In this Cultural Starter Pack video, host Tod Maffin hands over to Indigenous storyteller and educator Jared Qwesden'khan Williams from Southern Vancouver Island. Jared invites viewers to learn about traditional place names, wild harvesting, legends, and histories of the land. He recommends several resources to deepen understanding: the book The Terror of the Coast (colonial history and Indigenous resistance), the podcast Culture is Healing with George Harris Jr. (Indigenous worldview and healing), the film Smoke Signals (humorous Indigenous storytelling), and the plant guide Les Cheems (traditional plant names and uses). Jared offers his own educational services—language lessons, storytelling, and social‑media outreach—and thanks Tod for the opportunity, ending with a customary sign‑off.
Chapters
It's time for another Cultural Starter Pack. Today it's about the many Indigenous cultures here, and I asked my friend Jared to do a takeover.
Hey, siyam nesiyeyeh. Do you know the traditional, like, name of the land you live on? Do you know what to harvest in the world around us? Do you know the legends and histories of this land? If you don't, I'd love to help you with that. I am Jared Qwesden'khan Williams, Indigenous storyteller and educator here on Southern Vancouver Island, and I like to make Lax'ik videos about wild harvesting, about language, about history, and about stories. And I've been handed this amazing opportunity to help you Lax'ik learn a little bit about resources that kind of have that like knowledge in it. So let's hop into it. So one, here's an amazing Lax'ik book, The Terror of the Coast. Love this book. It highlights kind of the history and the early colonization of this land out here on the West Coast and also highlights that the only time the English ever had to like retreat from, you know, like a battle here on the West Coast was from one of our local, you know, like nations. You want to learn more, read the book. Another one is a podcast with my friend George Harris Jr. It's named Culture is Healing. Really helps you kind of learn the worldview and how to heal and how we like live on the land. So check that out. If you want to have a laugh, check out this, you know, like movie Smoke Signals. Love this movie, always a good time, always a good laugh. Have a look. I could list off so many resources. I guess one more, if you want to learn, you know, harvesting and traditional like names and uses of everything around us, check out this, you know, like book named Les Cheems, like plants. Love this book, really happy to always like recommend it. Anyway, if you like what you see, if you like what you hear, you want to learn more, I love to do education all over the place. I like to help with language and histories and stories, and I'm all over social media, so check me out. I'll add some links below. And haička to Tod for this opportunity to help maybe indigenize your lake feet a little bit. Anyway, at the end of my videos, I like to say, lock that one in your smaatskanen. Olam namasuntha.
