Pacific Northwest Ethnography

The Norwegian Adrian Jacobsen collected seven thousand objects on the northwest coast of America and in Alaska for the Ethnological Museum in Berlin. He had close ties with the Hamburg zoo director Carl Hagenbeck, both in business and in private. When Adrian couldn't find a job at the Berlin Museum after his big collecting trip was over, he hired a group of nine Nuxalk men, members of an indigenous group in British Columbia who lived north of Vancouver and were called 'Bella Coola' by Europeans at the time.  He had them travel to Germany, where they performed in different cities.
The stay of the Nuxalk differed in many ways from the other Völkerschauen. They were not forcibly recruited “exotic people” but actively involved in the organization and design of their shows

Coast Salish First Nations wove their robes and blankets from yarn spun from processed wool fibres.  A curious fact, usually mentioned in passing by early explorers, ethnographers, and settlers, is that, in the preparation of wool fibres, a powdery, silky " white clay " was beaten into the wool using a sword-like wooden stick. This practice is confirmed by traditional knowledge preserved by Coast Salish people on Vancouver Island, the mainland of British Columbia, and in Washington State. While museums with extensive Coast Salish collections have no " clay " objects in their collections that are associated with weaving and spinning, they do have lumps of diatomaceous earth as well as tools associated with both diatomaceous earth and the spinning and weaving of wool. Is diatomaceous earth the same as the white clay mentioned in the historical accounts? Or are they different from one another? If so, were they both used? Do they have the same properties? In this article, I assemble the historical and ethnographic records of this curious clay in order to clarify the enigmatic first step in the processing and preparation of Coast Salish wool.

"In the Land of the Totem Poles: Native Cultures of the Pacific Northwest.
Native Cultures of Western Alaska and the Pacific Northwest Coast: An Overview of Recent Scholarship,"
An overview essay with reference to scholarship on the cultural history of the Pacific Northwest Coast, co-authored with Laraine Fletcher, in connection with an NEH Institute we co-directed in Alaska and British Columbia in 2010..

A single feather as symbol of all-encompassing divine balance was manifested in ancient Egypt to meet its complex needs as a state that embraced diverse peoples with conflictng interests. Balance, and consciously following developed inner promptings towards 'right' action instead of rigid external injunctons to do 'good' against 'evil', could very well be the key to restoring sacred order to the world. The intent of this paper is to trace the impact of The Feather of Ma'at and its accompanying teachings, within and far beyond the parameters of Africa. The paper explores the rippling influence of a cooperative relationship between humankind and the cosmos, its concept brought through a succession of sea journeys on circular ocean currents.

The ethnographic studies of Edward Sapir and Philip Drucker have provided the major written sources on Nuu-chah-nulth culture. This paper integrates the ethnographic and oral history information with recent archaeological data from Barkley Sound. The ethnographic sources, particularly as recorded by Sapir, contain considerable information on political, social and economic changes over time. Archaeology augments or challenges the ethnographic details and provides chronological controls. The integration of different data sources allows detailed insights into the cultural heritage of the Barkley Sound Nuu-chah-nulth.

This article presents evidence for the antiquity and development of Nuu-chah-nulth whaling, drawing on recent archaeological work in Barkley Sound. DNA identifications of whale species reveal past whaling practices. The evidence is interpreted in terms of the actions of past whaling chiefs.

What follows are the ethnographic comparisons between the Nehalem Indians in * Chapter 6 of “Francis Drake in Nehalem Bay 1579, Setting the Historical Record Straight” (2011) with those first recorded by Reverend Francis Fletcher in the (1577-1580) voyage’s most complete journal:

“The World Encompassed By Sir Francis Drake, London, Printed for Nicholas Bourne and are to be sold at his ship at the Royal Exchange, 1628.”

This extraordinary story relates the story of the acquisition of a fabled native Copper by the Tsimshian chief Wasaiks, who was based at the village of  Fort Simpson/Lax-Kw’alaams, British Columbia. Wasaiks developed an overwhelming desire to possess the most valuable thing along the Northwest Coast:  the fabulous copper known as the Nahuhulk.  This copper had passed, in a series of raids and trades, from the Chilkat Tlingit of Haines, Alaska, down the west coast until it fell into the hands of the Stikine Tlingit people at Wrangell, under the leadership of their chief Saiks. In the course of this trade, the copper had accumulated vast value, both economic and spiritual. The Tale was recorded in 1916 by the talented Native ethnographer William Beynon from James Lewis, a resident of the  Ginaxangik Tsimshian village of Kitkatla.

