“Live right off the Land and Water”
Drag Seines, Capitalism, and Gitxaala Lifeway
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18357/anthropologica67220252753Keywords:
Gitxaała, Tsimshian, social change, political economy, Indigenous fisheriesAbstract
Drawing from community-based research in the author’s home First Nation, Gitxaała, this paper documents an articulation between a First Nations economy and the insertion of capitalism within their territories. Voices of Gitxaała hereditary leaders, matriarchs, and harvesters are prioritized and emphasized. The story that unfolds is of the cultural reliance and persistence of Gitxaała people in the face of economic transition.
Downloads
Publication Facts
Reviewer profiles N/A
Author statements
- Editor & editorial board
- profiles
- Academic society
- Canadian Anthropology Society
- Publisher
- University of Victoria
To learn about these publication facts, click 
PF is maintained by the Public Knowledge Project
References
Boas, Franz. 1916. Tsimshian Mythology, Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1909–1910. Washington: Government Printing Office.
Boyd, Robert. 1999. The Coming Spirit of Pestilence: Introduced Infectious Diseases and Population Decline among Northwest Coast Indians, 1774–1874. Vancouver: UBC Press.
Daly, Richard. 2005. Our Box Was Full. Vancouver: UBC Press.
Glavin, Terry. 1996. Dead Reckoning: Confronting the Crisis in Pacific Fisheries. Vancouver: Greystone Press.
Harris, Cole. 1997. The Resettlement of British Columbia. Vancouver: UBC Press.
——. 2003. Making Native Space: Colonialism, Resistance, and Reserves in British Columbia. Vancouver: UBC Press.
Marsden, S., and R. Galois. 1995. “The Tsimshian, the Hudson’s Bay Co, and the Geopolitics of the Northwest Coast Fur Trade, 1787-1840.” Canadian Geographer 39 (2), 169–183. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1541-0064.1995.tb00411.x
McDonald, James A. 1994. “Social Change and the Creation of Underdevelopment: A Northwest Coast Case.” American Ethnologist 21 (1):152–175. https://doi.org/10.1525/ae.1994.21.1.02a00080 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/ae.1994.21.1.02a00080
——. 1991. “The Marginalization of the Tsimshian.” In Cultural Ecology: The Seasonal Cycle. Native Peoples, Native Lands: Canadian Indians, Inuit and Metis, edited by Bruce Alden Cox, 109–216. Ottawa: Carleton University Press.
McIlwraith, Thomas. 2012. “A Camp is a Home and Other Reasons Why Indigenous Hunting Camps Can’t Be Moved Out of the Way of Resource Developments.” The Northern Review 36(2): 97–126.
Menzies, Charles R. 2016. People of the Saltwater: An Ethnography of Git Lax M’oon. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1d8h8r3
Menzies, Charles R. and Caroline F. Butler. 2007. “Returning to Selective Fishing through Indigenous Fisheries Knowledge: The Example of K’moda, Gitxaała Territory.” American Indian Quarterly 31(3). https://www.jstor.org/stable/30114252 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/aiq.2007.0035
Milne, D.J. 1948. The Indian Salmon Fishery on the Skeena River with Additional Notes for 1945 to 1948. Unpublished Report for Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
Newell, Dianne. 1993. Tangled Webs of History: Indians and the Law in Canada’s Pacific Coast Fisheries. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3138/9781442680357
Roe, Michael, ed. 1967. The Journal and Letters of Captain Charles Bishop on the North-West Coast of America, in the Pacific and in New South Wales, 1794–1799. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Stacey, Duncan. N.D. “An Overview of the Evolution of the Drag Seine Fishery of British Columbia.” Prepared for The Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Vancouver.
Smethurst, N. H. 2014. Inscribed on the landscape : stories of stone traps and fishing in Laxyuup Gitxaała. MA dissertation, University of British Columbia. https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0167319
Suttles, Wayne. 1987. Coast Salish Essays. Vancouver: Talonbooks. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Wolf, Eric R. 1982 Europe and the People Without History. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Charles Menzies
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Authors contributing to Anthropologica agree to release their articles under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 Unported license. This licence allows anyone to share their work (copy, distribute, transmit) and to adapt it for non-commercial purposes provided that appropriate attribution is given, and that in the event of reuse or distribution, the terms of this license are made clear.
Authors retain copyright of their work and grant the journal right of first publication.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
