 I could quite have Kent and Thomas Kisqas, Sikwak Makaluf. My kias and slas are Dr. Mary Thomas, Mark Thomas, Herbie and Vera Johnny, and my parents are Phyllis Jerry Thomas and my son is Susab Sule. I'm from the Sikwak Nation. I am from the Skidgidin Indian Band, or otherwise known as the Skannis Band. And today I'd just like to talk about my experiences with the art and craft of storytelling, or as we call it in the Sikwak Makaluf, Shtepikula. I think with this one I'll start off with the concept of knowledge holder, because a lot of people think that just because you're given a story or given a word in Sikwak Makina or your language to say that you now can do with it what you please. And in my experiences as a emerging storyteller, that's not the case. Someone gives you a song. It's your duty to sing it, that's it. One time my son Susab told me he went up and sang a song and I said, well, where'd you find the courage to do that? And he didn't know. He said someone gave him a saying one time and he thought about that at that moment. Someone told him that if you know a song, it's your duty to sing it. If you know a story, it's your obligation to share. And if you know our culture and traditions, yeah, it's your responsibility to pass them on. So knowledge holder to me is someone that does exactly that. They don't claim to know the knowledge, are not known the knowledge, but to own the knowledge. And they don't claim to have been the creator knowledge. We pay how much we pay respect to the ancestors that came before and we say that they're the creators. They got the knowledge from the land. They pulled the knowledge from the land. The land gave them the knowledge and then they were able to pass it on to us. And then the real owners of these stories and this language and all the teachings that come from land-based and indigenous education belong to the Tukalmuk, which means the people that come. So they're the ones that really own the language. And right now we just hold it in trust for them until that day comes. Okay, so the knowledge that I feel is really important to us and that needs to be passed on to the next generation is everything that we have and know and hopefully we can recover some more of our teachings and some more of our stories. Because I believe in my belief and from some words from elders and teachings from elders, I feel like the stories are still out there. The stories that were originally hearing and lost because there's no way through colonization and assimilation and residential schools and all that, that we retained all of our stories. I'm sure we lost so many. But I believe that the stories are being held in trust by the land. They once came forward, they'll come forward again. So we're gonna create more stories. So what's really important for me is to keep what we have now moving and to ensure that the Tukalmuk, the people that come, the babies, the future generations, they get that language, they get that, these teachings. They understand that indigenous education is all encompassing and surrounding. In what ways do you pass on the knowledge that you care? In what ways? I try to do it as freely as possible. I barely ever say, apparently barely, I barely ever say no. I barely ever say ta'a when someone asks me to perform for them. Unless it's something like a birthday party or a corporation or something like that and just want some entertainment for the night. I feel like that these stories aren't just entertainment. If they want entertainment, they can hire themselves a magician or a clown or a DJ or something. These stories, we like to look at them as lessons as entertainment. So you learn two kinds of lessons. You learn how not to behave and how the world came to be. So you learn things in these stories and while they're entertaining, they're also lessons. So it would be like asking a teacher to come to your party and give a lecture on, I don't know, on plants, plants or language arts or something. It just doesn't make sense to ask someone about that. And I also go into a lot of schools. I now work for SD73 as the average resource teacher. So I'm in and around camoops a lot, but my boss lets me travel quite freely to other communities as long as they have something in exchange for my services, which means not money or anything like that, but if they have a teacher of some sort of knowledge or something they can send them over at some point in time in the future and we'll take care of them and they'll share their teachings. So in that sense, we always try to share and make sure that we build up relationships with other school districts and other communities. All of them, all the stories. I'd like my grandchildren and great-grandchildren to hear all the stories that I share. And what stories would I like them to say about me personally is that I tried my hardest that I, I kind of fell into storytelling. It was just a release and outlet for me at first, a way to perform, a way to be seen and a way to be funny. And I kind of fell into it. Now that I'm this far into storytelling, now I see how important and vital that these teachings and