Description
Book SynopsisDaly explores the central meaning of the notion of land in the determination of Aboriginal rights with particular reference to the landmark Delgamuukw case that occupied the British Columbia courts from 1987 to 1997.
Trade ReviewDaly’s text combines documentation, analysis, critique, reflection and poetry without succumbing to false objectivity, unnecessarily abstract theorizing, self indulgence, or romanticism. Readers are left with respectful and complicated understandings of Gitksan and Witsuwit’en peoples as historical and contemporary agents that defy simplistic and demonized or idealized portraits. -- Dara Culhane, Simon Fraser University * Canadian Historical Review, Fall 2005 *
Ultimately, Daly provides a deeply compelling description of the courage and enduring strength of Gitksan and Witsuwit’en peoples.
Our Box Was Full is an important resource for the Gitksan and Witsuwit’en and other aboriginal peoples, and non-aboriginal peoples as well. -- Val Napoleon, University of Alberta * Pacific Northwest Quarterly, Fall 2005 *
A means of communicating much-needed information that is quite controverial and that we may not wish to hear is to draw a brief of evidence that is both factually precise and yet entertaining and, at times, fascinating if not riveting. This is the task that Dr. Richard Daly has undertaken and achieved with extraordinary success ... Dr. Daly excels at the fundamental skill of the writer: to excite the reader’s interest in the subject matter to the extent that one is gripped by the account ... Indeed, this book succeeds to a remarkable extent in reducing complex and challenging questions of anthropology into understandable concepts and explanations. -- Justice Giles Renaud, Ontario Court of Justice * The American Review of Canadian Studies, Spring 2006 *
Richard Daly, an independent anthropologist living in Norway, gave the most extensive ethnological expert opinion regarding Aboriginal rights and title ever heard before a Canadian court in the landmark case known as Delgamuukw…In [
Our Box was Full] Daly is marvelously candid and thoughtful, and his is perhaps the clearest statement in print of the issues facing anthropologists engaged in legal testimony. -- Bruce Granville Miller, University of British Columbia * The Oregon Historical Quarterly, Spring 2006 *
Table of ContentsMaps and Figures
Foreword / Michael Jackson
Foreword / Peter Grant
Preface
1 Introduction
2 The Reciprocities of a Pole-Raising Feast
3 A Giving Environment: Nutrition and Seasonal Round
4 A Kinship Economy
5 Production Management and Social Hierarchy
6 Gifts, Exchange, and Trade
7 Owners and Stewards
8 Epilogue
Afterword: Back to the Future / Don Ryan, Masgaak
Notes; References; Index
