Spotlight on Secwépemc People, Land, and Laws: Yerí7 re Stsq’ey’s-kucw

June 21 is National Indigenous Peoples Day. This is a day for all Canadians to recognize and celebrate the unique heritage, diverse cultures and outstanding contributions of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples. Although these groups share many similarities, they each have their own distinct heritage, language, cultural practices and spiritual beliefs. That is why we’ve chosen to shine a spotlight on Secwépemc People, Land, and Laws: Yerí7 re Stsq’ey’s-kucw. Authors Marianne Ignace and Ronald E. Ignace, with contributions from ethnobotanist Nancy Turner, archaeologist Mike Rousseau, and geographer Ken Favrholdt, compellingly weave together Secwépemc narratives about ancestors’ deeds. The result is a journey through the 10,000-year history of the Interior Plateau nation in British Columbia, told through the lens of past and present Indigenous storytellers.

This remarkable publication, a culmination of over 30 years of research, has been referred to as “an impressive achievement that connects lessons preserved from a 10,000-year history to ongoing land rights struggles” by Publisher’s Weekly. McColl Magazine writes “Secwépemc People, Land, and Laws will not only become known as the Secwépemc encyclopedia, but also sets the new gold standard for Indigenous scholarship.” Perry Bellegarde, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, applauds the authors, stating “the Ignaces have brilliantly woven the Secwépemc oral histories with research, and written a work from which young people and all can learn.” And Leanne Hinton at University of California calls the book “a masterpiece of multidisciplinary research on the Secwépemc Nation’s history from the Ice Age to the present, science and archival records serve to back up the volume’s primary source of knowledge, the oral narratives and shared memories of the Secwépemc people.”

In addition to the continuing positive reception to their extensive work, the Igances have received awards and nominations. Secwépemc People, Land, and Laws: Yerí7 re Stsq’ey’s-kucw was the winner of the UBC Library and the Pacific BookWorld News Society’s 2018 Basil Stuart-Stubbs Prize. It was also a finalist for the West Coast Book Prize Society 2018 Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize and included on the Pacific BookWorld News Society, Yosef Wosk, and Vancouver Public Library 2018 George Ryga Award Longlist. Most recently, the book received honorable mention from the Canadian Aboriginal History committee of the Canadian Historical Association 2018 Best Book Prize:

Marianne Ignace and Ronald E. Ignace make a major and unique contribution with their monumental book Secwépemc People, Land, and Laws: Yerí7 re Stsq’ey’s-kucw. With this work, the Ignaces make available to readers many decades of work, research, knowledge, and life experience. The authors speak to scholarly conversations in a wide array of disciplines including history, law, anthropology, Indigenous Studies, and beyond. Their book offers a deep history of the Secwépemc across millennia. It does so through the lens of an Indigenized methodology that draws together both Secwépemc knowledge—in the forms of lived experience, oral knowledge, ontology, and law among others—and knowledge produced through the disciplinary conventions of the Western academy—in the forms, for example, of ethnobotany, archaeological findings, and colonial documents. The authors underscore the long-standing, enduring nature of Secwépemc collective identity and emphasize the strategies of resilience the Secwépemc have employed in the face of settler colonialism. The Ignaces have authored a book that provides an unparalleled exemplar for Indigenized, collaborative scholarly practice. (Canadian Aboriginal History jury)

Learn more about the book >

Read “Marianne’s Story,” an excerpt from the book’s introduction >