What Was Said to Me

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 "e;a treasure of linguistic and cultural knowledge."e; 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.