The Days of Augusta

By Mary Augusta Tappage Evans and Robert Keziere

Hailed as a contemporary classic of oral literature, The Days of Augusta is Shuswap elder Augusta Evans’ memories of a lifetime that spanned from 1888 to 1978.

Accompanied by Robert Keziere’s intimate photographs, Augusta’s rhythmic prose reads like poetry. She depicts with strength and eloquence her own story—her days at the Mission School, making good baskets and catching salmon, the pain of giving birth and the death of a son—as well as the legends and stories of events told to her—a stagecoach robbery, a woman who was the prisoner of a bear. First printed in 1973, Augusta’s story continues to be a fascinating glimpse into the past, with throughlines to the present.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Harbour Publishing
• Release date: Oct 14, 2023
• ISBN: 9781990776496

Mary Augusta Tappage Evans

Mary Augusta Tappage Evans, born in 1888 in BC’s central interior Cariboo country, was the granddaughter of a Shuswap chief. When she was in her eighties she shared her stories with Jean E. Speare, who formed them into this book, first published in 1973. Augusta passed away in 1978 and is survived by her grandchildren.

Book preview

The Days of Augusta

The trunks of several birch trees of varying thicknesses. Short plants with small leaves grow around their bases.A man smoking a pipe and wearing a hat walks past a wooden porch packed with people of all ages. Some of the people on the porch have beverages. Augusta sits on the step, next to a smoking man wearing a straw hat. A scarf covers her hair.

The Days of Augusta

Mary Augusta Tappage Evans

Edited by Jean E. Speare

Photography by Robert Keziere

Harbour Publishing

Text copyright © 1973 Estate of Jean E. Speare

Photographs copyright © 1973 Robert Keziere

First published in 1973 by J.J. Douglas Ltd.

1 2 3 4 5 — 27 26 25 24 23

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior permission of the publisher or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright, www.accesscopyright.ca, 1-800-893-5777, [e-mail].

Harbour Publishing Co. Ltd.

P.O. Box 219, Madeira Park, BC, V0N 2H0

www.harbourpublishing.com

Cover and text design by Roger Handling, Terra Firma Digital Arts

Printed and bound in Canada

Supported by the Government of Canada

Supported by the Canada Council for the ArtsSupported by the Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Arts Council

Harbour Publishing acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: The days of Augusta / Mary Augusta Tappage Evans ; edited by Jean E. Speare ; photography by Robert Keziere.

Names: Evans, Augusta, 1888-1978, author. | Speare, Jean E., editor. | Keziere, Robert, photographer.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20230465668 | Canadiana (ebook) 20230465706 | ISBN 9781990776489 (softcover) | ISBN 9781990776496 (EPUB)

Subjects: LCSH: Evans, Augusta, 1888-1978. | CSH: First Nations women—British Columbia—Biography. | CSH: First Nations—British Columbia—Biography. | LCGFT: Autobiographies. | LCGFT: Oral histories.

Classification: LCC E99.S45 E93 2023 | DDC 971.1004/97943—dc23

Contents

Preface

The Holdup

The Sick Woman

Tyee—Big Chief

The Lillooets

Christmas at the Mission

At Mission School

Thoughts of the Mission School

Premature

Doctor’s Book

At Birth

Smallpox

The Story of the Sturgeon

My Grandfather Spoke French

My Paternal Grandfather and My Maternal Grandfather

We Had a Priest...

Since 1931

The Captive Girl

Death of a Son

Dickie

Sammy

Places I’ve Worked

The One They Took

The Woman Who Was Prisoner of the Bear

The Year the Salmon Run Was Poor

It’s Easy to Make a Net

You’ve Got to Be Quick

Gill Net

Tobacco—Thirty-Five Cents a Plug

The Basket

Mend a Basket

Baby Basket

The Powder Rock

Travel by Winter

Whoosham

Changes

The Big Tree and the Little Tree

It Never Should Have Happened

Augusta points to the side with her right hand, standing in the middle of a clearing that is surrounded by trees. She wears a dark headscarf, boots, and a long coat over a white shirt and dark skirt.

Preface

Augusta, christened Mary Augusta Tappage, was born at Soda Creek in the Cariboo country of British Columbia on February 11, 1888. She was the daughter of Mary Ann Longshem and Christopher (Alex) Tappage.

Her paternal grandfather was partly French, one of many who came west from the prairie following the arrest of Louis Riel. He spoke often of the Red River Valley, and she believes this to have been his birthplace. He spoke French fluently.

Her maternal grandfather was locally-born William Longshem (as near as she can give spelling to the name), chief of the Soda Creek Indians. His wife, Ginny, taught Augusta the crafts necessary to an Indian living on the high plateau lands.

At the age of four she was taken away to school at St. Joseph’s Mission, a large Catholic mission in the Onward Valley near Williams Lake. Augusta speaks in many different moods of her life at the Mission School: from elation to frustration.

What I could never understand, we weren’t allowed to speak our language. If we were heard speaking Shuswap, we were punished. We were made to write on the board one hundred times, ‘I will not speak Indian anymore.’ Augusta shrugs and gives a little laugh. And now we are supposed to remember our language and our skills because they are almost lost. Well, they’re going to be hard to get back because the new generations are not that interested.

I wasn’t happy at home after I got out of school, says Augusta. Everything was different. I could see things happening to my people that I didn’t like, but what could I do? I was still too young.

In Augusta’s childhood,