'Keeping the Lakes' Way: Reburial and the Re-creation of a Moral World Among an Invisible People

Thomas S. Abler is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Waterloo and the author of A Canadian Indian Bibliography, 1960-1970.

Paula Pryce was raised in the region of British Columbia known as the
West Kootenays. As an adult, having begun her university training in
anthropology, she was startled to discover that the landscape she had
known so well as a child had been occupied by a group of Indians from
the United States. Although born on the Coleville Reservation in the
state of Washington, these Indians had historical roots in the interior
of British Columbia. They had returned to the land of their ancestors to
rebury those very same ancestors whose graves had been disturbed by
development activities in the region. ‘Keeping the Lakes’ Way is an
exploration of the history and ideology of these Lakes (or Sinixt)
Indians, who had once resided in the region surrounding Lower Arrow
Lake, Upper Arrow Lake, the Slocan valley, and the junction of the
Kootenay and Columbia rivers.

Pryce documents the belated awareness on the part of outsiders of the
ethnic distinctiveness of the Lakes Indians. She deals with the history
of non-Indian occupation of the area—an occupation that led the Lakes
to retreat to the southern edge of their territory, which lay on the
American side of the 49th Parallel. The Americans recognized their
claims to territory in treaties that gave the Lakes land rights on the
large reservation of the Coleville Confederated Tribes. While that
reservation initially included lands traditionally used by the Lakes
north to the Canadian border, subsequent reductions in its size required
that the Lakes vacate these traditional lands. For a time, a presence
was maintained on Canadian soil at the Oatscott Reserve, but when the
last resident of that reserve died in 1953, the Canadian government
declared the Lakes extinct.

The disturbance of the graves of their ancestors brought the Lakes or
Sinixt people back into Canadian consciousness, although visits to their
ancestral homes seem to have been continuous. They have successfully
reclaimed the bones of their ancestors for reburial and occupied lands
to prevent further unearthing of human remains. This militant action has
brought them before Canadian courts and has led to conflict with
residents of Canadian reserves over potential land claims.

Since reburial is so central to the theme of this book, one regrets
Pryce does not offer a detailed account of the process of repatriating
the remains and of the rituals that returned them to the earth. Pryce is
also rather vague about her field methods. That said, her well-written
book fills a gap in the history of aboriginal Canada.