From understanding the interlinking of the realms of the human, natural, and supernatural worlds and the close presence of Ancestral Spirits come many teachings. Salish Elders, hereditary chiefs, grandparents, and parents spend their lives studying, teaching, and exemplifying their traditional culture. Young people are expected to learn through careful listening, close observation, and consistent practice.
These are the teachings that get passed on to you in ceremony; they are the same from the beginning of time.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish
Take what is good for you and leave the rest behind.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish
Teachings, if taught in the longhouse, by family members, or on canoe journeys, are all the same. Fundamentally it is the way you live: your lifestyle, prayers, practices, physical, and emotional well-being. You have to be careful what you think and what you say so you do not cause hard feelings in this world. The consequence of when you send those feelings and words out—they don’t affect the person—they come back to you. If you are strong enough, they won’t hurt you, but they will affect your children, your loved ones, and go down through the generations.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish
When we have learned from anyone who has given their time and energy to transfer their knowledge, it is our responsibility to carry on and teach as many people who are willing to learn to weave.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish
You have teachers in your life, and you have taken the time to learn the right way of ceremony. How you behave reflects on your family; misbehavior will hurt your Ancestral Namesake.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish
In my lifetime I am fortunate to have been taught by my grandmother, she, by her grandmother, they were taught by the women before her, and so on, to the beginning of time. Weaving, ceremony, woman’s work, healing knowledge, protocol, spirituality, and grief, those are among my grandmother’s teachings.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish
Our Elders are the connection to the generations that came before us. As sure as we are here, they are here in the spirit world. We do burnings or feedings of our Ancestors which are in relationship with us. It is the only time they get to gather when we do a food offering and it is a big gathering in the spirit world.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish
It is in your DNA to be a weaver. The Elders recognize who is born to be an artist and can tell the children what they will grow up to be.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish
Always wear a shawl for spiritual protection—to a community gathering, public event, or ceremony. Lena Jacobs said all women in her time wore shawls at all times.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish
I’ve heard of our glaciers being referred to as big blankets that are also sacred because the waters that flow from them are like a mother nursing a child. We nourish ourselves, our souls from those waters, so that is also a reference as a life giver, a mother, and it is a balance of the woman that wove the blankets and things that they did.
—Chief Ian Campbell, Squamish
The technical side is important, yes, but just as important are the cultural and spiritual aspects.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish
In our lives, we have public ceremonies for puberty, naming, wedding, funeral, and memorial. In ceremony it is understood we are in and out of the spirit world, we feel the prayers put on the floor for us and acknowledge that our Ancestors are present.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish
When you think of someone wearing a blanket in a ceremony you think of the hands that it has gone through—the animal giving itself up to take care of you, the hunters, the weavers who have spun and woven the wool. It is protective.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish
When you get your Ancestral name, it is a dropping away of the old. New roads have to be walked in the way that the Ancestor walked that life. Study and find what that Ancestor did, what they contributed. That is how you should live your life.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish
The Speakers say to you, “Don’t drag your name in the mud; keep your name as clean as this brand new and pure blanket you stand on.”
—Chief Janice George, Squamish
For the weaver, it is an honor and privilege to have someone ask you to make regalia, they know you have the strength, good heart, and certain level of being on the right path to make “effective” regalia, including the technical skill to make it aesthetically beautiful as well as spiritually protective.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish
My grandfather was really cautious about what regalia I put on and he associated that with my name and the types of activities we do, who we are and where we come from, what we show and what we do. He cautioned me from a young age about what to put on, things like hooves. “Don’t just take those because you want to wear them, because they will come alive on you. That is sacred.” He was always very cautious with me, not to just take things. I appreciate that certainly now that I get older. When I got married I had another set of regalia made and on that one I put hooves on my apron and felt that I was taking another step in my life and that I was ready to accept more of that responsibility.
—Chief Ian Campbell, Squamish
My headbands have changed over the years. I have many different types of headbands I use. But as I became more and more of a Speaker in the longhouse I started wearing more of the feather, the split-eagle-feather headdresses, to speak with clarity of mind and to speak from my heart.