these lessons go on because of the importance that they are to the land and to my ancestors and to my future generation. So all of them. Okay, I think today I'd like to share the story of Alune. So, Alune a long time ago, a long, long, long time ago, there were these two chiefs, Lujie and Panjie, and their people were really sad because for four seasons, they had suffered a lot of losses in their community. So one thing that us Aquacmic and a lot of other nations like to do is we like to have a big feast and commemorate and to memorialize the ones that have gone on. And we also like to play stick games because stick games are a lot of singing and a lot of good feelings and gambling and you win a little bit and you lose a little bit, but you end up coming out on top because you feel really good. So they decided to hold this feast and hold these stick games. And they invited a whole bunch of other cookies from all over the land and their people. So they were expecting a lot of people to come. So they said, well, we need lots of food for feast. So they sent, so the women, they went out and they started getting roots and berries and the men went out hunting elk and going fishing and doing other stuff like that. But it was Alune who really, really stepped it up. Alune built himself a canoe out of birch bark and he made a big fence like almost like a fish weir. That went like this all about, and it was really big. And he put that fence into the water until it was about waist deep or chest deep. And then he put his canoe in the water and he just sat there and he instructed Blue Jay and Pine Jay, the Cookbees, the Chiefs to go up into the mountains and chase all the deer that they could find down with them and their dogs. And so the dogs and Blue Jay and Pine Jay all chased all these deer down there. And when they came down, they hit the fence but they were in the water so they couldn't maneuver around very well. And it was easy pickings for Alune. Alune just swam around with his bow and arrow and he just caught as many, just as many as he needed. Then afterwards they brought him home and they skinned them and they made a whole bunch of gifts and everything and they prepared a lot of food. And then the day of the feast, all the Cookbees and everyone showed up and they showed up to the home of Blue Jay and Pine Jay and their people. And they started off by handing out gifts to, especially to the people that helped, the women that went out and got roots and berries. They gave them little gifts and they gave some gifts to all of the hunters. They said, here's a gift. But it was Alune. They were really impressed with his initiative and his innovative ways to provide for them. So they gave him some Dentalium. Dentalium is a shell that you get from the West Coast and we're way up here in the plateau so it was hard for us to get Dentalium. A lot of it came through the Greece Trail, through the New Hawk, through Chokot and then to us. So when it got here into the home of the Blue Jay and Pine Jay, it was really valued. It was a great rich. So when they put it around them, they put two necklaces around his neck and he had these two beautiful necklaces, one real short and one that kind of hung down. And they gave him this beautiful shirt with Dentalium all over it. And then they gave him these two leggings that went around his legs, just adorned with Dentalium. And boy, Alune was looking at himself, going, wow, I look good. But then he wasn't the only one who thought he looked good too, Golden Eagle, one of the Cookbees from one of the other nations saw him as well. And he liked the Dentalium and he thought, oh boy, I'm going to get that somehow. But Golden Eagle's a really good stick gamer. So he challenged Alune to a game and they started playing and they're singing their songs. Oh, they're gambling away. And eventually, eventually, Golden Eagle won all of the sticks, almost all of the sticks off Alune. He had three left, three sticks. And that's when Golden Eagle looked at Alune and he said, if I win, I get all of your Dentalium. And Alune agreed. Reluctantly, he went, oh my, yeah, if you win. And all of a sudden, supper was called. They went, oh, supper, time to eat. So all of the people went to go eat. And then all of the Cookbees, including Golden Eagle, made their big speeches. They all talked. They all went, oh, this is what we bought. They all talked about what they needed to talk about. And afterwards, Golden Eagle found Alune again. After all of the speeches and the feast was done, he went and found Golden Eagle again. He said, all right, that's it. We're going to finish this game off. And boy, Golden Eagle is just about salivating. He wanted that Dentalium so bad. So then he called it. They just about started playing. He picked up his drum and his drumstick and he was getting ready to sing and start pointing and winning sticks off of Alune. But Alune looked down and he goes, oh no, oh no, Golden Eagle, we're going to have to take a break. And he said, whoa, what for? Stemmit, what for? And he goes, oh, because I don't have any swamp grass. And he goes, what do you