First Nations in CanadaFirst Nations in CanadaThere were six principal tribes of Pacific Coast First Nations. The most northerly tribe was the Haida, who occupied the Queen Charlotte Islands. They were the only member of the language family called Haida.
The Tsimshian, who lived on the mainland coast directly across from the Queen Charlottes, were divided into three groups, all of whom spoke languages belonging to the Tsimshian language family. The Tsimshian lived at the mouth of the Skeena River, the Gitksan lived farther inland along the Skeena, and the Nisga'a at the basin of the Nass River.
The southernmost Pacific Coast tribes were the Nootka and the Coast Salish. Occupying the west coast of Vancouver Island, the Nootka spoke a language belonging to the Wakashan language family. The Coast Salish were found on the eastern coast of Vancouver Island and on the mainland just opposite, from Bute Inlet to the mouth of the Columbia River. They spoke languages belonging to the Salishan language family.
Between the northern and southern tribes were found the Kwakiutl and the Bella Coola. Like the Nootka, the Kwakiutl spoke a language belonging to the Wakashan language family. They lived on the northern end of Vancouver Island and on the nearby mainland. The Bella Coola lived on the banks of the Dean and Bella Coola rivers and on the fjords into which these rivers flowed. They belonged to the Salishan language family.
Compared with other tribes of Canada, the tribes of the Pacific Coast had an elaborate social structure. Not only were there three distinct social strata (nobles, commoners and slaves), there was also a well-defined aristocratic class recognized as superior by reason of birth.
This social system varied from tribe to tribe. It was widespread among the Haida, Tsimshian and Kwakiutl, but less evident among the Nootka, Coast Salish and Bella Coola.
The tribes also differed in how they recognized the line of descent. Both the Haida and the Tsimshian were matrilineal, whereas the other tribes recognized descent through either the male or the female side of the family.
The basic social unit for all tribes was the extended family, whose members claimed descent from a common ancestor. Each lineage claimed specific sites for fishing, shellfish gathering, woodcutting and bark collecting. Other less tangible possessions included the right to perform certain dances, use certain names and wear particular ceremonial masks.
Most lineages had their own crests -- representations of animal or supernatural beings believed to be their founders. Sometimes called totems, these crests were similar to the coats of arms of European nobility. They were displayed in as many places and in as many ways as possible. Totems could be painted on the outside of lodges or along bed platforms. They could be tattooed on the body, painted on the face, woven into ceremonial robes, or carved into ceremonial masks, wooden dishes, spoons and storage chests.
Through this dedication to the crest and supernatural ancestors, Pacific Coast tribes achieved some highly distinctive and powerful art forms which today are universally admired and housed in museums throughout the world. The "multi-perspective" technique was favoured by Pacific Coast artists. Working with all sides of a storage box, for example, an artist would represent an animal simultaneously in full face, in profile, from the back, as seen from above and below, and even from the inside.
The most famous method of crest display, however, was the totem pole consisting of all the symbols that belonged to ancestral descendants. Carved from the gigantic red cedar, stylized animal and human forms sat one on top of the other, a visual testament to the line's history.
There were several kinds of totem poles, including the memorial pole and the house-portal pole. When a chief died, his heir erected a memorial pole as part of the process of assuming his predecessor's rights and privileges. The dramatic house-portal pole was built right into the front of the house and rose high above it, proclaiming the lineage of those who lived there. Such poles had a large opening at the base which formed the actual doorway to the house.
Poles might also symbolize some special privileges. Among the Kwakiutl and the Nootka, for example, a tall, slender pole topped by a bird-like figure signified the house of the beach owner. This position belonged only to the chief who had inherited the right to be the first to invite important visitors to a feast.
This kind of precise social grading characterized Pacific Coast society as a whole. With the exception of slaves, the members of each social group occupied a series of social positions that were graded from high to low. Among the Kwakiutl, for example, this social ranking of nobles determined the official seating arrangements at ceremonial feasts.
In all lineages, the leading position was held by the chief, usually the oldest member in the group descended in the most direct line from the lineage's ancestral founder. It was his responsibility to see that the material needs of all lineage members were satisfied.
The lowest-ranking commoner in the lineage was the person most distantly related to the chief. This bottom rank nevertheless carried some privileges, including the right to participate in ceremonial feasts and use certain names belonging to the group as a whole.
Even among the Kwakiutl, Haida and Tsimshian tribes, whose societies were very formally structured, it was still possible for individuals to modify their places in the social scale. A low-ranking commoner who was also a particularly skilled canoe maker or mask carver could sometimes gain privileges beyond his rank if his work was admired by the chief. Conversely, an individual who fell into disfavour would receive only minimal privileges and economic benefits. Amongst both the Coast Salish and the Bella Coola there was a considerable amount of such shifting up and down the social scale, depending on an individual's abilities.