The analysis of kinship relations and kinship terminology, has long been a central focus of anthropological inquiry. Additionally, linguistic relationships and changes in languages have often been argued to reflect prehistoric intergroup relationships and groups movements. This paper seeks to provide a basic analysis of selected kin terms for five Northwest Coast languages, namely Spokane, Shuswap, Saanich, Ahousaht, and Ditidaht. In addition, the role that such linguistic data can play in addressing the larger questions of the region's prehistory will be addressed. Specifically, the linguistic data presented will be analyzed from the perspective of Elmendorf's (1961) hypothesis regarding the prehistoric relationships between Interior and Coastal SaIish Ianguages.

The figure of the Wild Man resides at the hinge where nature meets culture. In the Pacific Northwest , the Wild Man is known locally by different names and is interpreted through a variety of cultural and historical lenses. Settler colonialism in the region, for example, situated the Wild Man within wilderness and anachronistic spaces, aligning him with a bygone and romanticized indigeneity. Conversely, Coast Salish people invigorate new stories of the Wild Man as critique of the ruins of late capitalism. The Wild Man provides them with strength to assert their autonomy and authority in leading the restoration of the natural environment. This article explores monstrous entanglements between settler colonialism, indigeneity and the Wild Man on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State.

Coast  Salish textiles, from  the  Pacific  Northwest  (NW  Washington State  and SW  British Columbia) are relatively  rare  and unknown, yet  are  masterpieces  of sophisticated  weaving and  spinning  techniques.  Coast  Salish blankets  and robes, and the  tools  used to make  them, have  been the  subject  of only  a  few seminal  works  (Gustafson, 1980;  Loughran-Delahunt, 1996;  Marr,  1979;  Vanderburg, 1953), but  other than  the  occasional  recording  of the  direction  of twist, the  spinning  characteristics  of the  yarn  itself  has not  been the  subject  of research. This  gap in the  research is  curious given  the  uniqueness  of Coast  Salish spinning  tools, the  corresponding techniques, and  the  fibres used.  There  has  been  a renewed  interest  by  the  Coast  Salish in  recreating traditional  textiles  as well  as  developing  contemporary textiles  based on traditional  robes and  blankets.  This  research project set  out  to look  at  what, if  anything, the  spinning characteristics  can  tell us  about  these  traditional  textiles and  to provide  modern Coast  Salish spinners  and weavers  with more tools  to make  choices  in textile design.

Book review:
Salish Blankets: Robes of Protection and Transformation, Symbols of Wealth
by Leslie H. Tepper, Janice George, and Willard Joseph

Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 2017
$40.00 (U.S.) / 9780803296923

Reviewed by Liz Hammond-Kaarremaa

On the Northwest Coast of North America we have been actively recovering perishable artifacts from wet sites over the past thirty plus years, revealing many new prehistoric cultural dimensions concerning thousands of years of cultural evolution (Figure 9.1). Early attempts to use the sensitivity of basketry and cordage had some success in identifying the individual weavers in prehistoric houses at the Ozette Village wet site (Croes and Davis 1977). Though an interesting approach to the new wood and fiber wet sites data base, a more culturally revealing tack may be to use this sensitive new artifact data (and especially basketry and cordage here) to track how these perishable artifacts might reflect a person's life-cycle, from one's birth and placement in a basketry cradle to a person's social position and occupation to one's death and shroud of basketry mats at the grave location. This represents a fairly experimental approach, so I cannot guarantee a completely successful data transformation, but this approach may reveal some new ways to view perishable artifacts becoming more abundant from along the Northwest Coast (Figure 9.1).

In this effort I will first delineate the basketry and cordage data to be presented in association with a person's life-cycle sequence as follows: (1) cradles, baskets specific­ally constructed to contain humans at birth, (2) hats, worn as indicators of a person's developing social status/role, (3) specific basketry and cordage items to assist in specialized occupational roles, such as whaling harpoon baskets, harpoon sheaths, harpoon ropes, and fishing tackle bags, and (4) woven mats used as shrouds following death. Though the specific individual is important in archaeological research, they also change through their own life-cycle and this can be reflected by the basketry/cordage items associ­ated with different parts of the life-cycle from Northwest Coast wet sites over the past several thousand years.

