Sunrise Over the Salish Sea: Sacred Space and Ancestral Time in the Stó:lō World

 

This event is co-sponsored by the Green College Series, Living with the Dead: Cultural Heritage, Indgenous and Non-Indigenous Communities.

For time immemorial, the Stó:lō people have understood the enduring connection between time, space, and the material/spiritual realms. Land, water, the heavens, and all living things are interconnected with names, histories and spirit. This talk explores and describes how this ancestral knowledge can be traced over thousands of years—connecting buildings, monuments and locations still visible on the landscape with practices, place names and histories that are taught to the Stó:lō youth of today. The speakers discuss how Stó:lō archaeological and historical research carried out during the past thirty years has helped bring some of these connections to light and how Stó:lō communities are working to protect their tangible and intangible heritage under constant threat of erosion by the settler culture and practices.