On January 17th, in collaboration with the Blood of Life Collective we launched Not Extinct – A Sinixt Virtual Exhibit, an interactive website based on the book Not Extinct: Keeping the Sinixt Way by Marilyn James and Taress Alexis.
This virtual experience will share audio recordings of the stories from the book illuminating the Sinixt relationship with the upper Columbia River watershed, and the Sinixt quest to reclaim their rights and responsibilities in their x̌aʔx̌aʔ təmxʷúlaʔxʷ, their sacred homeland. You’ll be able to fully immerse yourself in each of these stories as writers, Taress Alexis and Marilyn James, tell them to you.
One of the most exciting additions to this website is the Language page which is part of the T’kikstn Language Revitalization Project. T’kikstn – which means walking stick in Snslxcin – represents the work of bringing the language of the Sinixt back to the land that birthed it. T’kiktsn has been funded by the First Peoples’ Cultural Council and Heritage Canada. Users will be able to listen to and learn how to properly pronounce various Snslxcin words.
“These first twenty words which you can learn by listening to on the site, is the beginning of bringing back the language of this land, to this land,” noted BoLC member, K.L. Kivi. “It’s an exciting resource that we will continue to build on.”