1. Weaving has traditionally been work assigned to women. So with apologies to the small but growing number of male weavers, feminine pronouns will be used in the text.
2. Though ceremonial blankets are increasingly referred to as Nobility Robes, this text uses blanket and robe interchangeably to combine the connotation of a highly valued garment in the word robe and the warmth and protection in blanket. It also reflects the common use of the verb to blanket during ritual activities.
3. Workshop participants included Janice George, Willard Joseph, Whitney McAully, Joy Joseph-McCullough, Angela Marston, Frances Nahanee, Krista Point, and Leslie Tepper.
4. The CD-ROM is published by the Canadian Museum of History and can be ordered through its website.
5. Hill, Hopkins, and Lalonde, Sakahàn.
6. Sakahàn: International Indigenous Art, National Gallery of Canada website, http://www.gallery.ca/sakahan/en/index.htm.
7. Gustafson, Salish Weaving.
8. For articles published in journals, see Howay, “Dog’s Hair Blankets”; Orchard, “Rare Salish Blanket”; Kissell, “Organized Salish Blanket Pattern”; and Lakwete, “Salish Blankets.” Wells, Salish Weaving, and Johnson and Bernick, Hands of Our Ancestors, for example, published information in the form of small booklets and pamphlets.
9. Brotherton, S’abadeb.
10. Bierwert, “Weaving in Beauty.”
11. Blanchard and Davenport, Contemporary Coast Salish Art; Vanderhoop, Time Warp.
12. Spahan and Wherry, SMASH.
13. Johnson and Bernick, Hands of Our Ancestors.
14. See, for example, Collison et al., Gina Suuda Tl’l Xasii.
15. This volume uses Squamish rather than Skwxwú7mesh, and Musqueam rather than xwməθkwəy'əm, as these names are primarily used on the First Nations respective websites.
16. Bierwert also notes the many shared textile practices. “Weaving in Beauty,” 235–42.
17. See, for example, Brotherton, S’abadeb.
18. See Tepper, “Observant Eye”; and Hewitt, “Making.”
1. For a listing of the individual First Nations in these areas, see Kennedy and Bouchard, “Northern Coast Salish”; Suttles, “Central Coast Salish”; and Walker, Plateau, for Interior Salish. For a listing of the twenty-three languages of the Salish language family, see Thompson and Kinkade, “Languages,” 33.
2. See Suttles, Northwest Coast, 1–12, for a discussion of the classification of groups in the Northwest Coast culture area.
3. See Turner, Plant Technology, 21–22. For vegetation zones of the Northwest Coast culture area, see Suttles, Northwest Coast, 20–21.
4. See Ames and Maschner, Peoples of the Northwest Coast, 87–146.
5. The Nuu-chah-nulth, once called Nootka, are a Northwest Coast First Nation whose traditional territory lies along the western coast of Vancouver Island.
6. See Chatters, “Environment,” 29–48.
7. For an overview of Plateau culture, see Walker, Plateau.
8. The Salish domesticated a breed of dog whose hair was used as a supplemental weaving fiber.
9. For readers unfamiliar with the term, a withe is a thin branch often used in basketry or weaving because of its toughness and flexibility. A tumpline is a woven pack strap used to carry heavy loads on a person’s back.
10. For a description of the gathering and preparation of materials and the weaving of a willow bark cape, see Hewitt, “Making.”
11. Sagebrush leggings, CMH II-C-633ab, and hat, CMH II-C-502; lichen vest, AMNH 16/9203.
12. Castile, Indians of Puget Sound, 122.
13. The Nlaka’pamux blanket, CMH II-C-400, was collected by Teit ca. 1915. The Smithsonian blanket, NMNH 1894, was collected in 1838.
