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Gathering What the Great Nature Provided: Food Traditions of the Gitksan
Library Item
Richly endowed by a benevolent climate, North America's northwest coast provided a great variety of easily obtainable foods for the Indian people who lived there. The rivers teemed with salmon and trout, the forests with goat, deer, grouse and a profusion of wild plants, herbs and berries. Although the food traditions of these people - among them the Haida, the Tsimshian, the Tlingit, the Nootka - have been written about before, there has never been a book that recorded, as this one does, the inherited wisdom of the elders of one group.
Gathering What the Great Nature Provided is a singularly beautiful book, in which the Gitksan people - members of the Tsimshian tribe - describe the traditional methods and recipes used in the area of north central British Columbia around what is now called the Skeena River. Hours of tapes were painstakingly recorded, translated and edited by a group of more than 90 members who call themselves the Book Builders of 'Ksan. These tapes provide the words for a richly illustrated guide to the gathering, storing, cooking and preserving methods that permitted a sophisticated art and culture to flourish. Here are detailed instructions on how to fillet, smoke, boil, toast, barbecue, age and bake a variety of fish, including salmon; how to pick and preserve berries; how to use evergreen trees not only for containers but also for food; how to preserve and cook moose, beaver, rabbit, porcupine and grouse.
Throughout, the cultural importance of food is emphasized as the band's elders share their knowledge simply, often with humour. Line drawings by Hilary Stewart elaborate upon and enhance the text, together with photographs of the people taken in the area some years ago during the filming of a National Film Board feature.
Gathering What the Great Nature Provided is a singularly beautiful book, in which the Gitksan people - members of the Tsimshian tribe - describe the traditional methods and recipes used in the area of north central British Columbia around what is now called the Skeena River. Hours of tapes were painstakingly recorded, translated and edited by a group of more than 90 members who call themselves the Book Builders of 'Ksan. These tapes provide the words for a richly illustrated guide to the gathering, storing, cooking and preserving methods that permitted a sophisticated art and culture to flourish. Here are detailed instructions on how to fillet, smoke, boil, toast, barbecue, age and bake a variety of fish, including salmon; how to pick and preserve berries; how to use evergreen trees not only for containers but also for food; how to preserve and cook moose, beaver, rabbit, porcupine and grouse.
Throughout, the cultural importance of food is emphasized as the band's elders share their knowledge simply, often with humour. Line drawings by Hilary Stewart elaborate upon and enhance the text, together with photographs of the people taken in the area some years ago during the filming of a National Film Board feature.
LIB.00149
Vancouver, BC : Douglas & McIntyre, Ltd.
1980
0888942494
Print and published material
English
Media Room and Library
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