Wet'suwet'en Erotic

The Wet'suwet'en are organized less by village than by house. Their territory covers about 22,000 square kilometers of river valley, lake country and mountain in north-central British Columbia. It is divided among house groups, and each is overseen by a hereditary chief who holds a name passed down through that house. Salmon anchor the year. At the canyon on the Bulkley River at Witset, the village long called Moricetown after a missionary priest, fishers still work the white water with gaffs and dip nets when the runs come through.

Their language, Witsuwit'en, is one dialect of Babine-Witsuwit'en, part of the Athabaskan family, with Dakelh (Carrier) spoken next door to the east. Outsiders once filed the Wet'suwet'en under Western Carrier. Their deepest social ties run west, though, to the Gitxsan, whose Tsimshianic language is unrelated. Long intermarriage and trade gave the two peoples a shared feast system and similar crest clans, so an Athabaskan-speaking people keeps institutions that look toward the Northwest Coast. Most fluent speakers today are elders, and community and school programs are working to widen that circle.

Descent follows the mother's line. Every Wet'suwet'en belongs to one of five clans: Gilseyhu (Big Frog), Laksilyu (Small Frog), Gitdumden (Wolf and Bear), Laksamshu (Fireweed and Owl) and Tsayu (Beaver). Each is divided into houses. Serious business happens in the feast hall, the balhats. Chiefly names change hands there, obligations after a death are settled and rights to territory are affirmed. The guests who witness it all are paid, and that payment is what makes the record stand. Christianity came with Catholic missionaries and is widely practiced, but the church sits beside the feast hall rather than replacing it.

That system eventually went to court. In Delgamuukw v. British Columbia, a case brought by Gitxsan and Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in 1997 that oral histories can serve as evidence of Aboriginal title. No treaty ever gave up the land, and the question of who speaks for it came to a head over the Coastal GasLink pipeline. Several elected band councils, a structure created under the Indian Act, signed agreements with the company, while the hereditary chiefs refused consent. In 2019 and 2020 the RCMP moved against camps on the route, including Unist'ot'en, which set off solidarity rail blockades across Canada. Later in 2020 a memorandum committed Ottawa and British Columbia to negotiating Wet'suwet'en rights and title. The pipeline was built anyway, but the dispute made the house chiefs a national reference point on Indigenous jurisdiction.