—Chief Ian Campbell, Squamish
The reason why we wear the ochre is to be identified as Coast Salish in this world, but also in the spirit world. Believing that our Ancestors are always around us, they know who you are. That keeps you from any harm that might come from the spirit world. It is the same with the robes; they identify us as Coast Salish and even more as to the weavers who wove it for us, so the Ancestors can protect us.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish
Weavings offer protection from the elements, offering physical warmth, and we derive spiritual protection from them.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish; a teaching from the late Lena Jacob, Squamish
The robe you wear identifies who you are, where you come from, your family, your home territory.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish
I realized how important those blankets were, to be blanketed by someone, just the symbol of someone coming and blanketing you and for you to have that responsibility. It is almost like a transformation, you turn around and then you step forward and then you conduct your responsibilities.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish
We held our Canoe Gathering in 2001 and I got asked to do a lot of speaking during that time. So I wound up on the floor and no one blanketed us. I explicitly remember standing on the floor and feeling kind of naked because I am usually blanketed. . . . But I remember people were coming up and they were very negative, complaining, and a lot of people were overwhelmed and stressed by the journey . . . and because we were a focal point on the floor they felt they could just kind of dump all their stuff on us. So it was only a few of us speaking and I was sitting there going okay . . . but I left feeling really heavy every night just taking all this stuff on, and I finally realized it was because we weren’t blanketed. Because when we are blanketed it is a whole different thing, because it makes both of our feet stand firmly on the floor when you are blanketed and you speak, and it is not from my head—it just comes. And you find the right things to say and you try to say it with diplomacy as best as you can, not to offend people, to use the best language you can, the most formal language in our Squamish nation.
—Chief Ian Campbell, Squamish
When you wear something like that robe the spirit might take you and make you feel what the Ancestors felt when they wore it. They might take you to the animal spirit world.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish
The strength of the mountain goat is transferred from the Mountain Goat Being through the hunter to the weaver, and into the robe. Not everyone can hunt mountain goat because it takes spiritual strength as well as physical strength. It takes rigorous lifelong training to go where most human beings cannot. As well as the mountain goat being known as the protector, the hunter also takes care of the people, as the weaver takes care of the people. Because of that, a mountain goat robe has always been one of the most highly prized possessions.
—Willard Joseph, Squamish
If a person follows the culture then certain families are hunters, and if they follow the idea of it they will keep themselves physically in good shape.
—Willard Joseph, Squamish
Thunderbird is kind of the whole sky looking down, and sometimes when we see a goat it is a transformation of that thunderbird just in the physical realm. We see it as a goat looking down over the lands. So we have tremendous respect whenever we see a goat standing up high like that. That’s the guardian, the protector, overlooking the land. We always acknowledge it and humble ourselves. It is such an honor to see something like that when we are doing peaks and we see all the tracks and the goat scat everywhere, we always feel very blessed to be in that realm. So different from being down here; it is a different world up there.
—Chief Ian Campbell, Squamish
The mountain goat is the most pure of all the animals because it lives in remote areas, near the sky. Nothing can reach it there.
—Dr. Ellen White, Snuneymuxw
When you take something from the animal, you have to prepare to meet it. Ask it to give itself up for us. What happens before that part is physical training—running, climbing, going up to certain elevations in the mountains to get to them or to their wintering beds or to hunt them. When you are hunting them, then you need to prepare yourself, the animal comes to you as a level of spirituality. My cousin experienced that when he went to hunt goats. He trained for five years.
—Willard Joseph, Squamish
That is the beauty of being out hiking and swimming in the creeks in early morning and praying and going up to those places, and hours of watching them through my spotting scope, and sitting amongst them up in alpine meadows when they are over there. I don’t have a gun or anything, I am just happy to be sitting there watching them. Watching them over the years, all the populations where the nanny and kids are, and where the billy bachelors hang out. All that kind of stuff; just knowing where they’re at and what they are doing. But also knowing the mythology of our goat hunters. How they try, what they do to train, what we do when we are up in that high country, how to train up there, because there are some things we do up there that are very private that we don’t share with a lot of people because it is just what we’ve been taught by our uncles and grandfathers, and we go up there and how we pray and what we do to give of ourselves, what we are sacrificing. With that, songs will come to us and dreams.
—Chief Ian Campbell, Squamish
The story of the guy when he went into his trance, [he saw] that the cave had become a longhouse, and the entrance to a longhouse, and there were guards at the door and they brought him in. There was a ceremony going on in there and they say that the old Elder in the back there, that mountain goat Elder was an old blind mountain goat, a billy goat. He says, “Who’s that person that still stinks like a human,” because of his intentions, cause of the way he thought still, because he wasn’t fully let go of our limitations. . . . Nonetheless he was welcomed in and he was witness to their ceremonies. Eventually he was accepted by them. It is really a long story and I am getting right to the heart of it in the longhouse. He ended up marrying one of their mountain goat princesses and they put a cloak on them and when they wrapped him, it was a goat skin and he transformed into the goat. He’d walk around with them and he remembers the little billy goats, the little kids would run around and they’d amble all over the place and they would run between his legs and he wasn’t as agile in the mountains as the goats were. He was almost falling off the cliffs and stuff and so that eventually he came back home. But he would always return and he would come back with many mountain goats. They would give themselves to him because he was connected to them and give of themselves because they knew he was a good person.
