Not Extinct: Keeping the Sinixt Way

by Marilyn James, Taress Alexis

What does it look like to return from Extinction? In this book, Sinixt storytellers and knowledge-keepers Marilyn James and Taress Alexis address the reality of their living culture in the face of Canada’s bureaucratic genocide of their people in 1956. Through lively story and discussions by the authors, each chapter illuminates the Sinixt relationship with the upper Columbia River watershed and their quest to reclaim their rights and responsibilities in their x̌aʔx̌aʔ tum xúlaʔxʷ, their sacred homeland. Gorgeous illustrations and reflections by regional settler and Indigenous artists and writers give readers further opportunities to engage with the stories. Their perspectives represent the interest of increasing numbers of people in developing respectful and decolonizing relationships among Indigenous and settler peoples and to inspire the work of reversing the Sinixt extinction. Join them all to meet the trickster Snk̓lip and the other Animal Beings who people the stories of the captikʷɬ, the Sinixt oral history.

176 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2017

Reviews

[Catherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautifully illustrated collection of traditional and contemporary stories (with discussion) told by Sinixt storytellers and knowledge-keepers Marilyn James and Taress Alexis. The first edition was published in 2017 by Maa Press, a small book publisher/distributor located in the Columbia Mountains. Maa Press published a second addition with three new stories and lots more discussion in 2021.