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THE QUINCENTENARY OF THE 'DISCOVERY' of the Americas by Christopher Columbus has stimulated wide debate on the history of European contact. In December 1991 a chartered trawler carrying twelve Native people from British Columbia sailed out to meet the Spanish government - sponsored replicas of the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria, bound for San Juan, Puerto Rico, to commemorate Columbus's initial landing. The Natives' objective was to persuade the excursion's leader, Santiago Bolivar, a direct descendant of Columbus, to make a public apology on behalf of the Spanish government for the wrongs committed against them. The protesters estimated that 100 million or more deaths were inflicted on Native peoples from diseases introduced by Columbus and subsequent explorers.(f.1) In this encounter, something very basic was at stake: the history of colonial encounters from the point - of - view of First Nations' peoples.
This article examines accounts of the first meetings between Nlaka'pamux(f.2) and European explorers in the Fraser River canyon of south - central British Columbia in June 1808. Simon Fraser was the first non - Native to explore the area along the river that now bears his name. The leader of a North West Company crew consisting of nineteen voyageurs, two Indians, and two clerks, Fraser kept a journal to record his journey - to survey, as it were, the people he met and the terrain along the way. Fraser's journal has become the primary lens through which to view the initial interaction between the Nlaka'pamux and the first white explorers.
While Fraser recorded in writing his impressions of the 'Hacamaugh' (Nlaka'pamux) at 'Camchin'(f.3) (present - day Lytton) on 19 and 20 June, the Nlaka'pamux recorded their impressions of him. Unlike Fraser, however, the Nlaka'pamux transmitted their impressions orally, and the stories passed from one generation to the next. Anthropologist James Teit recorded some of these accounts almost a century ago. Still others survive as living oral accounts among contemporary Native elders. This article examines these early and more recent accounts in light of what they reveal about the Native oral/historical viewpoint.
THE PROBLEM OF 'HISTORY'
In the early years of this century, British Columbia was a haven for ethnographic research. Many of the names of those who worked here are well known -...