This study addresses the relative absence of archaeological considerations of gender and, specifically, the underrepresented role of women in the pre-contact period of the Southern Plateau. Ethnographic and ethnohistorical records are reviewed in search of material and contextual correlates for gender in the past, revealing that paleoethnobotanical remains, digging sticks/handles, cooking features, pounding/grinding implements, needles and awls, and basketry and matting are particularly useful correlates for female task differentiation. "Power" is offered as a useful framework for exploring gender relations in economic and other social spheres of society. It is argued that gender-differentiated work organization operated as a mechanism for maintaining gender equality and also as a source from which power and autonomy were enacted, reinforced, and derived. It is also argued that there was greater fluidity and flexibility of gender roles than has often been presented in ethnographic literature.

This paper is somewhat dated, based on only the first few months of my fieldwork in 2013, and no longer representative of my current work and thinking.

Chapter Abstract: 'This chapter is a long overdue update to the ethnographic record of Native American horse culture. Based on extended fieldwork with three North-western tribes, the chapter illustrates the continued relevance of the horse as a ‘cultural keystone species’ (Garibaldi and Turner 2004). Three examples of contemporary expressions of horse culture on the reservations are presented: the creation of the Nez Perce horse breed; horse parading and ceremonial rides; and the recent formal creation of the sport of Indian Relay Racing. The chapter concludes with a reflection on the contested fate of feral horses on three neighbouring reservations.'

This dance drum is the result of a collaboration between David Boxley and his son David Robert Boxley, renowned Tsimshian sculptors actively engaged in the revival, preservation and recognition of the cul- ture and arts of the peoples of the Northwest Coast of the United States. The territory of these peoples had indeed been considerably reduced in the 19th century with the arrival of the settlers, and the prac- tice of their traditional way of life and native language had been prohibited. This drum is an example of the revival of Tsimshian culture, fostered by new generations proud of their roots. It is made from local materials traditionally used by the Tsimshian, such as red and yellow cedar and deerskin, also tanned and smoked using traditional techniques. The representation painted on the membrane refers to a story taken from Tsimshian mythology. It is the story of how Raven stole the Sun to offer it to Mankind, as the darkness in which the latter lived seemed to him to make its existence (and his own at the same time) particularly hard and unacceptable.

Ce tambour de danse est le résultat d’une collaboration entre David Boxley et son fils David Robert Boxley, artistes sculpteurs tsimshians renommés se consacrant activement à la renaissance, la préser- vation et la reconnaissance de la culture et des arts des peuples de la Côte Nord-Ouest des Etats-Unis. Le territoire de ces peuples s’était en effet vu considérablement réduit au 19ème siècle avec l’arrivée des colons, et la pratique de leur mode de vie traditionnel et de leur langue natale avait été interdite. Ce tambour est un exemple du revival de la culture tsimshian, porté par des nouvelles générations fières de leurs racines. Il a été réalisé dans des matériaux locaux utilisés traditionnellement par les Tsimshians comme le cèdre rouge, le cèdre jaune et la peau de cerf, tannée et fumée elle aussi selon des tech- niques traditionnelles. La représentation peinte sur la membrane fait référence à une histoire extraite de la mythologie tsimshian. Elle raconte comment Corbeau à dérobé le Soleil pour l’offrir aux Hommes, tant l’obscurité dans laquelle ces derniers vivaient lui semblait rendre leur existence (et la sienne par la même occasion) particulièrement pénible et inacceptable.

