Tagish storyteller, an Indigenous people of Canada, Angela Sidney (1902 – 1991) leaves tales of traditional Tagish legends as well as valuable historical sources on the origins of place names in the Yukon.
The First Nations
Angela Sidney was born in 1902 near Carcross (originally called Caribou Crossing) in the Yukon in northwestern Canada. Born to a Tlingit mother, Maria John, and a Tagish father, Tagish John, she is a member of the Canadian First Nations. At birth, she was given three names:Ch’óonehte’ Ma in Tagish, Stóow in Tlingit and then Angela by her godfather.
Angela, her brother Johnny and her sister Alice Dora are growing up in a time of change for First Nations in Canada. At the end of the 19 e century, many reserves were created while the “Indian Act” of 1876 gave the Canadian government the authority to legislate on “Indians” and their reserves. Across the country, residential schools were created to uproot First Nations children from their roots and impose cultural assimilation. In addition, the Yukon has just experienced a gold rush, with the arrival of tens of thousands of prospectors, following the discovery of gold by three cousins of Angela's father.
Angela's family is struck by tragedy, when Maria and John's first four children die during an epidemic. Eldest of the surviving siblings of three children, Angela must quickly assist her mother, whom the epidemic and the tragedy have hit hard and left weakened. She also attended Carcross Anglican Mission School for a time before the age of ten, growing up straddling two worlds and two cultures.
The urgency to safeguard traditions
Since a young age, Angela has enjoyed spending time with her parents, her uncles and aunts, her cousins, to listen to them tell the traditional stories of the Tagish people, the songs, the traditions, the dances. She learns in particular from her mother, with whom she spends a lot of time taking care of her.
Growing up, Angela notices, by comparing her experience with the stories of those close to her, that traditions are gradually crumbling. At school, she no longer speaks Tagish or Tlingit, but English. Her period of isolation, at the time of puberty, is not carried out with as much seriousness as in the accounts she has heard; it is cut short so that Angela can return home and assist her mother. It is from this observation that the young girl's desire to preserve the traditions, language and culture of her people was born.
"My stories are my wealth"
At 14, Angela married a man twice her age, George Sidney. They marry according to the Tagish tradition, then in an Anglican church. The couple had seven children, four of whom died young. Like them, their children grow up straddling two worlds, learning English and Canadian culture, and receiving traditional Tagish stories from their mothers.
“Well, I have no money to leave for my grandchildren. My stories are my wealth! (I have no money to leave to my grandchildren. My stories are my wealth!)
Beyond her children, Angela works to preserve Tagish traditions by teaching them to children in school. She publishes stories and legends in the two collections My Stories Are My Wealth (1977) and Tagish Tlaagu (1982). She also publishes a book detailing the Tagish and Tlingit names of geographical locations around the lakes of southern Yukon.
First to become a member of the Order of Canada
Angela Sidney also collaborates with linguists, Victor Golla, Jeff Leer and John Ritter, to ensure the preservation of the Tagish language. She works with anthropologist Julie Cruikshank, with whom she reconstructs the history and genealogy of her family over six generations.
In 1986, Angela was made a member of the Order of Canada, the country's highest civilian honour, for her significant contribution to the preservation of Tagish culture. She is the first First Nations woman to receive this distinction.
Angela Sidney died in 1991, at the age of 89.