What Was Said to Me: The Life of Sti'tum'atul'wut, a Cowichan Woman

Life histories are a form of contemporary social history and convey important messages about identity, cosmology, social behaviour, and one's place in the world. This first-person oral history documents a period of profound social change through the lens of Sti'tum'atul'wut--also known as Mrs. Ruby Peter--a Cowichan elder who made it her life's work to share and safeguard the ancient language of her people: Hul'q'umi'num.' Over seven decades, Sti'tum'atul'wut helped thousands of people to develop a basic knowledge of the Hul'q'umi'num' language. She contributed to dictionaries and grammars, and helped assemble a valuable corpus of stories, sound, and video files--with more than 10,000 pages of texts--that has been described as "a treasure of linguistic and cultural knowledge." Without her passion, commitment, and expertise, this rich legacy would not exist for future generations. In 1997 Vancouver Island University anthropologist Helene Demers recorded Sti'tum'atul'wut's life stories.