Dialect identification studies of U.S. regional dialects abound, yet few studies have explicitly compared listener perception of U.S. and Canadian dialects. A notable exception is Niedzielski (1999), which reveals the effect of social information about a talker’s nationality on perception of the /aʊT/ variable by Detroit listeners. Listeners did not perceive a Detroit talker as producing a non-standard raised /aʊT/, but did perceive this non-standard variant, attributed to a nationally demarcated out-group, when told the talker was Canadian. Documenting production, the Atlas of North American English notes the difficulty of motivating the isogloss between “the West” and “Canada,” as the regions participate in similar sound changes (Labov, Ash & Boberg 2006). Subsequent research has pinpointed dialect features and sound changes in progress throughout the West and Western Canada (Fridland et al. 2016, Walker 2015, Boberg 2010). Swan (2016) provides an analysis of five diagnostic variables for Seattle and Vancouver, showing that Seattle and Vancouver share features of /æg/ raising and /æ/ retraction, but are differentiated by stronger /aʊT/ & /aɪT/ raising in Vancouver and stronger /æn/ raising in Seattle. Swan also reports an asymmetrical language ideology: Vancouver talkers report rarely being able to identify Seattle talkers based on speech alone, while Seattle talkers report confidently their ability to identify Vancouver talkers. The current project extends this research to the perceptual realm. Are Seattle and Vancouver listeners equally able to identify a talker as being from their own city or the other city? Does ability to discern the talker’s nationality depend on the dialectal variable in the word?
Stimuli for this task were constructed from single-word utterances spoken in a word-list reading context by 19 speakers of Vancouver English and 20 speakers of Seattle English. The same four lexical items containing diagnostic variables were extracted for all talkers: devout, tag, fan, and path. Thirty native Vancouver and 22 native Seattle listeners heard 156 randomly presented words and were asked to judge whether the talker came from Seattle or Vancouver. As an initial analysis, listener accuracy was analyzed separately for each city using a binomial logistic regression in R.
Seattle and Vancouver listeners show important similarities and differences in their performance. For Vancouver listeners, Word, City and Age showed significant interacting effects; for Seattle listeners, Word, City, Age, and Gender interacted. Across all four variables, Seattle listeners identified a Vancouver talker at chance levels (50%). Vancouver listeners identified Vancouver talkers correctly at near-chance levels (54%) and Seattle talkers slightly less than half of the time (46%). These results dispel the self-reported abilities Seattle talkers expressed at identifying Vancouverites based on accent in Swan (2016), showing that despite an ideological asymmetry, they do not substantially outperform Vancouver listeners at identifying a resident of the opposite city based on speech. For listeners in both cities, Vancouver talkers were more often accurately identified in the /aʊT/ condition than Seattle talkers (67% for Seattle listeners), indicating that stereotypical Canadian Raising remains an important dialectal diagnostic perceived by both Canadian and American listeners. Seattle talkers were more often accurately identified in the /æn/ condition than Vancouver talkers, suggesting that pre-nasal raising is an important cue in differentiating American accents. Accuracy for the /æg/ and /æ/ conditions was lower, and may have been the result of response bias for the home city. The bias will be further analyzed using a signal detection theory framework, but may also be due to the fact that the two cities pattern similarly in production on the features. Overall, the findings isolate the perceptual phonetic cues related to national identity in two trans-border cities that have been described as having identical phonological systems and highlight that language ideologies are not always an accurate predictor of listener performance on perceptual tasks.

Language ideologies have been acknowledged as an important factor in linguistic behavior, and all the more in border regions (Bourdieu 1991, Irvine & Gal 2000, V. Friedman 2012, Auer 2005). This work considers the variable ideologies of sameness held by English speakers in Seattle, WA and Vancouver, BC as a predictor of speakers’ phonetic realizations for /æ/, a defining dialect feature of the region. The data reveal asymmetrical ideologies of sameness: Vancouver speakers perceive Seattle inhabitants as culturally and linguistically more similar to them than vice versa. For both cities, the realization of /æ/ is fronter for speakers who emphasized more similarity with their cross-border counterparts. More fronted /æ/ entails less participation in the Canadian Shift. These findings suggest that Vancouverites engage in more ideological contrasts with other regions of Canada and more ideologies of sameness with Seattle than Seattleites do for their similarity with Vancouver. For Vancouver talkers, this ideology corresponds with less participation in Canadian /æ/ retraction.

During the last part of the eighteenth century, the Spanish Kingdom organized one of the largest scientific expeditions for the documentation of the New World. Lead by the Italian navigator Alessandro Malaspina (1754–1810), the expedition lasted from 1789 to 1794, and traveled the Pacific Ocean from the American coasts to the Philippines. The detailed chronicles of the expedition—kept in Madrid, at the Ministerio de Defensa, Archivo del Museo Naval—are rich with ethnographic information about the expedition’s encounters with people and communities, embracing the presence and use of music and dance in different social situations. The documentation about the environment, including the ethnographic illustrations, were divided to "vistas" (landscapes; where are most of ethnographic images) and "retratos" (portraits). The images include a dancing couple from El Realejo, Nicaragua, by Antonio Pineda y Ramírez (1751–1792); dances of the Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootka) people on the Vancouver Island, British Columbia, made by the Mexican painter Tomás de Suria Lozano (b.1761); and an image of collective gathering with female and male dances in Tonga, made by the Italian artist Juan Ravenet (Giovanni Ravenet, 1766–ca. 1821). This documentation raises questions about the ways in which the explorers thought about the musical expressions of the native people. In some ways, these materials show a snapshot of particular moments and encounters with other civilizations. At the same time, they suggest further ways to understand part of the process of reformulation of Spanish and even Western history, with many narratives and questions regarding our perception of history and modernity.