Not only were the nobles and the commoners graded, the lineages themselves were as well. The chief of the most powerful and prestigious lineage would therefore be chief of a village.
In each village, there were slaves owned by the various lineages. These slaves were usually taken in warfare, and, if their lineage was wealthy, they would be ransomed. Those retained by households performed menial tasks such as gathering firewood and digging for clams.
The bounty of the sea -- salmon, shellfish, herring, smelt, octopus, crabs, whale and seaweed -- made it possible for the Pacific Coast tribes to settle in permanent locations. Unlike the Iroquoian tribes who relocated every 15 years or so, the tribes of the Pacific Coast generally built permanent villages.
Some village sites show evidence of occupation over 4,000 years. They were often located on the shores of bays and inlets where they were sheltered from the ocean waves. Consisting of between 10 and 30 lodges, each village had a population of 200 to 700 people.
For fishing, all the coastal tribes made dip nets of nettle fibres attached to a wooden frame. These were used for salmon and for smaller fish like herring and smelt. The Salish, Tsimshian and Haida all used gill nets. These were large nets made of a special type of mesh which caught the fish under its gill covers when it tried to extract its head.
Underwater traps made of poles were often used. The general design was a funnel for channelling the fish into a box-like structure from which they could be lifted with a net.
Another salmon fishing device was the harpoon consisting of a detachable head of barbed bone connected by a short line to a wooden shaft. The Kwakiutl and the Nootka made two-pronged harpoons with compound barbed heads; the more northerly tribes used a harpoon with a single tip.
Generally using baited hooks of bone, fishermen fished for salmon in salt water before spawning season occurred, and for cod and halibut at all times. The Haida, Tsimshian and Kwakiutl made halibut hooks of hardwood.
It was usually the women who gathered the shellfish: clams, mussels, abalone, oysters and periwinkles. Their only tool was a specially constructed stick of hardwood used for prying loose or digging up resistant shells.
While some fish was eaten fresh (broiled over open fires or beds of coals), most of the salmon caught was dried in smokehouses and packed away for later use. All the tribes used the abundant berries which were either eaten fresh or mixed with oil and preserved.
Oil itself played a very vital part in the diet of the Pacific Coast tribes. Not only did it serve as a condiment to make the winter's dried fish more palatable, but it compensated to some extent for the low starch content in the coastal diet.
A highly valued source of oil was the eulachon -- a type of smelt about 12 centimetres long. The eulachon was so full of oil that when dried, placed upright and lit, it would burn from end to end like a candle. Also called the candlefish, it ran in the Nass River for about six weeks beginning in the middle of March. Anxious to obtain the precious oil through trade, other tribes would visit the fishing grounds at this time and join in the excitement as spectators.
The eulachon fishery was wholly controlled by the Tsimshian and the Nisga'a who caught the fish with dip nets and long funnel-shaped nets with a flared opening. The production of the oil itself took about three weeks. The fish were first left a few days to ripen in wooden chests. Once the fish oil began to appear at the top of the decaying mass, hot stones would be applied to hasten the extraction process. Traditionally, the women pressed the oil by squeezing the rotting fish against their chests and letting it run into bags made from the intestines of sea mammals.
Because the Tsimshian and the Nisga'a had a great surplus of oil, they traded it with tribes as far away as the interior of British Columbia. Today, the routes these traders travelled are still known as grease trails.
The Tsimshian, Haida and Nootka all hunted sea lion and sea otter. Equipped with harpoons, the hunters ventured forth in slim dugout canoes in search of their quarry. The most spectacular of marine hunts, however, was the Nootka's pursuit of the whale.
Even before the whaling season began in May, ritualistic preparations were made for the hunt. Most of the responsibility for rituals belonged to the village chief and his wife.
The process of ritual cleansing required the couple to retreat to a traditional whaling shrine where they bathed in a cold pool. While his wife imitated the spouting and diving of the whale, the chief scrubbed at his skin with hemlock twigs until he drew blood.
Once her husband departed in the whaling canoe, the woman returned home where she lay motionless and fasted until the return of the hunters. Through this inactivity, she hoped to ensure that the whale itself would be easily managed.
The whaling canoe was large enough to carry a crew of eight. Directly behind the raised prow sat the harpooner. He carried a harpoon of yew wood about four metres long. Its detachable head was a sharp piece of mussel shell cemented with spruce gum between two elk antler barbs. A braided line of whale sinew attached to the harpoon head was in turn connected to long coils of rope made of twisted spruce root. Strung along this rope at regular intervals were four inflated sealskins.
