Gugwilx'ya'ansk and goats: Indigenous perspectives on governance, stewardship and relationality in mountain goat (mati) hunting in Gitga'at territory

Abstract

Indigenous peoples' deep time relationships with ecosystems hold valuable lessons on how humans can relate to, and be stewards in, the natural world. At the crux of these lessons is the multifaceted way Indigenous peoples participate within ecosystems. This paper describes this multifaceted connection between people and place by analysing a legal and pedagogical philosophy called gugwilx'ya'ansk amongst the Ts'msyen (Tsimshian) people of the northwest coast of North America. The author, an Indigenous anthropologist from the Gitk’a’ata (Gitga'at) tribe of the Tsimshian, narrates how gugwilx’ya’ansk weaves education, governance, identity, spirituality, and ritual into land‐based practices for the purpose of deep‐time stewardship. Through autoethnographic narrative and storytelling, he focuses on his own journey of being groomed into becoming a mountain goat hunter within the hereditary governance system of his community, and how this process revealed a methodology to achieve relationality and reciprocity on the landscape while harvesting. This paper concludes by reflecting on why this Indigenous methodology has been successful for the author, and what lessons it has to offer greater society. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.