Margaret Siwallace, Doctor of Letters UBC, honoris causa, 1985:
"Margaret Siwallace was born in Kimsquit, BC. Educated at the
Crosby Indian Girls School at Port Simpson, Margaret Siwallace was an
excellent translator, moving easily between English, Chinook, and her
own native Nuxalk (Bella Coola) language. An intercultural woman of great
personal and scholarly integrity, Siwallace was the principal source
for many papers and theses in fields that ranged from ethnobotany to
linguistics, history to nutrition, and ethnomedicine to pharmacology.
A true scholar and scientist in her own right, she fought for First Nations rights,
working for her own community as well as for good relations amongst others. Siwallace
mediated and unraveled many knotty problems in politics, law, customs, science
and more general scholarship. Trained for chieftainship from an early age – which
office of the Nuxalk people she graced with rare ability for many years – she
was a great historian. She was a mother of five, grandmother of eighteen and
great grandmother to thirty. Throughout a long life which had known dire tragedy
as well as the extremes of material poverty, Margaret Siwallace has always been
generous of herself, freely sharing with others the qualities and wealth of her
mind and heart, her knowledge, her sympathy and her insight. She earned the respect,
admiration and love of all who encountered her." |
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