When the crew sighted a whale, it approached the animal with great caution. Because the harpoon was too heavy to be hurled, the canoe had to overtake the animal. Standing in the bow, the harpooner took careful aim and plunged the harpoon deep into the whale.
Towing the carcass home could take several days -- especially if the animal had headed out farther to sea during the hunt. Once successfully beached, the whale was cause for a great feast to which other chiefs were invited. The blubber was divided according to each guest's rank, and speeches were made applauding the accomplishments of the chief's family.
The Pacific Coast First Nations travelled almost exclusively by water, using dugout canoes of red cedar.
The type of canoe used by the Haida, Tsimshian, Kwakiutl and Bella Coola had a high projecting bow and stern which arched over the water and prevented waves from swamping the craft. Carved figures representing the crests of the canoe owner were often mounted on the bow and stern.
Canoes varied in size according to their function. A small hunting canoe for one or two men, for example, would not exceed five metres in length. Larger canoes made by the Haida were more than 16 metres long and two metres wide. Such craft were capable of carrying 40 men and two metric tons of cargo. The craftsmanship of the Haida canoe makers was widely admired. Their canoes were an eagerly sought after trade item when mainland and coastal tribes assembled at the Nass River eulachon fishery each spring.
The type of canoe used by the Nootka and the Salish inhabiting the coast had a bow that projected over the water. Its stern was straight and vertical. The sides of the canoe were gracefully curved in a way that prevented waves from swamping the boat.
The people of the Pacific Coast First Nations were excellent carpenters, despite their simple tools. They worked primarily with the soft, straight-grained cedar which split readily into planks. Coastal tribes had many uses for cedar. From it they made canoes, houses, storage boxes and ceremonial objects of all kinds, including masks and totem poles. From its inner bark they made a wide variety of clothing as well as pillows, checkered table mats, napkins and baskets.
The basic woodworking tools used by the Pacific Coast tribes were adzes (an axe with an inward-turning blade) and chisels (made of either stone, shell or elk horn), hardwood wedges and stone hammers. There were two types of adzes: a large version with a long handle for rough work, and a smaller one, with a D-shaped handle for finishing work.
Canoe-making was considered a sacred art by all the Pacific Coast tribes. The actual construction process took three to four weeks and had its own rituals, including a prescribed pattern of prayer and sexual abstinence for the canoe maker.
The canoe's hull was stretched using a steam-softening process. Water was poured into the hollow and brought to the boil with hot stones. Wooden stretchers were then inserted to hold the sides of the canoe apart while it cooled. Fine sandstone and sharkskin were used to make the outer surface as smooth as possible. While the outside of the canoe was painted black, red was the colour preferred for the interior.
Many houses built by Pacific Coast tribes were as massive as the cedar from which they were built. One of the largest dwellings recorded belonged to the Coast Salish. It was over 170 metres long and 20 metres wide.
Regardless of size, the fundamental house structure was the same for all tribes: a framework of logs to which outer planks were attached, running either vertically or horizontally.
The Haida, Tsimshian and northern Kwakiutl built huge, rectangular houses with gabled roofs. The outer walls of these dwellings were usually upright planks fitted into slotted sills. Heavy posts at the front and back of the house held up huge ridgepoles which in turn supported overlapping layers of roof planking. The doorway in the side of the house facing the beach was round or oval. Particularly among the Haida, the portal and corner posts were intricately carved with household crests, while outer wall paintings glorified ancestral founders.
The Nootka, Bella Coola and Salish relocated regularly from one fishing site to another. They built their homes so that the outer wall of horizontal planking formed an easily detachable shell. With each move, the roof and wall planks were stripped and then lashed to the new frame with flexible twigs.
The interior layout of the houses varied from tribe to tribe. Because the houses were spacious, they could accommodate several families, each with their own separate living area and hearth. The largest houses of the Salish consisted of individual walled-off apartments. The Haida built wooden sleeping platforms into the inner walls of their tiered dwellings. The Kwakiutl, Bella Coola and Nootka had raised shelves running along the walls. These were used for both sleeping and storage.
For the most part, people sat on mats of woven cedar bark. Wooden boxes were frequently used to store clothing, ceremonial masks, eulachon oil and whale blubber. Some boxes were so sturdily constructed that they were watertight and could be used as cooking vessels. Northern storage boxes like the Haida's tended to be squarer and squatter than those made by the Nootka and the Kwakiutl. The Haida carved their clan crests on the top, bottom and sides of the box. The high, narrow containers of the Nootka and Kwakiutl were decorated with inlays of sea otter teeth.
