Law Siyaye! (Hello Friend!)
Ceremonial dance at Xá:ytem Longhouse (1994)
S’ólh Téméxw te íkw’élò. Xólhmet te mekw’stám ít kwelát
This is our land. We have to look after everything that belongs to us
The Stó:lō are the first inhabitants of the Fraser Valley dating back thousands of years. The word Stó:lō is Halq’eméylem for river; the Stó:lō are the river people. Halq’eméylem is the dialect of the Coast Salishan language family spoken by the Stó:lō people. The word Stó:lō itself discloses the importance of the natural environment to the Indigenous peoples of the Fraser Valley.
Stó:lō people refer to their traditional territory as S’ólh Téméxw. The traditional territory of the Stó:lō extends from the mouth of the Fraser River to Harrison Lake.
The Stó:lō people were primarily a hunter-gatherer society and as such possess a vast level of knowledge and intimate relationship with the land. The Stó:lō utilized this knowledge to subsist off the land, with a diet consisting of both land mammals like deer and elk as well as fish like salmon and sturgeon.
Naxaxalhts’i “Sonny” McHalsie assists dig (1991)
The Stó:lō believe that all things possess Sxhweli – meaning spirit or life force. Sxhweli connects the Stó:lō to their ancestors and to their land. Traditionally the Stó:lō were led by Sí:yám, meaning respected ones or leaders. There are many different types of Sí:yam and they fulfill different social roles. Different groups of Stó:lō were delineated amongst family lines.
Since the implementation of the Indian Act, the Stó:lō have been partitioned into twenty-four different bands or First Nations. These bands have formed into two different tribal councils, The Stó:lō Tribal Council and The Stó:lō Nation. Some bands are not a member of either organization.
The Stó:lō people who lived in the area surrounding the Xá:ytem site are the Xáth’aq or Xáth’ex people. The name roughly translates to Hatzic, which is a word that is associated with the bulrush or reed plant which grows in abundance in the area. This tribe lived in the Hatzic area along the Fraser River as well as up to Davis Lake along modern-day Sylvester Road.
“Xáth’aq were virtually wiped out by smallpox and other diseases at the turn of the century. The few Xáth’aq that did survive integrated with the Katzie and Nooksack tribes”
– Albert Phillips of Chehalis (1991)