

In the following two stories, Native speakers discuss the interaction between Native and non-Native people at and before the first gold rush of 1858, which brought the largest wave of immigration to British Columbia.

When this photo was taken in 1896, Bob, a Yu-Ka-guse medicine man, was 104 years old. He was one of the few elders who remembered seeing Simon Fraser in 1808. Photo: HP016181/W.H. Barraclough