“We are here to stay, unceded and unsurrendered”
This collaboration between Gitxsan cousins offers a grassroots guide back to the bare bones of Gitxsan legal culture. Readers are introduced to Gyamk, a compassionate power personified in oral histories as the Sun devoted to the growth of all life on earth.
Gitsxan history and tradition dialogue with contemporary context as Sutherland-Wilson and Wright detail the roles the House, the Clan, the Territory, and the Feast can play in Gitxsan life today. Drawing on the knowledge held by their House families and the testimonies of their hereditary leaders voiced at the landmark Delgamuukw-Gisday’wa trial, the authors explore the transformative power of the warm-hearted cosmic ethos that underpins their legal traditions.
In the face of a century of colonial harm and ongoing territorial incursions, the ayookxwm gwelx ye’enst, “the law of leaving behind a healthy House family and territory for those who come after us,” inspire and inform this generation-spanning work. Using Gitxsan law to address colonial problems such as the MMIWG crisis, overrepresentation of Indigenous children in care, and land theft, the families represented in this work call for a Wilpster Uprising—the empowerment of each Gitxsan person with a name, a place, and a calling to grow and give back to their House.
Together these stories, histories, testimonies, and decolonial dreams form a conceptual toolkit for rebuilding compassionate citizenship, belonging, and legal order among the Gitxsan people.
