Lha yuditih (We Always Find a Way): Bringing the Tilhqotin Title Case Home

(Paperback)

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Eight years in the making, Lha yuditih (We Always Find a Way) is a community oral history of Tsilhqotin Nation v. British Columbia, the first case in Canada to result in a declaration of Aboriginal Rights and Title to a specific piece of land. Told from the perspective of the Plaintiff, Roger William, joined by fifty Xeni Gwetins, Tilhqotins, and allies, this book encompasses ancient stories of creation, modern stories of genocide through smallpox and residential school, and stories of resistance including the Tilhqotin War, direct actions against logging and mining, and the twenty-five-year battle in Canadian courts to win recognition of what Tilhqotins never gave up and have always known. We are the land, as Chief Roger says. After the violence of colonialism, he understands the court case as bringing our sight back. This book witnesses the power of that vision, its continuity with the Tilhqotin world before the arrival of colonizers two centuries ago, and its potential for a future of freedom and self-determination for the Tilhqotin People.

Author Bio

Lorraine Weir came to oral history from Irish studies early in her career and Indigenous Studies more recently via a bridge from the Law and Society field and papers on the concepts of time immemorial and oral tradition in the Tilhqotin case. She worked as an expert witness in touchstone Canadian censorship court cases and has published on censorship, James Joyce and semiotics, and such Canadian writers as Margaret Atwood and Nicole Brossard. A fifth-generation descendant of Irish Famine survivors, she grew up in Montral and holds a Ph.D. in Irish literature from Ollscoil na hireann (National University of Ireland). Weir is an Emeritus Professor of Indigenous Studies, Department of English Language and Literatures, University of British Columbia, Vancouver.