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Coast Salish languages: The
Coast Salish languages include several different dialects: Northern
Salish (Comox, Pentlatch, Sechelt), Central Salish (Squamish,
Halkomelem, Nooksack), Northern Straits (Sencoten, Sooke, Lekwungen,
Lummi), Clallam, and Southern Salish (Lushootseed, Twana).
Presently the entire Coast Salishan
languages are endangered and facing extinction. Some of the Coast
Salish dialects have only three or four people left that speak and
understand their original Salish language. Historically, there were many Salish people that could speak
several of the Salish languages, and they would serve as the diplomats,
traders, and interpreters when encountering members from other Salish
tribes.
At one point in Indian history a trading language existed between the
various Indian Tribes, this language was called the Chinook Jargon. The
earliest European records of contact with native people in the Pacific
Northwest contain what appears to be the Chinook Jargon. This tends to
suggest that the Chinook Jargon was already in existence, and well used
by the Indian people when the Europeans arrived.
Towards
the end of the nineteenth century Chinook Jargon was in extensive use
throughout the Pacific Northwest. Here in British Columbia it was used
extensively on the Coast, in the South, and especially along the
Fraser River.
European
settlers learned it and used it to communicate with the native people.
The Missionaries gave sermons in Chinook Jargon and published hymns,
prayers, and catechisms in it.
The various native languages
that contributed words to the Chinook Jargon had a number of sounds
that were unfamiliar to, and very difficult for the Europeans. These
included the glottalized consonants, the voiceless lateral fricative,
and the lateral affricates.
When native people learned the
Chinook Jargon from other native people, they generally preserved these
sounds. However, Europeans usually had great difficulty pronouncing
these sounds and changed them into more familiar sounds.
Coast Salish Territory is demarked in pink (above)
in one of the first maps to depict Indian territories in BC, published
in 1887 by ethnologist Franz Boas.
With
the English language being so widely used the Chinook Jargon became
unused, and is now considered to be extinct amongst most of the Coast
Salish tribes.
For more information on the historical Chinook Jargon trading language click here.
The tribes of the Coast Salish have traditionally occupied some of the best inland coastal areas of British Columbia. The
Coast Salish territory includes the Northwest Coast from the mouth of
the Columbia River (Oregon, USA) north to Bute Inlet (BC).
The
Coast Salish Territory includes much of the ecologically diverse
Georgia Basin and Puget. This huge drainage basin comprises the coastal
mainland and Vancouver Island from Campbell River and the Georgia
Strait south through the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the Lower Fraser
Valley, and the lowlands of Puget Sound.
The archaeological evidence of Coast Salish occupation of these resourceful lands dates back some 12000 years.
Strait of Georgia:
The Strait of Georgia is an incredible piece of real estate when you
look at it as a whole. The length of the strait is not great; it is not
more than 125 miles from Orcas Island near the southern end of
Vancouver Island to Cape Mudge on Quadra Island. The total ocean
frontage, however, is remarkable. If you calculate the length of
shoreline (including all indentures and measurable islands) within the
boundaries of the Coast Salish speaking groups, and set the traditional
salish northern limit with an arbitrary line extending eastward from
Salmon Bay on Johnstone Strait and use the international boundary as
the southern limit. The length of all shores in-between these two
lines, have a combined total of over 1,900 miles of some the most
remarkable shorelines in British Columbia. The
configuration of land and water in this region has other important
considerations from the standpoint of human occupation and control.
The
Strait of Georgia itself is comparatively narrow, with the existence of
numerous offshore islands that traditionally helped provide shelter and
food, as well as further reducing the necessity for long canoe voyages
when travelling back and forth between Vancouver Island, Gulf Islands,
and the mainland. Even at its widest part toward the southeast, the
greatest east-west distance between any two points of land does not
exceed twenty-five miles.
Coastal Weather Conditions:
The warm Japanese current striking the coast of British Columbia and
curling both to the north and south makes this entire region one of
moderate temperatures. The extremes of temperature known to other parts
of Canada do not occur here. The prevailing winds are from the west,
and since they are warm and moisture laden, considerable precipitation
results from their ascent of the western slopes of the Vancouver Island
mountain barrier and the Coast Mountains on the mainland. The
average rainfall for the Salish Strait of Georgia is between 150 and
200 days, with most of the precipitation falling in the winter months.
