Sturgeon Harpoon Knowledge Web

To Musqueam, a sturgeon is more than simply a sturgeon. It’s an entry point to aspects of language, territory, health, technology, and our society, and the respect and responsibilities that accompany them. It is part of a larger web of mutually dependent knowledge.

A sturgeon harpoon describes a relationship between elk, eagles, Douglas fir, and moles, our need to access our territory, and the way we to come together as a family to pass on knowledge. When a link in this web is broken, it’s a loss to the whole web of knowledge and to our relationships.

- Jason Woolman

xʷməθkʷəyəm | Musqueam First Nation

qʷta:yθən

White sturgeon

Acispenser transmontanus

It starts when you're a kid... you play around with it, but then you start asking about it and it goes from being a toy that's representative to the actual history coming alive again... It teaches you that connection to where you are and where you come from... it starts painting that living picture of the history that you've come from... I mean, if we were to start fishing for sturgeon, it would be many, many generations before we can even use an implement like this again because it would have to be a selective measure considering the amount of destruction that's been, but it's important to remember why this was there. How much... sturgeon was, not only part of our diet, but part of our culture, part of our trade.

- secəlenəxʷ Morgan Guerin