Tla’amin (Sliammon) First Nation Elder Elsie Paul has received a Clio Lifetime Achievement Award from the Canadian Historical Association.
The annual awards are given for meritorious publications or for exceptional contributions by individuals or organizations to regional history. The honour, presented recently in Ottawa, was in addition to the association’s 2015 Aboriginal History Book Prize which was awarded to Written as I Remember It: Teachings (ʔəms taʔaw) from the Life of a Sliammon Elder.
According to the association website, the Clio was given in recognition of Paul’s lifelong dedication to the stories and teachings of Tla’amin and acknowledges “her willingness to share her narrative with all of us. If historical knowledge is most valuable when it informs an active life in the present, Paul’s recollections are priceless for current and future generations of the Sliammon people and, indeed, all British Columbians.”
Historians and anthropologists have helped bring oral histories to print, the website information includes, but the dedication of the storytellers and their understanding of the value of their own histories make the endeavour possible.
“In Written as I Remember It: Teachings (ʔəms taʔaw) from the Life of a Sliammon Elder, collaborators Paige Raibmon and Paul’s granddaughter Harmony Johnson have deftly captured Paul’s knowledge and stories in written form, but she unreservedly remains the author. It is her voice that speaks on every page. Her determination to present her teachings and history within her own narrative framework makes her contributions extremely valuable and, in that regard, this book is much more than a biography. Paul wanted her teachings to be available to a wider audience. She was insistent about how her story would be told and preserved; she spent years speaking with scholars, journalists and relatives, hours in front of microphones, and many more hours reading and re-reading edited versions of her words. She only consented to the process in order to preserve more than a memoir.”
As Raibmon noted, “Elsie is a serious storyteller…She takes the power of words seriously, and so tells stories in order to impart helpful, potentially healing, knowledge.”
In announcing the winner of the aboriginal history prize, the Canadian Historical Association’s website stated, “Paul’s life story is presented with the values and practices that she refers to as ‘our teachings.’ Incorporating oral traditions and personal experiences, this collaborative work is rich, emotionally vibrant, and wide-ranging in what it covers, including ɬaʔamin oral traditions, Paul’s experiences with lived colonialism (racism, segregation, wage-labour, residential schools), and her achievements (as the family’s breadwinner, a justice of the peace, first woman elected as band councillor). Paul’s attention to the principles of respect and self-care, core tenets of ʔəms taʔaw, permeates throughout, as does her humour, resiliency, and sense of spirituality. The authors have crafted many hours of recordings into an engaging narrative that should be viewed as expert historical interpretation by a ɬaʔamin historian, rather than a collection of cultural knowledge. Paul’s teachings highlight change as an integral part of Sliammon history and are a tool for healing and transformation.”
As well as the Aboriginal History Book prize from the national association, Paul’s book received an honourable mention in the 2015 BC Heritage Fair Historical Writing Awards sponsored by British Columbian Historical Federation.