Moderate snowfalls occur from December to February, with July and
August being the hot and dry months.
Raw Natural Resources Of The Land:
In the moist and temperate forests of British Columbia, limitless
stands of cedar supplied the Coast Salish people with raw materials.
The western red cedar was used for canoes, houses, clothing, and tools.
The Salish harvested salmon and coastal shellfish as their nutritional
mainstay, and supplemented their diet with deer, elk, moose, bear,
migratory birds, medicinal plants, roots, herbs, and berries. Herring
were abundant everywhere. Halibut generally spawn in twenty to two
hundred fathoms of salt water and are found in the southern parts of
the strait. Eulachon
(or candlefish) ran in enormous quantities in the Fraser River, as well
as in Bute Inlet. Sturgeons were also caught in the Fraser River, they
usually entered the river system around the end of April, following the
eulachon run.
North Vancouver surveyors, 1893.
Other fish such as flounder, dogfish, cultus cod, red cod, and rock cod, etc., are found in the Salish territories.
Within
a short period after colonization, the pristine traditional hunting and
fishing grounds in the Coast salish territories were destroyed by the
combined forces of logging, mining, saw mills, fish canneries, urban
sprawl and hydro dams. Much of Vancouver and Victoria has been built on
the top of vast shell middens and other ancient Indian archaeological
sites.
Interfamily Connections: The Coast Salish tribes of British Columbia consist of many interconnected communities or tribes.
Traditionally,
the Coast Salish communities have all at some point in time been
interconnected through traditional marriages, extended family
adoptions, or transferring from one band (or tribe) to another.
Historically,
the Coast Salish has used an oral account that traces their connections
from one family or community to another. This oral account has been
done for thousands of years through Longhouse ceremonies (primarily
when receiving a traditional family name or privilege), trading,
intermarriage and the sharing of the natural resources.
Traditional Villages: With a large linguistic population, and like the other coastal tribes of British Columbia, the Nootka, Kwakiutl, Haida, Tsimshian,Tlingit, and Bella Coola, the Coast
Salish villages were located near the mouths of rivers, or on sheltered
bays, or inlets out of the reach of storms and held strong vantage
points for any attempts from marauding strangers. The
winter villages were always regarded as the permanent houses that held
traditional winter ceremonies from November until at least March. The
summer camps were temporary, and the food gathering was the most
essential element for survival. During the spring, summer and fall
months there simply was no time for play, and very little time for
traditional ceremonies.
Coast Salish house interior by Paul Kane
Coast Salish shelter and housing:
Coast Salish shelter consisted of two types: the shed (single-pitched)
roof, and the gabled roof. Several families could be accommodated in
these traditional dwellings. The
shed houses were most prominent in the southern parts. Towards the
north they tended to mix with, and gave way to, the gabled type.
The gabled house:
The essential part of the gabled house was, of course, the ridgepole.
This was supported by either two or four posts at the ends and one or
more under the middle part, according to its length and strength. The
walls were of broad planks, sometimes three or four feet wide, as well
as smooth, and flat.
The shed house:
The shed structure was simple. Four posts were set in the ground at
corners, two posts in the rear being slightly shorter than those in
front. Two parallel timbers were then fitted on top from the high to
the low post, their length determining the length of the house. Usually
this was sixty or seventy feet. If the strength of the timbers could
not be relied upon, additional supporting posts were set under them.
Poles were then lashed on the timbers at intervals across the width of
the house. The roof planks rested on these poles. The incline was very
slight and drainage was to the rear.
Canoes:
The Coast Salish have always been canoe people, and traditionally were
excellent seamen (probably not so much today). The Coast Salish dugout
cedar canoes generally ranged from 14 to 26 feet in length, and
the largest canoes could carry a whole family and all their traveling
gear.
Historical Wolf head Nootka Canoe
Throughout
the seasons, even the open parts of the Strait of Georgia could be
crossed in dugout canoes. Neither the traditional larger style
ocean canoes, nor the seamanship for rough seas were really required.