need swamp grass for? And he goes, oh, I'd like to use swamp grass to hide my bones. And he goes, ah, and he goes, look at the lakes, just right there. It's just right there. I can walk down there and grab some and be right back. And Golden Eagle went, ah, yes, go then, go and hurry. Let's get this over with. And have you ever seen Alune walk? They walk like that. They're horrible walkers. And he's walking like this and it's about as graceful as a rock rolling up a hill. And he kept on flopping. He'd get back out, wander, flop, and he'd wander and flop, and wander and flop. And all the animal people were standing there going, wondering, holy smokes, is this for real? Are we really watching this? Everyone else knew, like all of the people of Blue Jay and Pine Jay, they knew how horrible the walker was. So they knew what he was up to. And as soon as he got down to the water, Golden Eagle came, I up, he became really angry and he took to the air and flew into the air and he flew over there. But by the time he got there, Alune dove under the water and then he popped up and he went, whoo-ha-ha, and he just laughed. And he looked at Golden Eagle and then he went back under the water and he popped up way over somewhere else. Who-ha-ha, and then he laughed and then he popped up and he, who-ha-ha, and then he, who-ha-ha, he did this four times. And every time he just made Golden Eagle even more, I up. So Golden Eagle knew what he had been tricked. He knew that Alune had no intention of ever, ever giving him all of that dentalium, that dentalia. So he said, that's it. If you want that dentalia, you're gonna keep it on forever. So he used all his power. And he made that dentalia stick to Alune exactly the way you see him today. And that's why Alune looks the way he does. He looks like he has all that dentalium all over his neck, two little necklaces and all over his chest and his back and on his bottom legs. And that's the story of Alune. My perspective on education is that it's all encompassing. It's in everything we do in our daily life because the teachings that indigenous education are based upon are the teachings from the land. So when our ancestors were first here, in my knowledge, when the ancestors were first here, they weren't taught. They weren't, no one really, the animals would show them how to eat and what to eat. The carnivores would go and eat and then they'd see that they could eat that meat. And the animals would eat certain plants and they'd follow them and they'd eat the same plants and they'd get nourishment from it. So in that essence, they were taught how to survive. But then when they started developing their thinking and their language, it came from what they saw and experienced on the land. And it would, as I know it, they would fill their heart and their mind with that word and then they would express it. Demuh means our land. So something like that would come from the demuh, from the land and they'd be able to express that thought or that knowledge. So if you look at it in today's way, we don't place any more importance on the language. We don't place any more importance on the land or the stories. And the stories represent our laws. The laws come from our stories. I was sitting with an elder one time and we were looking at this proclamation written by the Chiefs of Silk, Sikwak Mikuluh and Shokotin. And they wrote this proclamation to Sir Will for Laurier in 1910. And James Tate, the ethnographer, read it out to James Tate and it talked about interference. It talked about how the SEMAP, when the first white man came, they had a good relationship, a good working relationship. And then it went downhill after that, after the second and third generations of people came. So they needed to fix that and they needed to get rid of the fences and boundaries and borders because the land in their minds did not belong to anyone. It belonged to everyone if it belonged. And so if it belonged to anyone, it belonged to the plants and the animals because we were just the pitiful creatures who they helped. So I was sitting there with that cook bee and he goes, well, where do you think they got that knowledge from? And where do you think they pulled those words from? And he goes, do you think they just grabbed them out of thin air and pulled them out and then put them in their mouths and then spit them out into that piece of paper? And I said, I don't know. And he goes, well, think about it. And so we thought about it for a while. And he goes, where does the language come from? And I go, the land. And he goes, correct. And then he goes, where do you... So if we got the language from the land, where did we get the stories from? And I said the language. And where did language come from? The land. So what did the stories represent? And I said the laws. And he said, well, if the stories aren't the laws, where do you think they pulled these words out for this, for these settlers, for these colonialists who are on our land, who are interfering with the work we're doing? Would we not express our laws to them? And I said, oh, and I got it immediately because what he was