Section 3: Syilx Okanagan Relationships to the Land

3.1 - Syilx Land Ethic: Reciprocity & Sustainability

As with many Indigenous nations and communities and as will be examined further in Section 4, Syilx Traditional Ecological Knowledge, constructed with reciprocity and sustainability, is a central component to the foundation and transmission of their knowledge systems. Syilx knowledge institutions continue to be based on being out on the land and “developing a relationship with, being sustained by, and becoming one with the land” since time immemorial (Terbasket and Shields 50). As described and demonstrated by a number of the Syilx speakers in The Pocket Desert, this includes being “nourished by a wealth of biodiversity, including fish, game, berries, roots, and medicines” through hunting and gathering practices that require “a localized knowledge that is dictated by the seasonal cycles of the land” (see annotations 1.2, 2.2, 3.2, and 4.2) (50). Because Syilx families and community systems are united when gathering foods, “traditional gathering on the land is ceremony itself and demonstrates honour and respect for the tmixʷ” (see annotation 3.2) (50). The Syilx word and concept tmixʷ, as defined by Dr. Jeannette Armstrong in “A Single Strand,” refers to “the ecology of the land, including all life forms of a place, consisting of many relationships” (96). As will be further discussed in the following sections, the concept of tmixʷ underpins much of Syilx Traditional Ecological Knowledge, social structures, and ways of knowing (see annotation 3.1). The process of gathering and affirming honour and respect for the tmixʷ upholds values of reciprocity and accountability as caretakers of the land recognise their responsibility to “use the land and water such that future generations may gather from these same places” (Terbasket and Shields 50). Through the oral accounts given by the speakers and the often overlapping sounds of natural elements such as wildlife (see annotation 3.1) and/or the sounds of water (see annotation 3.2), The Pocket Desert uses sound to reaffirm the interconnectedness of Syilx Traditional Ecological Knowledge, culture, and epistemologies with the land and tmixʷ. The continuity and repetition of the sounds, such as the the resurfacing noises of horses and gusts of wind (see annotation 3.1) and the rhythm of the soft splashes of water (see annotation 3.2) with the voices of the speakers additionally brings these relationships to the present, reaffirming their ongoing presence (see Section 1.3).

The relationships between people are ultimately reflective of and interdependent with the critical interdependent human relationships to the land and tmixʷ as well. Reflecting Terbasket and Shields’ assertion “[t]o care for the land is to care for the people” (50), Armstrong states that “what we do to each other and how we look at each other––how we interact with each other––is one of the reasons some things then happen to the land” (“An Okanagan Worldview” 66). Similar to how Syilx knowledge is based in being with, being sustained by, and becoming one with the land, the Syilx Okanagan understanding of the land is not limited to simply being part of the land or the vast systems that operates on the land and also includes the understanding that the land is part of them, through food, language, and connections to the tmixʷ (see annotations 3.1 and 3.2) (Armstrong, “An Okanagan Worldview” 67, Terbasket and Shields 50-3). Further, in explaining how the land feeds people and people feed the land, Armstrong states: “we give our bodies back to the land in a very physical way but we also do other things to the land. We live on the land and we use the land and, in so doing, we impact the land: we can destroy it, or we can love the land and it can love us back” (see annotations 1.2, 2.3, 3.2, and 3.3) (68). The understanding of the reciprocal relationships between people and the land is “the foundation of an egalitarian type of governance” in Syilx social matrixes (see annotation 3.1) (Armstrong, “A Single Strand” 97). Understanding the ecology of their territory as a “living whole system that requires human compliance with its regenerative requirements in order to interact with it in a non-destructive way” allows the Syilx social matrix to reveal “knowledge that whole-system regeneration is grounded in an ethic for which the fundamental requirement is nondestructive land use” (97). The Syilx knowledge that “ethical conduct within nature is based in reciprocity” is reflected in what Armstrong refers to as a “tmixʷ-centric ethic” that requires governance to “socially ensure that the exercise of local authority is willingly supported by surrounding groups in a mutual concord of human interdependency to enjoy system-wide reciprocal benefits” and participate in “the continual regeneration of each life form” (98). Along with the recorded verbal explanations and sonic demonstrations of interconnectedness and the need to maintain reciprocal relationships to each other and the land by many of the Syilx speakers, The Pocket Desert allows for the ongoing themes of continuity and regeneration to be expressed as continuous. Through its audio format, The Pocket Desert’s ability to bridge the past to the present, as discussed in Section 1.3, helps convey the constant obligation of recognising responsibility to the land and each other.

Photo Description/Caption: A sign at the gates leading down to kɬlil’xʷ (Spotted Lake) near Osoyoos from the Okanagan Nation. Photo taken August 6, 2022.

