Lazarus Sittichinli

Lazarus Sittichinli was a First Nations elder of the Gwich'in people, who was the last surviving member of the man-hunt for the Mad Trapper of Rat River.^[1]

Oral histories he recorded have proved valuable in tying his people to their past.^[1]

Stephen Takfwi, Premier of the Northwest Territories, recorded a song celebrating Sittinchinli's life and example to his people.^[2]

When Rudy Wiebe interviewed Sittichinli for his 2011 book River of Stone, he wrote he was the only participant in the manhunt who was still alive.^[3]

Wiebe wrote that Sittichinli and his wife had been married for 67 years, and that 12 of their 14 children had predeceased them.^[3]

Cynthia Chambers Erasmus offered Sittichinli's testimony before the Berger Commission as an example of a key speech pattern of First Nations elders, in a journal article entitled "Ways with Stories: Listening to the Stories Aboriginal People Tell".^[4] She spent two pages deconstructing Sittichinli's testimony.

References

^ ^a ^b "CBC.ca | Northwind". cbc.ca. Retrieved 2020-09-03.
^ "Lazarus Sittichinli". YouTube. Retrieved 2020-09-03.
^ ^a ^b Rudy Wiebe (2011). River Of Stone. Knopf Canada. ISBN 9780307367150. Retrieved 2020-09-04.
^ Cynthia Chambers Erasmus (March 1989). "Ways with Stories: Listening to the Stories Aboriginal People Tell". Language Arts. 66 (3): 269–271. JSTOR 41411738. One of the thousand, the testimony of Lazarus Sittichinli, exemplifies much of the discourse style of the aboriginal witnesses to these hearings. Rather than employing a rational, impersonal style of argumentation, Lazarus persuades his audience by demonstration. He leads his listeners through a series of personal experiences which constitute the bulk of the testimony and illustrate his unstated point. When personal experiences are an important source of knowledge, stories about those experiences are an important means of persuasion. Thus for aboriginal speakers such as Lazarus, stories are an important way of establishing who they are, what they know, and why the audience should heed their words.

Media related to Lazarus Sittichinli at Wikimedia Commons

[SittinchinliSound-1] "CBC.ca | Northwind". cbc.ca. Retrieved 2020-09-03.

[StephenTak-2] "Lazarus Sittichinli". YouTube. Retrieved 2020-09-03.

[RiverOfStone-3] Rudy Wiebe (2011). River Of Stone. Knopf Canada. ISBN 9780307367150. Retrieved 2020-09-04.

[Listening-4] Cynthia Chambers Erasmus (March 1989). "Ways with Stories: Listening to the Stories Aboriginal People Tell". Language Arts. 66 (3): 269–271. JSTOR 41411738. One of the thousand, the testimony of Lazarus Sittichinli, exemplifies much of the discourse style of the aboriginal witnesses to these hearings. Rather than employing a rational, impersonal style of argumentation, Lazarus persuades his audience by demonstration. He leads his listeners through a series of personal experiences which constitute the bulk of the testimony and illustrate his unstated point. When personal experiences are an important source of knowledge, stories about those experiences are an important means of persuasion. Thus for aboriginal speakers such as Lazarus, stories are an important way of establishing who they are, what they know, and why the audience should heed their words.

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