Victor Guerin
The ancestors of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ speaking people lived along the lower Fraser River and all around the shores of neighbouring Burrard Inlet in British Columbia. The Central Coast Salish people living here today are their descendants. Throughout the time that we’ve lived here, our elders shared oral narratives that conveyed history, life skills, and the legal and moral code by which our people lived. In the present work, I have restored three oral narratives of the people from the village of səl̓ilwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), originally related by Tsleil-Waututh elders in English. First, the narratives were translated by Dr. Ruby Peter into her həl̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ dialect (Vancouver Island). Once translated, I converted the narratives into the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ dialect. My hope is that these narratives
will inspire and inform our younger generation who are working to gain fluency in our language.
Keywords: First Nations narratives; Coast Salish; həl̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ ; hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓; Tsleil-Waututh