saying was that we pulled the stories right here, front and center, and we used the stories to... And we used the laws that are expressed in those stories and we extracted them and put them into words that the SEMAP could understand. And we presented our laws to them with their own words. And as the story goes, Sir Wilford Laurier at the time took it and he said he was gonna do something about it, and then he got voted out 10 months later. So nothing ever became of that proclamation, but we still hold it true. It's still very relevant and true to this day. So with that big old story, I come back around to what is indigenous education? Indigenous education is all-encompassing. It has everything in it. It relates back to our land, to our laws, our stories. And I think that's why, especially at this time in our existence, with our renewed, bigger for culture, for identity, for heritage, for traditions, I think our shtabtikulas are vitally important because we have to realize and figure out what those laws are again so that we can start living by them and so that we can start educating ourselves again on what those are. And we'll get there, I believe. We're all connected to the land, whether we go picking berries or we go hunting or we go even just share a story out in the land. All that indigenous education is coming for us. I was talking to this fellow the other day and he was talking about how we go to the same creek every single year to go fishing. And this Samakai came up to him and he was standing up and he was all authoritative and he had his arms up like this and he went, he goes, what are you doing here? And he looked around, he's seen that, he was talking to him and he looked up and he goes, I'm fishing. And that white guy looked at him and he goes, who gave you permission to fish here? And he said, my ancestors. And the guy said, well, that's not good enough. So he went up and talked to him in a good way, he wasn't confrontational about the whole thing. But he explained to him that it was his right to be there, that his ancestors, by taking care of the creek and taking care of the salmon before him, that gave him the right as a descendant as one of his ancestors to be there to keep on practicing their rights to be there. And then he went on further to say, but his title, his title, that what gives him the title to be there isn't just because he's a descendant of his ancestors. If that was the case, then everyone has the right and title to be out in the land. He said how he proved and to claim of his title was by going out there and cleaning that creek and making sure that it was taken care of because in his words, the ones that used that creek and lived in the creek and recycled their life there, the trout and the little salmon and all the fish, they can't do that. So he would do the work that they can't do for them because they do their job. They recycled their life to go way out in the ocean then they return to feed us. And that's their job and to recycle their life and then to go back out and do it again. That's their job. They're doing their end, he said. Our end is to protect, to clean that, to do our title. So to me, that's what indigenous education is all about. It's about taking care of ourselves and taking care of the land. I see it really growing astronomically and not only growing, like, but more people having an understanding of it, more people making it into meaningful contextual lessons and bringing it into the classroom. Even right now, the BC curriculum, as the way it is, and embodies a lot of that. I was sitting with some teachers last year and we were studying the curricular competencies and I was looking at them and I was going, geez, you know, a lot, when you break these down, they really sound like teachings, teachings from the elders. And I would parallel and I'd collaborate on to the teachings of the elders and I would parallel them with the curricular competencies and those other teachers started going, oh, yeah, they could see it. And I think with the openness of it now, instead of teaching being so compartmentalized and classified, now it's more like all-encompassing, it's all around everything. So I think it's just gonna grow astronomically and with our people becoming stronger and finding more avenues to share their strengths and their knowledge with others, that it's just gonna keep on going forth and it's gonna in 10, five, 10, 20 years, it's gonna be something to behold, it's gonna be something, it's gonna be quite the site and it's gonna fulfill a lot of our ancestors' prophecies about the young bringing back our teachings and our teachings will live again, they'll rise up from the land and they'll be there for us to see and share. And my final thoughts, final thoughts is that personally, the staff Tiquilas, for me, they gave me a chance, they gave me an opportunity to share not only my ancestors' teachings and my ancestors' knowledge, but also a chance for me to share who I am to create an identity for myself, to create an identity that I hope is one of goodness and kindness. So with that, I just say, Cook's Yum! Thank you.