Talk:Carrier people

I've changed the bit about the pronounciation of Dakelh so that it is (a) in IPA and (b) correct. I don't know where the idea came from that Dakelh begins with a /k/. It doesn't. It begins with a voiceless lenis unaspirated alveolar stop, which to English speakers sounds like a /d/. (As to my authority for this, I am a professional linguist who has studied Carrier since 1992 and speak the language (with less than native fluency, of course)).

It's possible that there may be controversy over the use of the terms "band" and "First Nation". What I've done is to use "First Nation" in the names of bands if they use it themselves, but to use only "band" as the name of the unit. The reason is simple: in Canada "band" is a well-defined technical term, the unit of Indian government under the Indian Act. "First Nation" appears in the names of some bands, but it does not have the meaning of "band" in and of itself. It is not meaningful to say "Under the Indian Act, a First Nation is governed by a chief and a minimum of two councillors", whereas this is true of a "band". On the other hand, it is common to refer to things like "the Carrier First Nation". This is a reference to an ethnic group, not a political unit or (as usually used) even a linguistic unit.

One small point. I changed "an indigenous..." to "the indigenous..." because, in that particular area, Carrier people are the unique indigenous group. There is overlap in some border areas, but it is not an area in which multiple indigenous peoples are interspersed. Bill 16:24, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Merge Carrier Indians into this article?

I think it makes sense. Any objections?

Name "Carrier"

The name "Carrier" may not be a translation but a European description of an observed custom according to some reports. In exploring BC First Nations and particularly the Carrier First Nations I have encountered an author/teacher and anthropologist Alan D. McMillan who focuses primarily on BC First Nations. He teaches anthropology at Douglas Collage in New Westminster BC. 204.244.212.151 (talk) 16:35, 16 June 2010 (UTC)He states the name "Carrier" is a European name given because of the custom for widows to carry their husband’s bones in baskets or bundles for up to 3 years to demonstrate a suitable period of mourning. In this culture it is now common to have the headstone for a deceased person set at the home of the family for a year or more as a sign of respect and while preparing for a feast to celebrate the life of the deceased person.

He's pretty definitely wrong since we know that Europeans encountered the Sekani before they encountered the Carrier and learned of the Carrier from them and that the Sekani name for the Carrier means "people who carry something on their backs".Bill (talk) 03:19, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Table of Bands

I've run into a problem adding translations to the table of bands. The first order problem is that the band names are not necessarily Carrier, e.g. "Red Bluff", and so no translation is needed. The second order problem is that even when the English name contains a Carrier word or an anglicisation of a Carrier word, that isn't necessarily what the people call themselves in Carrier. For example, "Cheslatta" is from Carrier Tsetl'adak "rock summit", the name of one village, but in Carrier Cheslatta people actually call themselves Nyan Whut'en "people of the far side of the lake". So I guess there should be columns for the English name of the band, the Carrier name, and the translation of the Carrier name, but that leaves the question of what to do about those English names that are based on Carrier words that are not the Carrier name for the band. Should that be yet another column, or be put somewhere else?Bill (talk) 03:27, 1 August 2011 (UTC)