3.2 - Syilx Language & Ecological Knowledge

Syilx Traditional Ecological Knowledge is deeply embedded in the language of the Syilx people, Nsyilxcən, and therefore a significant component of their captikʷɬ (oral stories) as further discussed in Section 4. In The Pocket Desert, Lily Armstrong and Dr. Jeannette Armstrong explain and demonstrate how the Nsyilxcən language and Syilx stories intrinsically hold and illustrate significant meanings informed and foregrounded by the land and the relationships between the land and the people (see annotation 4.1). Nsyilxcən, as explained Armstrong in her dissertation Constructing Indigeneity (2009), is “an oral language indigenous to the Syilx territory and as such reflects knowledge of the nature ecology of that area” while offering “a unique view into the relationship that Syilx peoples maintained with nature” (74). The Nsyilxcən concepts of tmixʷ and tmxʷulaxʷ––best translated in English as life-force or all life forms and lifeforce-place or the land––are “central to understanding all aspects of Syilx environmental ethic” (148, 376). The word tmixʷ and its concept ultimately “allows access to the Syilx concept of the human duty to nature” and under careful examination, reveals the depth of Syilx knowledge of ecology (Armstrong, “A Single Strand” 96). Words in Nsyilxcən carry images of and relating to nature that generate meaning vital to understanding the tmxʷulaxʷ, tmixʷ, and the relationships between. In the case of tmixʷ, the word “literally displays many strands continually emanating and fanning outward from one source that is not visible” and accordingly “provides a dynamic view of what the ecology of the land actually does and refers, as an image, to every life form of a place, including the human” (96-7). This image of strands amplifies the understanding of nature as “life force” where “each life form is a single strand of the life force of that place and requires others of that place to have existed and to continue to exist” (97). Syilx language, as heard in The Pocket Desert (see annotations 1.2 and 4.1), both describes and illustrates concepts and meanings based in and guided by reciprocal relationships to the land and ecological knowledge that is reflected in Syilx ways of knowing and ethics. The knowledge that is passed down through the language, whether literal or metaphorical, is regenerated and experienced through ongoing relationships to the land.

The imagery associated with Nsyilxcən words and concepts such as tmixʷ is essential in understanding the deeper meanings and relationships informed by and connected to the land and with all living things. By seeing all living things, including humans, as part of the “myriad relationships that make that place what it is,” the concept of tmixʷ works as a necessary element in Syilx “philosophy of egalitarianism toward all life forms,” which is reflected in Syilx governance and the Syilx social matrix (see annotations 3.1 and 3.2) (97). The Nsyilxcən language represents tmixʷ-centric ethic in the Syilx word yilmixʷm, that translates to “Chief” or “one who coils as one strand” in English (Armstrong, Constructing Indigeneity 158-9, 376). The role of a yilmixʷm is “being duty-bound to twining/coiling the many strands” of tmixʷ that conjures the image of all of the animals and plants of the land “being pulled from the fanning outward around the human being into a single cord with the human, coiled year upon year” (159). By twining and coiling together, humans and the tmixʷ come together as a unified strand “which allows for the regeneration of the many single strands” by means of “[s]ustaining, strengthening and protecting each tmixʷ in an equality of existence” (159). The duty of a yilmixʷm is therefore “to twine and to coil the many strands of tmixʷ in a unified direction towards the future” (161). To properly unify the tmixʷ, the yilmixʷm must “insure that the needs of individuals, family units, the community as a whole and the land/environment, have equality of consideration by everyone deliberating an issue” (see annotation 3.1) (162). In understanding Syilx Traditional Ecological Knowledge embedded in Nsyilxcən, the many meanings vital to understanding the reciprocal responsibilities people have to the land and each other are made clear. The Pocket Desert represents the significance Nsyilxcən has in communicating Syilx Traditional Ecological Knowledge and informing an egalitarian way of life through the demonstration of Syilx relationships to each other and the land (see annotations 1.2, 3.1, and 4.1) as well as by including a wide breadth of speakers from different backgrounds who present insight, knowledge, and meaning in numerous ways.

