Native Museum in Kamloops BC Canada

This next video is by an Australian Aboriginal man named Archie Roach. He is singing a song of a young girl who was taken away from her home and put into a residential school. The Australian natives experience is identical to the North American Indian experience. Their present day lives are also identical.

A visit to the Secwepemc Museum and Heritage Park.
This museum is on the site of a 7000 year old Secwepemc encampment. Over 70 depressions were found in the ground along the riverbank from old Secwepemc Kukwele homes. Those are the subterranean winter homes that they used to live in. There is a full size reconstructed kukwele home that you can walk in and see what it looks like.

These were subterreanean winter homes used by the Secwepemc people through the ages. The museum has reconstructed a village where you can walk through and enter life size replicas. You can see the different men's entrance from a ladder coming through the top.

You can learn about the different traditional plant uses. There is a trail you can walk down and see different plants, birds, wildlife. You might even spot some Simon Fraser University archaeology students are down doing an excavation on site. they come every summer to do an archaeology dig.

Inside the museum the ticket includes a video about the Secwepemc people and see different artifacts on display throughout the museum.

We met Treese a secwepemc lady who is so knowledgeable about her culture and very willing to share and teach what she knows.

Treese really gave us a laugh when she showed us a replica of the underground pit ovens which have a fire buried underneath layers of different roots, and bulbs, and vegetables. the food is covered with soil for several hours and left to cook. She told us she likes to call this "Aboriginal Stir Fry - Unplugged". That was so funny. She was so full of knowledge. I am sure if we had the time to stay longer she could have taught us a lot more.

The village has a tule mat lodge, hunting lean-to, fish drying rack, fish trap, smoke house and traditional plant foods. The Secwepemc Ethnobotanical Gardens located in the Heritage Park are divided into five zones, each representing a different ecosystem found within the Secwepemc Territory.

The history of the Kamloops Indian Residential School is a legacy of European churches trying to eliminate the North American Indian traditions, language, and culture.

In the museum Treese pointed out old photographs of residential school students in the 1920-1970's dressed up in traditional scottish highlander outfits, or mexican dance outfits, or irish jig outfits. The priests taught the students all these OTHER cultural dances but denied them the right to their own Secwepemc dances or regalia. The students went on tour to different communities performing these foreign dances in foreign costumes and dancing to foreign music.

So the museum is a legacy to the survival of their own identities and culture even after all of the past events.

http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-6637396204037343133&q=unrepentant...
http://shuswapnation.org/photo_gallery.html
http://secwepemc.org/adc/ptable.html
http://web.uvic.ca/~stucraw/pitcook.html -example of a cooking pit

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• Indian
• Canada
• kanada
• Shuswap
• aboriginal
• school
• genocide
• tribal
• cooking
• residential
• music
• culture
• bc

[jamaicasky]

glad you like it

[jamaicasky]

i think it is incredible that after all the efforts to take away their culture in that residential school, their language and culture continues to survive. They even have a Secwepemc Museum right on the same spot. The residential school that caused so much grief is now occupied by the Secwepemc people with their own offices and businesses and they continue to succeed and move forward.

[travesty70]

NIcely done, good to see my home to music.

Kukstemc

[jamaicasky]

thank you so much, i am so pleased that you enjoy it. the secwepemc - shuswap people have a proud heritage and i dont think it is recognized as much as should be. Especially locally. Tourists want to see more.

[jamaicasky]

((( for people who dont know "Kukstemc" means thank you in the Secwepemc language" )))))

[TheAngelolivi1]

I am secwepmc and i am learning the language and i have been to that muesem when i went to canada

[TheAngelolivi1]

I am secwepmc and i am learning the language

[sammou22]

I honestly would take a huge shit on top of that building and then stuff it with explosives and level that trash of a building, there is nothing to be proud of here nothing if all of you honestly think that these schools are interesting check out there history it will make you sick.

[DarkEmoCorner]

lol it shows my school at 0:24 lol

[superdupersonic]

i live like across the street from the residential school... :(

[ukraniandancer55]

used to lived there i wanna go move bak