Thesis (M.A.)--Carleton University, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 125-129). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

This dissertation is the product of research on the current usage of Kwalcwala, a language of the northern branch of the Wakashan language family spoken in British Columbia on the northern part of Vancouver Island and the adjacent mainland. The focus of research is the context of indigenous language use and the importance of language as a marker of cultural identity. I also examine whether English has had any significant influence on the structure and vocabulary of Kwalcwala after prolonged contact between the two languages. I conclude that, although Kwalcwala is being replaced by English in most contexts of communication, it has been strategically maintained in certain contexts as a marker of cultural identity.

There is a low percentage of First Nations students participating in senior high school sciences and pursuing the field of science. This thesis describes the development of a cross-cultural science and environmental education program using traditional Kwakwaka'wakw stories as a focus for exploration. Conversational interviews with elders, resource persons and cultural teachers provided invaluable interpretations of time honored stories, their place in Kwakwaka’wakw culture, how they were passed down from generations as teaching stories, and how they tied Aboriginal students to the land and to each other. Lessons were pilot tested in grade 6/7 at the T'lisalagil'akw Band School in Alert Bay, BC. Observations and a range of evaluative techniques all combined to show that the students understood the Traditional Ecological Knowledge of the people, they understood a range of western science concepts, they practiced mayaxala (respect for the people and land), and they understood what it means to be Kwakwaka'wakw.

This dissertation is the product of research on the current usage of Kwalcwala, a language of the northern branch of the Wakashan language family spoken in British Columbia on the northern part of Vancouver Island and the adjacent mainland. The focus of research is the context of indigenous language use and the importance of language as a marker of cultural identity. I also examine whether English has had any significant influence on the structure and vocabulary of Kwalcwala after prolonged contact between the two languages. I conclude that, although Kwalcwala is being replaced by English in most contexts of communication, it has been strategically maintained in certain contexts as a marker of cultural identity. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate

This thesis examines the 20th century settlement and migration history of the Kwakwaka'wakw people of Alert Bay, British Columbia. Through an examination of three key shifts in settlement and migratory patterns, it traces how Aboriginal space and movement has been reconfigured in response to changing social, economic, and cultural landscapes. Each of these three shifts—village relocations, the decline of involvement in the capitalist and traditional food economies, and growing urban migration—reveals how Kwakwaka'wakw settlements and notions of community have changed in recent times. These shifts also indicate how innovative forms of migration have developed in, around, and between aboriginal communities. In addition to documenting some of the most profound changes in Aboriginal demographics since the early catastrophic disease epidemics, this thesis is also interested in continuity and the role local culture plays in shaping settlement and migratory behaviour. Drawing on Michel De Certeau's notion of "combinatory operations," I suggest that Aboriginal people have interpreted and responded to different types of displacement through operational systems shaped by contemporary reproductions of socio-cultural traditions. The thesis argues that the people of this community have responded to displacement with behaviour reflective of both innovation and cultural continuity. Until now, most research on aboriginal people has been either community- or urban-based. However, this focus on the terminal "beginning" or "end" of migration has tended to overshadow the role migration itself has played within Aboriginal society and culture. Rather than a process of suspension occurring between two points of settlement, migration itself is a socio-cultural phenomenon, itself no less important than the settlements upon which the process is anchored and defined.

The Kwak'wala language of the Kwakwaka'wakw First Nations is in rapid decline as a living language. How much does the loss of the Kwak'wala language affect Kwakwaka'wakw culture? Influenced, in part, by a contemporary re-evaluation of Benjamin Wharf's 'principle of linguistic relativity' this thesis presents an analysis of the concept of 'time' as it is expressed in the Kwak'wala language and assesses how that concept is then manifested in other Kwakwaka'wakw cultural forms such as myth, songs, ceremony and art. Building on Judith Berman's assessment of George Hunt's explanation of historical concepts this thesis presents a model of Kwakwaka'wakw time that is based on a premise of 'the alternation of opposing states'. Time is situated as state based and the concept of the past and the present are aligned with the physical (form) and the spiritual (essence) and the summer and the winter. It is shown that this concept of time, as expressed in the Kwak'wala language, is also expressed in Kwakwaka'wakw cultural manifestations such as ceremony and art, rendering them conceptually bound.