—Chief Ian Campbell, Squamish; from traditional history
Red is used for protection and is a healing power. It does not just sit there and be protective; it has a power to it.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish
White symbolizes the purity of starting a new life. When a person stands on it they are starting out a new life with a new name or starting out on a journey to the other side in a fresh way.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish
What you are creating is something the Ancestors want you to make. The Ancestors are working through your hands. They give the weaver this ancient knowledge.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish
The robe already exists in the spirit world. The weaver creates it in the real world with the help of the Ancestor.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish
Because the weavings are alive, they radiate the feelings of the weaver. Some people teach that you should not weave when you are angry or sad. The weaver should feel confident she is doing the right thing on all levels, that she is following the teachings. Then the weaving will contain good feelings, love, prayers, and protection.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish
Some groups teach that there are times when women can’t weave in the cycle of life; for example, if they are menstruating or pregnant.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish
Weaving is very intimate. Your sweat is on the weaving, your breath and your prayers.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish; a teaching from the late Subiyay (Bruce Miller), Skokomish
Some weavers will go for a spiritual bath before beginning to weave. It depends on what discipline the person follows and the purpose of the piece.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish; a teaching from the late Subiyay (Bruce Miller), Skokomish
Beginning to Weave: Say a prayer and ask your Namesake to come and help you. They will never refuse.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish; a teaching from the late Lena Jacobs, Squamish
Finishing for the Day: When you have finished for the day, cover the piece on the loom with red cloth. You have called the Ancestors to help and they are still there looking at it. Covering it lets the work rest and lets the Ancestors rest for the night.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish; a teaching from the late Subiyay (Bruce Miller), Skokomish
Finishing a Robe: When the weaving is finished you need to say thank you to the Ancestors. People in different communities, and within a community, may have different ways to close and say thank you. Some use their hands; others use cedar or a candle.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish
You should give away the first weaving you make.
—Krista Point, Musqueam
Teaching for a Person Receiving a Robe: When some people get a shawl or robe that someone has made for them, they will make it their own by doing their own private ceremony on that piece of regalia. They will put their own “breath,” sweat, or DNA on it. Everyone will have their own way to do that: ochre, candle, putting on their hands. Some might ask a medicine person to do it for them.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish
We know this responsibility we have to our future Squamish people to carry on this knowledge that makes us who we are. It’s where we come from. If someone is shaken up by it, then they have not brought it back in the right way. Everything starts with an open heart and open mind; this way we are taking in the teachings from the spirit world, our own Ancestors. Though we may do new ways of ceremony, they are still ancient ones. We are with the Ancestors; we are weaving for our great-great-grandchildren, teaching them to hold on to our culture, we will be there when they need us.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish
Anything you make in this world exists on the spiritual side. The blankets we weave on this side are the blankets we know already exist on other side.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish
Weavers are contributing to the well-being of the whole community. They carry on something that the Ancestors did, doing it at a public, visible level in the community. It is not an easy skill to acquire and is not for everyone. It is not just for fun.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish
Weavers are a powerful voice in the community. They were someone who provided wealth-building skills. It was valuable knowledge. Long ago weavers were keeping people warm, providing wealth, providing purity to the nation. They helped to mark transitions in the life cycle and protection in both worlds.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish
People that contributed to community were highly regarded. It was a high thing in the community.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish
People wove different styles recognizable by community. The blanket reflects the selection of the maker.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish
The designs identify you as you are. They are also made to protect you and also to tell the wearer’s story. You are still yourself, but you are now protected by the Ancestors and by the mountain goat spirit.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish
For the public launch of our project I purchased red cloth to cover all of our weavings. While getting ready to present them I put on the cloth and, smoothing the red cloth, I felt the heart beat. I realized it was the heartbeat of the nation. Weaving is our foundation, it can learn, it can teach.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish
Weavers working in our studio are walking with Ancestors, weaving with Ancestors, bringing something into this world. We are always being aware of that.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish
When I think about that timeline it is like a sliding ruler in time. All the information in all those years is accessible to us. These teachings when you look back and look to our great-grandmothers, they are going to tell you the same teachings I am talking about, or ask my granddaughter and she will say the same teachings. We can jump up and down this timeline and they will all be the same.
—Chief Janice George, Squamish