Talking sticks to be repatriated to Dzawada'enuxw First Nation

Two talking sticks have been returned to a First Nation in British Columbia's Central Coast after they spent more than 60 years hanging in the city hall in Terrace, B.C.

The talking sticks were taken from the Dzawada'enuxw First Nation, which is based out of the Ukwanalis village in Kingcome Inlet, more than a century ago as part of colonial crackdowns on Indigenous customs and activities. 

They have been hanging in the city hall in Terrace, located nearly 430 kilometres away from Ukwanalis as the crow flies, since at least the 1960s. 

Dzawada'enuxw historian and Terrace's mayor say the talking sticks were given by a logging company who worked near the nation's traditional territory.

Mayor Sean Bujtas will travel to Ukwanalis and return the sticks, eight years after a Terrace city councillor first pushed for the artifacts to be repatriated.

"There's a sense of truly understanding the history and the significance of what is happening now," said Marianne Nicolson, an artist and historian from the Dzawada'enuxw First Nation.

"It's definitely a step forward in the right direction after decades of going in the wrong direction, I think, in regards to the relationship with Indigenous Peoples."

Nicolson was put in touch with the Terrace civic leaders by another artist, Lou-ann Neel, and was flown out to the city earlier this year with her sister Midori to see the sticks in person.

The historian says the two sticks represent political authority within Dzawada'enuxw families and territories.

"One of them has 40 coppers … carved onto them. The coppers are a symbol of wealth amongst our people," she told Stephen Quinn, host of CBC's The Early Edition.

"And there's what we call a … wild woman of the woods, and she's a special crest figure that's on one of them. The other one has a whale."

Nicolson says the stick with a whale on the top appears in a 1938 photo taken by missionaries who were in Ukwanalis, then known as Kingcome village.

"What's really significant about that is that at the time when that photo was taken ... our ceremonies were actually outlawed by the Canadian government," she said.

Logging deprived nation of artifacts

In an article on the City of Terrace website, Nicolson says a crackdown on cultural practices such as the potlatch meant that Indigenous people had to forfeit or sell their items under duress if they were caught disobeying the law.

The website states that Skeena Forest Products Ltd. and Pohle Lumber Co. Ltd. donated the talking sticks to the city.

"The entire valley, the entire watershed was logged," Nicolson told CBC News. "And through that process, these logging companies acquired these talking sticks.

"All the forestry that happened here, and all the wealth that was taken out of our community, happened over that 100 years," she added. "So the return of these symbols to us is incredibly significant given that history."

Bujtas, who is paying out of his own pocket to have his family travel with him to Ukwanalis, credited previous city councillor Michael Prevost for kickstarting the repatriation process.

"I hope that more people can reach out and start to repatriate these items," he said.

"Regardless if we require them lawfully or not, they're not ours. They were never ours. And they need to go home to the places that they belong."