What Was Said to Me

A narrative of resistance and resilience spanning seven decades in the life of a tireless advocate for Indigenous language preservation. 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-the first of its kind ever published by the Royal BC Museum-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 mentored hundreds of students and teachers and 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 from Hul'q'umi'num' speakers-that has been described as 'a treasure of linguistic and cultural knowledge.' Without her passion, commitment and expertise, this rich legacy of material would not exist for future generations