The First Nations of British Columbia

J.R. Miller is a professor of history at the University of Saskatchewan,
the author of Skyscrapers Hide in the Heavens: A History of Indian-White
Relations in Canada, and co-editor of the Canadian Historical Review.

Robert Muckle, an anthropology instructor at Capilano College in North
Vancouver, has prepared this anthropological primer for “readers who
would like a fundamental knowledge of First Nations people, cultures,
and issues in British Columbia.” In Part 1, he explains in simple
terms who the First Nations are, while Part 2 is devoted primarily to
the lessons that archeology yields about these groups. Part 3 is
ethnological, focusing on the “study of traditional lifeways”; Part
4 provides a historical treatment of the First Nations’ evolution,
especially in their interactions with Europeans over the past two
centuries. Finally, six appendixes provide information as disparate as
lists of B.C. First Nations and their ethnic groupings excerpts from the
Royal Proclamation of 1763, a 1910 petition to the prime minister, parts
of the Nisga’a treaty of 1996, and a list of First Nations involved in
treaty negotiations in British Columbia as of January 1998.

Most of the information provided is both clear and useful, fully
meeting the work’s objective. The author’s training in archeology
and anthropology shows through, for Parts 2 and 3 and the appendix of
B.C. First Nations are the best sections of the book. The historical
analysis, found mainly in Part 4, is less successful, because Muckle has
a weaker grasp of historical than of anthropological information. For
example, it was never the case that a male could gain “Indian”
status by marrying a woman with Indian status, and the lengthy
consideration of the Royal Proclamation is of dubious relevance, since
the imperial fiat was never intended to apply in the West. (Only since a
Supreme Court ruling in 1985 has it applied, retroactively, to British
Columbia.) Most seriously of all, the highly complex and significant
B.C. land question, rooted in colonial policy and acrimonious
federal–provincial relations, is not adequately explained.
Consequently, the 1910 petition of chiefs to Prime Minister Laurier
cannot be properly understood by an uninitiated reader.

Overall, however, The First Nations of British Columbia largely
succeeds in meeting its objective of providing information “for
readers who would like a fundamental knowledge of First Nations people,
cultures, and issues in British Columbia.”