From pdh@u.washington.edu Wed Jan 21 15:19:40 1998 Received: from jason01.u.washington.edu (root@jason01.u.washington.edu [140.142.70.24]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.8.4+UW97.07/8.8.4+UW97.05) with ESMTP id PAA11256 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 15:19:39 -0800 Received: from saul10.u.washington.edu (pdh@saul10.u.washington.edu [140.142.13.73]) by jason01.u.washington.edu (8.8.4+UW97.07/8.8.4+UW97.05) with ESMTP id PAA25654 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 15:19:38 -0800 Received: from localhost (pdh@localhost) by saul10.u.washington.edu (8.8.4+UW97.07/8.8.4+UW97.04) with SMTP id PAA01453 for ; Wed, 21 Jan 1998 15:19:33 -0800 (PST) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 15:19:33 -0800 (PST) From: Department of Zoology To: indknow@u.washington.edu Subject: Gwich'in Words (transcription) Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE From: Earle Cummings Subject: Gwich'in Words Content-Type: text/plain; charset=3D"us-ascii" Other INDKNOW subscribers may have had as much trouble as I did reading the attachment to the recent posting about the book "Gwich'in Words about the Land". I was finally able to open the attachment and transcribe it. Although a long post, I think it is interesting. I hope those who pay high prices for their connection, and who had no trouble deciphering the attachment will forgive me editing and re-posting it. Earle Gwich'in Renewable Resource Board has recently published a book entitled "Gwich'in Words about the Land" (212 pages, maps and illustrations). The book documents Gwich'in traditional knowledge about several wildlife species important for the people's subsistence. To find out more about the book and to order a copy please contact the Gwich=92in Renewable Resource Board directly at:=20 =09e-mail:=09grrb@inuvik.net =09tel: =09(867) 777-3429 =09fax: =09(867) 777-4260 INTRODUCTION Indigenous peoples of the world have lived in close contact with Nature for thousands of years. Through continuous interaction with the Land, they have developed an enormous body of knowledge about their environment. Spiritual and ethical values have been woven into this knowledge, creating a system that has guided the people and helped them to survive. "Western" society has only recently begun to acknowledge the validity of traditional ecological knowledge, and its crucial role in maintaining the world's biological and cultural diversity.=20 The Gwich'in Nation is one of the world's few remaining indigenous groups that still depend on the environment for their livelihood, much as their ancestors have done for centuries. Several groups of Gwich'in inhabit Arctic and sub-Arctic North America, from the Mackenzie River Valley in Canada's Northwest Territories (N.W.T.) in the east, through the Yukon, and into Alaska, USA in the west. The Gwich'in have lived in close relationship with the Land for a long time. This relationship has been kept alive through the continuous flow of their traditional knowledge from generation to generation. With changing lifestyles in the last half a century, however, opportunities for the traditional oral and on-the-land ways of teaching and learning began to disappear.=20 With the settlement of their Land Claim Agreement in 1992, the Gwich'in of the N.W.T. were guaranteed land access and special privileges to follow their traditional way of life. In the objectives of their Land Claim Agreement, the Gwichin identified the need to preserve and use traditional knowledge. At the Gwich'in Renewable Resources Workshop, in February 1994, the participants stated that the spiritual values of the Land should be respected and the traditional knowledge must be passed on to future generations. The people emphasized that, in order not to lose this precious knowledge, it is important to find new ways of teaching younger generations about traditional knowledge.=20 This book is one attempt to pass local Gwich'in knowledge to the future generations. It is the result of the Gwich'in Environmental Knowledge Project (GEKP), an initiative of the Gwich'in Renewable Resource Board (GRRB) to document local traditional ecological knowledge, that began in the summer of 1995. This book allows resource managers in the Gwich'in Settlement Area (GSA) to learn about the world view of the Gwich'in whose lives and knowledge have been inseparable from the Land. It is important and necessary to understand and appreciate this world view, if co-management of natural resources in the GSA is to succeed. In addition, because the available scientific data on fish and wildlife resources in the GSA is scarce, some information gaps may be bridged by using the knowledge of local hunters, trappers and fishermen.=20 The following pages are based entirely on the interviews conducted during the first year of the GEKP, and on archival and literature material reviewed by GEKP staff. From all these sources, only Gwich'in knowledge, rooted in oral traditions and not in "western" science, was used. Although portions of the Gwich'in traditional ecological knowledge have vanished during the last century, this book still merely scratches the surface of the traditional knowledge the people have today. Many questions remain unanswered and many more have yet to be asked. The GEKP does not end with the publication of this book. It lays a foundation for future projects and research in traditional ecological knowledge of the Gwich'in. Already, the GRRB, with the help of academia, is attempting to devise new ways of making documented traditional ecological knowledge more accessible to the local and scientific communities. "Its not what you don't know that hurts you. Its what you're damned sure of and wrong about." Mark Twain Earle W. Cummings, Wetlands Coordination California Department of Water Resources 3251 S Street, Sacramento CA 95816 Voice (916)227-7519 Fax (916)227-7554 .