Introductions

I will begin by introducing myself with Nisga’a protocol. My Nisga’a name is Noxs Ts’aawit (Mother of the Raven Warrior Chief), named Ts’aawit. On my mother’s side of the family, I am from the House of Ni’isjoohl and am a member of the Ganada (frog) clan in the village of Laxgalts’ap in the Nisga’a Nation. The Nisga’a Nation is located in northwestern British Columbia, Canada. On my father’s side of the family, I am of Settler ancestry (French and German). I gratefully acknowledge that I am an ‘uninvited guest’, with responsibilities on the unceded territories of the Skwxwú7mesh, Səllílwəta;ɬ and xʷməθkwəy̓əm Peoples (colonially referred to as North Vancouver in the lower mainland of British Columbia). I am also an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Studies at the University of British Columbia and an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University.

I am entering a story that started at the beginning of time and was supposed to have ended over a century ago through colonial efforts undertaken by the Government of Canada and Christian religious institutions that endeavored to carry a tacit and explicit agenda of genocide.2 My friend Txeemsim (the Nisga’a supernatural trickster character) says: ‘Our story hasn’t ended, we are still here and we are reclaiming, re-righting, and revitalizing our languages, cultures, knowledge(s), and stories’. In this chapter, I share the emerging story of the House of Ni’isjoohl’s efforts to repatriate the Ni’isjoohl pole (colonially referred to as the ‘Small Hat pole’) from the National Museum in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Our context

It is important to share further information on our political, cultural, linguistic and geographic context for those who are outside of our Motherlands. Our collective story starts over 10,000 years ago and con-tinues into the present. The Nisg̱a’a Nation is currently comprised of four main villages (Laxgalts’ap, Gingolx, Gitlaxt’aamiks, and Gitwinksihlkw) surrounding K’alii-Aksim Lisims (Nass River) in northwestern British Columbia (BC). It is governed by the Nisga’a Lisims Government under the Nisga’a Constitution, which follows our ayuuḵ (ancestral laws and protocols).