The
challenge for ingenuity in canoe building was not so provocative on the
strait, as it was on the rougher seaboard of the west coast of
Vancouver Island.
Historically the canoe skills of the Coast
Salish would not have matched those of the Nootkans. The Nootkans were
very well known and respected for their seamanship in rough oceans, and
their whale hunting abilities. The
Salish style canoe did go through a change in the mid 1800’s. The
change may have been as a result of intermarriage, trading, or just
simply adapting styles. By the late 1800’s, the Salish style canoe
strongly resembled those of the Nootkan style wolf head canoe, and over
the years it has become a very accepted traditional style of
the Coast Salish culture.
Body Ornamentation: General
practise with the Coast Salish was the deformation of the heads of
their infant children. Heads were deformed in infancy by binding a
cedar-bark pad tightly against the forehead under a strap tied to the
sides of the cradle. The primary reasons for this custom was mainly
aesthetic. A flat forehead and wide face were considered handsome;
narrow features and a bulging forehead made one look like a “dog”. There
was no clearly conceptualized association of the deformed head with
aristocratic attributes. Everybody had it, with the possible exception
of the born slave.
Men cut their hair to shoulder length or
parted it in the middle and caught it up with wooden pins in a knot at
the back of the head. The latter style was usual for men at work or
when going to war. Otherwise, long hair was inbound and fell disheveled
about the face and shoulders. Women did their hair in two braids on
either side of their heads from a center part. At puberty the girl's
hair line was raised slightly on her forehead by plucking her eyebrows
were thinned as marks of beauty.
Clothing: In
traditional times, in the summer months, the old men went about naked.
Even in Paul Kane’s day this was true. The young and the middle-aged
men generally wore a belt to which was attached a small free-hanging
front covering of shredded red-cedar bark or deerskin. Woman wore a
knee-length skirt of wool, deerskin, or shredded bark. Everyday
clothing consisted of full size raw animal skins, usually with the fur
on, with an area cut out for the head and strapped around the waist. Buckskin Dress: Buckskin
clothing was worn by men hunting in the mountains, and by the woman
during the winter. Buckskin outfits were not for ordinary dress. Not
everyone could get the skins, and still fewer people knew how to
prepare them. Buckskin clothing was therefore a very well respected
feature of the Coast Salish winter dances.
Goat Wool:
Goat wool was even more of a luxury item, and a mark of social
prominence compared to buckskin. It was especially scarce and very
expensive on the island, and only rich men’s wives and daughters could
afford and wear aprons of this material.
Class lines:
With the Salish, class lines were not well defined. There was no point
above, which a man was of the aristocratic class, and below, which he
was a commoner. Leadership: With the Coast Salish, the highest unit of common allegiance was the extended family.
Salish canoe in Vancouver harbour, 1890.
The Salish historically did not have “chiefs” as that word is commonly understood. There
was no single tribal Chief, council, or tribal officers. The Headmen
(referred presently as chief) of each of the families houses that
comprised the village, often conferred together conversationally over
any tribal concerns. The term “chief” is a government-applied term that
was popularized through non-native writers, and non-native people in
general. Aboriginally,
Headmen and all other important men were called “siem”. The translation
best conveying the meaning of this word is “real man” or “rich man”. A
Headman (chief) was not the representative of a heterogeneous group of
constituents: they were his relatives, and although the family
headman’s advice was frequently sought, he had no power whatsoever to
enforce his own judgements or even the majority opinions of his house
associates.
The
average Salish person was not regarded as a commoner and his feelings
were no different from those of any freeborn man, and no Headman
(Chief) in the give and take of daily life could flaunt his superiority
in the face of his social inferiors and expect their support and
cooperation. The
extended family normally lived in one large house, and the strength of
a family lay in the numbers. Although any dissenter was free to do as
he pleased; it was usually the Headman’s abilities of speech in regards
to knowledge, honor, respect, and common interests that convinced the
other Headmen and family individuals in the final course of decisions
or actions.
The
Coast Salish traditional way of life, like all Native Indian
tribes, displays a fine and fulfilling balance between man, woman, and
the natural and supernatural worlds. The
links below provide a small glimpse into a few of the traditional
practises, beliefs, and legends that still exercised and told to this
very day.