Dishes were usually trough-like in shape and were hollowed out from blocks of alder, a wood that did not spoil the taste of food. Spoons were made of mountain goat horn and of wood.
Whenever weather permitted, the men went naked. Tsimshian women wore skirts of buckskin, but elsewhere women's skirts were woven of cedar bark that had been shredded to produce a soft fibre. Neither men nor women had footwear of any kind. In rainy weather the coastal people wore woven bark rain capes and wide-brimmed hats woven of spruce root. Those made by the Tsimshian had striking patterns in the weave, while the Nootka decorated their hats with paintings of whaling scenes.
The Nootka and Kwakiutl also made a distinctive long robe woven of yellow cedar bark. Some of their robes were interwoven with mountain goat wool. The most luxurious had borders of sea otter fur. Another highly prized robe was the Chilkat blanket, a trade item popular with all coastal tribes. Woven by the Alaskan Chilkat, these deeply-fringed wraps were richly dyed and embroidered, making them suitable for ceremonial robes.
The Pacific Coast tribes strongly believed in the interconnection between the human and animal worlds. Many of the transformation masks used in their spiritual ceremonies illustrated this link. Ingeniously crafted, these masks opened and closed to reveal either a human or animal face as the wearer pulled the strings. The crests of the various lineages often took animal form. Both the Bella Coola and the Kwakiutl believed that their ancestors had come down from the heavens in animal cloaks and masks.
All Pacific Coast tribes believed that salmon were actually supernatural beings who lived beneath the sea in human form. When the salmon run began, the "'Salmon People," who lived beneath the waters, would become fish and sacrifice themselves for human beings. This belief gave birth to many rituals, including a welcoming ceremony honouring the first salmon of the year with an address and offerings befitting a high-ranked chief. Respect for the salmon extended to its very bones, every single one being returned to the water so that the "Salmon People" might wholly resurrect themselves.
The guardian spirits who appeared to young men in their vision quests often took animal form. Followers of special occupations were inspired by a particular spirit. Thus, canoe makers had woodpeckers as guardian spirits; fishermen had salmon; hunters had wolves; and shamans had mythical serpents.
The Pacific Coast shamans practised various curing rituals. The long-haired Haida shamans used a special bone tube to blow away sickness and catch lost souls. In their search for souls gone astray, groups of Salish shamans mimed voyages made by spirit canoes. Nootka shamans dived to the bottom of the sea to do battle with the sea spirits who stole souls.
The coastal peoples' love of ceremony reached its peak during the winter months when spirits were thought to walk amongst the living. There was ample time for feasting, dancing and drama, as the bountiful harvest from the sea ensured five months' winter leisure.
Winter ceremonies were often organized by secret societies whose members had undergone arduous initiation rites to gain the protection of a powerful guardian spirit. In general, only people of high rank could belong to these societies and participate in the dramas which re-enacted the spirit's possession of the initiate. These rituals were highly developed among the Kwakiutl who had three separate secret societies.
Fully exploiting the suggestive powers of firelight, the Kwakiutl dramas made great use of visual illusion and stage effects. Magnificently carved transformation masks enabled actors to change character in full view of the audience, while trap doors in the floor made speedy disappearances possible. Actors threw their voices by means of hollow kelp (large, tough, brown seaweed) tubes concealed beneath the floor boards. Puppet monsters flew across the stage suspended on ropes; wooden crabs scuttled about on rollers.
The potlatch was a ceremony common to all Pacific Coast tribes. The chief of one lineage or tribe would customarily invite outside dignitaries to this celebration which combined feasting, dancing and gift giving.
It is thought that the word potlatch may be derived from the Nootka word pachitle, meaning to give. Every potlatch culminated with the host chief offering presents to his guests, the worth of each gift corresponding to the guest's social ranking. The more material wealth a chief distributed, the greater was his prestige. Canoes, slaves, carved dishes and eulachon oil were all given.
When the high-ranking guests returned the favour, holding their own potlatches, they were expected to give even more lavishly. Otherwise, they would be shamed. A chief who impoverished himself through lavish potlatch giving and feasting could therefore count on this wealth being returned, and even increased, when he attended subsequent potlatches as a guest.
But the distribution of material wealth was only one element in the potlatch ceremony. The main reason for every potlatch was to confirm in public that an individual's social status had changed. A chief might therefore give a potlatch when his daughter came of age, or when his heir assumed one of the ancestral hereditary titles. The right to dance the dances and sing the songs given by the supernatural ancestors had to be affirmed and acted out before a public gathering. The potlatch was consequently a vital and integral part of the social structure of the Pacific Coast tribes.
