“In the early time, long ago, an Indian maiden was taken into the sky. When she came back to the land, the man who took her turned into a grizzly bear. Her three brothers searched for her but found the bear first and killed it without realizing that it was their sister’s husband. They brought the skin to where the river calls back the salmon every year. The Gitxsan people have been in Kispiox ever since.”

3] In order to address this question you will need to refer to Sparke’s article, “A Map that Roared and an Original Atlas: Canada, Cartography, and the Narration of Nation.” You can easily find this article online. Read the section titled: “Contrapuntal Cartographies” (468 – 470). Write a blog that explains Sparke’s analysis of what Judge McEachern might have meant by this statement: “We’ll call this the map that roared.”

As I was formulating my response to Sparke’s interpretation of “The Map That Roared”, I found The New York Times article that covered the news about the Supreme Court overruling the Delgamuukw vs. The Queen, which greatly helped me in understanding the articles and history better. From Sparke’s article, he understood the claim by Chief Justice McEachern as a proper retaliation, finally, against the colonials for the right to their land. The map’s coordination and presentation provided enough images to showcase their position on the land, where they hunt, where they fish, and have claimed their rightful place. And after reading TNYT article, it gave me more insight to the background story beneath Sparke’s article. TNYT explained how the Gitxsan fought their case in court using oral histories. It was new for the court to allow such evidences to be used; they even refused to let the Gitxsans to perform and sing their histories at first, but then relented and gave them permission to submit their stories orally as evidence. The court was able to back their claims up by having geologists and biologists “to search for historic concurrence. They drilled deep core samples and found evidence that a monumental mud slide leveled the area about 3,500 years ago, placing the event within the time frame of Gitsxan habitation.” It left me and many others in awe of this discovery, especially to find truth within such unique circumstances, which was what intrigued TNYT to write about in the news.

Relating the court story from TNYT to Sparke’s article, it holds testament to how vital art and oral was and is to the First Nations and their land. Like Neil Sterritt Sr.said at the court proceedings, “What evidence did we have to show them this land was ours? There are the names of the territory, the names of the streams, the names of the mountain peaks. This took thousands and thousands of years. These are our boundaries. You could not fake them.”

The title to their land does not have to be on paper, on legal documents or any hard copies of proof, but the upholding of tradition and oral history that keeps their history alive was what helped them kept their right. The colonial settlers didn’t win with their arguments and Exhibits of refute. The Gitsxans won because of their beliefs, their performances, and their sense of self, tradition, and home. The map represented their place on the land, it printed out their colourful images of representation and position and home, and the oral stories are what keeps their legacies and places alive, give meaning to their existence on the land that they belong in, and allows them to own what is and will always be rightfully theirs.

Work Cited:

DePalma, Anthony. “Canadian Indians Win a Ruling Vindicating Their Oral History.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 8 Feb. 1998. Web. 21 June 2015.

Hurley, Mary C. “Aboriginal Title: The Supreme Court of Canada Decision in Delgamuukw v. British Columbia (BP459e).” Parliament Government Canada. Library of Parliament, 1998. Web. 21 June 2015.