3.3 - Violence Against the Land as Violence Against the People

As The Pocket Desert identifies through oral accounts and explanations given by many of the speakers, violence against the land and the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island have been ongoing since the onset of colonisation. Genocide, marginalisation, and efforts to assimilate Indigenous Peoples “to a white supremacist status quo” continue to be enacted by the settler-state of Canada, including within the Okanagan region (Gahman and Legault 50-1). As also mentioned in Sections 2.2, 2.3, and 4.3, the settler colonial destruction of the Okanagan landscape has not only had devastating impacts on the Okanagan’s ecology and climate, but on the Syilx Peoples as well. For Syilx People, European settlement became synonymous with loss of autonomy, access to resources from the land, and crucial aspects of Syilx culture and history (Schwann 173, Wagner 29). Through the displacement and dispossession of Syilx People from much of their territory with the construction of borders created and upheld by settler imagination (see annotation 2.2), implementation of colonial legal frameworks that prevent Syilx People from claiming their ancestral territories and practising many of their cultural traditions (see annotation 3.2), and the alterations and destruction of the natural landscape of which much of Syilx knowledge and culture is founded on, the violence against the land and the people became overtly mutual (Gahman and Legault 54-5). To this day, the “settler narrative currently whitewashing the Okanagan Valley is one that romanticizes pioneer occupation and cultural genocide” that “conveniently fails to account for the societal alienation and ecological devastation that settler colonialism has wrought” (53). Settler colonial violence is thus enacted intentionally and unintentionally. The explicit erasure and marginalisation of the Syilx Peoples as well as the destruction of their land for the settlement and comfort of European settlers allows for new generations of settlers to not know of or easily disregard the fact that they are on stolen land and continue the legacy of settler colonialism either unknowingly or guilt-free (Tuck and Yang 9-10). By directly addressing concerns with the climate and ecology of Osoyoos and the Okanagan by including Syilx voices, songs, and music throughout the radio documentary, The Pocket Desert provides insight and perspectives that go against the settler status-quo and hegemonic settler narratives.

At the same time The Pocket Desert confronts settler colonial violence and opposes settler colonial discourse, especially regarding the Okanagan, the radio documentary simultaneously acts as a sonic document containing numerous detailed accounts of the destruction of land and the damaging ripple effects the violence has had on the Syilx Peoples. The destruction and modification of waterways and their consequent tarnishing of lakes and threatening of fish habitats and fish populations, for instance, is detailed in John Stelkia’s account of his experience seeing the dead fish floating down the river and the long lasting impact it had on him (see annotations 3.3). Assimilation attempts, colonial land claims, and the elimination of wetlands, grasslands, riparian habitat, and indigenous plants in favour of orchards, vegetable gardens, highways, and towns is revealed to have taken a great toll on Syilx culture and connections to the land and one another as revealed by Dr. Jeannette Armstrong (see annotations 3.2) (Wagner 28). With colonialism and the increasing growth and expansion of settlements and the agriculture industry in the Okanagan, Syilx traditions, relationships with the land, and ways of knowing continue to be threatened. The concerns highlighted in The Pocket Desert remain relevant and seamlessly blend with the current and ongoing struggles against settler colonialism with its presentation of the past through audio recordings. Similarly, Syilx (ecological) knowledge continues to be stored and passed on in Nsyilxcən and through captikʷɬ to persist in informing the maintaining, sustaining, and revitalising of the tmixʷ and tmxʷulaxʷ over time.

3.4 - References

Armstrong, Jeannette. “A Single Strand: The Nsyilxcin Speaking People’s Tmixʷ Knowledge as a Model for Sustaining a Life-Force Place.” Traditional Ecological Knowledge: Learning from Indigenous Practices for Environmental Sustainability, edited by M. Nelson and D. Shilling, Cambridge University Press, 2018, pp. 95-108.

—. “Chapter 9: An Okanagan Worldview of Society.” Original Instructions: Indigenous Teachings for a Sustainable Future, edited by Melissa K. Nelson, Bear & Company, Rochester, 2008, pp. 66-74.

—. Constructing Indigeneity: Syilx Okanagan Oraliture and tmixʷ centrism, University of Greifswald, 2009, https://d-nb.info/1027188737/34.

Gahman, Levi and Gabrielle Legault. “Disrupting the Settler Colonial University: Decolonial Praxis and Place-Based Education in the Okanagan Valley (British Columbia).” Capitalism Nature Socialism, vol. 30, no. 1, 2019, pp. 50-69.

Schwann, Alyssa. “Ecological Wisdom: Reclaiming the cultural landscape of the Okanagan Valley.” Journal of Urban Management, 2018, pp. 172-180.

South Okanagan Similkameen Conservation Program: 2017-2019 Program Report. South Okanagan Similkameen Conservation Program, 2020, https://soscp.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/SOSCP-Program-Report-2017-2019-web-final.pdf, accessed 22 June 2022.

Terbasket, Pauline, and Sandra Shields. “Syilx Perspective on Original Foods: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow.” Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development, vol. 9, no. 1, 2019, pp. 49-54.

Tuck, Eve, and K. Wayne Yang. “Decolonization is Not a Metaphor.” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, vol. 1, no. 1, 2012, pp. 1-40.

Wagner, John R. “Landscape Aesthetics, Water, and Settler Colonialism in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia.” Journal of Ecological Anthropology, vol. 12, no, 1, 2008, pp 22-38.