Featured Resources
Gitxsan laxyip. Map by Natasha Donovan, accessed from Brett Huson – The Gitxsan Nation.
Let us begin negotiations.
Recognize our Sovereignty, recognize our rights, so that we may fully recognize yours.
Gitksan-Carrier [Wet’suwet’en] Declaration. November 7, 1977. Delivered to Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs, Hugh Faulkner.
- Ayook: Gitksan legal order, law, and legal theory. byPublication Date: 2009"Conflict is an integral and necessary aspect of human societies. The challenge is not to prevent conflict or even to resolve it, but rather, to effectively manage it so that it does not paralyse people. Historically, Gitksan society managed conflict through their legal traditions and governance practices, and I argue that it is the undermining of this conflict management system that has generated the pervasive conflicts among the Gitksan people today."
- A study of the traditional governance of the Gitxsan : its relevance today byCall Number: KHA W75 S78 1997Publication Date: 1997
Books, Articles and Reports
- Did I Break It? Recording Indigenous (Customary) Law byPublication Date: 2019
For future generations : reconciling Gitxsan and Canadian law by Call Number: H M55 F67 2008ISBN: 1895830346Publication Date: 2008"With material provided by the Gitxsan Hereditary Chiefs’ office, court transcripts from Delgam’Uukw v. British Columbia, and her own research, Dawn Mills paints a compelling picture of the Gitxsan and their right to land and self-government. While the book focuses on the judgments rendered in the Gitxsan’s struggle in the Supreme Court and an analysis of the judgments and strategies utilized, Mills also details the Gitxsan relationship to the land and their community."- Placing Gitxsan stories in text : returning the feathers = guuxs mak'am mik'axx byCall Number: YG S65 P53 2004Publication Date: 2004The author narrates the stories and legends that reveal the depth of the Gitxsan culture.
Ethnographies and Anthropological Works
- Histories, territories and laws of the Kitwancool byCall Number: BA D84 H57 1989Publication Date: 1989An outsider anthropological volume about the Gitxsan.
- Gitksan Potlatch : population flux, resource ownership and reciprocity byCall Number: BDC A33 G58 1973Publication Date: 1973
Theses & Dissertations
- Reconciliation : Git₋xsan property and crown sovereignty byPublication Date: 2005"Using the "Acts of Reconciliation", September 14, 1998, as a model, I argue that Canada, British Columbia and the Gitxsan can establish a respectful relationship acknowledging Gitxsan land tenure and their governance institutions."
Delgamuukw
- Gitx̲san Wet'suwet'en Hereditary Chiefs. byCall Number: MBC ART 31Publication Date: 1987Court testimonies of chiefs on opening day of trial of Delgamuukw et al v. the Queen et al.
Special collections, archival materials and vertical files
- 'Ksan feast list of Gitxsan songs and dances byCall Number: VF-781Publication Date: 1972File contains one typed list entitled "Limx ganhl miiluxw ga ni ye et.xwum (Songs and Dances of our Grandfathers)" for a feast at 'Ksan on Friday, 30 June 1972. List includes the names of the performances and performers in two columns.
- The Gitx̲san Traditional Concept of Land Ownership. byCall Number: Bd Art 9Publication Date: 1982Journal article.
Other resources
- “The New Residential School System”: How a First Nation Rallied against the Foster Care SystemBy the Walrus. December 15, 2022.
Gitanmaax band asserts their rights and resists the removal of a Gitxsan girl to foster care. - ‘We are inseparable from our land’: Gitxsan Nation house group declares 170,000 hectares of territory protectedBy the Walrus. August 10, 2022
- Witnessing the Gwininitxw Feast: Through ceremony and discipline, the Gitxsan assert sovereignty over their landsEcotrust Canada’s Climate Innovation team witnesses a feast, where the Gitxsan declare that their ancestral lands — Maxhla Didaat and Galaanhl Giist, a 170,000-hectare area in the upper Skeena watershed — will be protected to ensure the future health of their land, culture, and communities.