14. See Tepper, Earth Line and Morning Star, 24–31; Gustafson, Salish Weaving, 71–73; Turner, Plant Technology.
15. Tepper, Earth Line and Morning Star, 26; Hewitt, “Making.”
16. Evelyn Vanderhoop, personal communication.
17. See, for example, teachings on mountain goats in appendix 1.
18. See Gustafson, Salish Weaving, 70; and Vanderburg, “Chilkat and Salish Weaving,” 50.
19. Vanderburg, “Chilkat and Salish Weaving,” 49.
20. Teit, Thompson Indians, 190.
21. Howay, “Dog’s Hair Blankets.”
22. Gustafson, Salish Weaving; Lakwete, “Salish Blankets,” 507.
23. Murray, “Investigating the Presence of Dog Hair.”
24. Barsh, Jones, and Suttles, “History, Ethnography and Archaeology,” 8.
25. Vanderburg, “Chilkat and Salish Weaving,” 54–55.
26. Vanderburg, “Chilkat and Salish Weaving.”
27. Oolican, also spelled eulachon (Thaleichthys pacificus), is a small fish that was dried or rendered into fish oil.
28. For a discussion of Salish social organization, food, wealth, and resource redistribution, see Belcher, “Coast Salish Social Organization”; and Suttles, “Affinal Ties.”
29. Boyd and Hajda, “Seasonal Population Movement,” 321.
30. Gibson, Lifeline of the Oregon Country, 125–28.
31. Diatomaceous earth is a form of silica created from the fossilized remains of a single-cell algae. See Gustafson’s argument that this process refers only to the preparation of cedar bark or to the removal of hair from a mountain goat hide. Salish Weaving, 88.
32. It is interesting to speculate on the use of a diz in the making of the roving. This implement, typically a small object with a central hole, is similar to the stone rings found in archaeological excavations that are usually identified as spindle whorls or net sinkers.
33. Photographs in the RBCM collection include 83; 11165; and ZZ-95300. In the CMH collection see H. I. Smith’s Coast Salish film, V2004-0074.
34. Peabody Harvard 90-17-10-48410.
35. Ames, “Place of Ozette.”
36. See Gustafson, Salish Weaving, 21l.
37. On the Northwest Coast the northern styles of ceremonial robes, Chilkat and Ravens Tail textiles, are woven with a hanging warp. These long strings are cut so that the weft threads can be lifted and turned to create complex patterns. See Samuel, Raven’s Tail; and Emmons, Chilkat Blanket.
38. See Chepximiya and Tepper, Coast Salish Weaving, for a video demonstration.
39. The three textiles are Danish National Museum Hd.36; Pitt Rivers 1884.88.9 (figure 49); and RBCM 9646.
40. A number of researchers have attempted to trace the history of weaving on the Northwest Coast. Burnham, “Salish Weaving Complex,” 98, argues for an Asian origin. Vanderburg, “Chilkat and Salish Weaving,” attempts to discover the origin of weaving on the coast itself by comparing northern and southern styles of weaving.
41. The “grease” refers to the fish oil rendered from oolican. It was and continues to be a popular condiment on the Northwest Coast and a valued trade item. Grease trails linked the coastal and interior communities for the exchange of trade items.
42. Museum of Vancouver, AA1363.
43. In some cultures the terms sash and belt are sometimes used interchangeably, leading to possible confusion when searching museum databases.
1. As noted earlier, these practices would have varied by community and historic period. Teit, Thompson Indians, recorded the lack of interest in goat hair blankets among the Interior Salish; and Barnett, Coast Salish, noted the absence of coiling and other basketry techniques on Vancouver Island.
2. See, for example, Hill-Tout’s multivolume set The Salish People.
3. Franz Boas (1858–1942), considered the “Father of American Anthropology,” taught at Columbia University and was a curator at the American Museum of Natural History. Edward Sapir (1884–1939), a linguist and anthropologist, was Boas’s student and the first director of the Anthropology Division, Geological Survey of Canada (now the Canadian Museum of History). For information on Teit’s collecting history see Tepper, “Old Made New Again.”
4. Some Salish communities had higher survival rates during the later smallpox epidemics because of their access to vaccines. See Boyd, “Demographic History.”
5. Gustafson, Salish Weaving, 45.
6. Teit was considered to be field staff for the Geological Survey (now the Canadian Museum of History) when he was hired by Edward Sapir.
7. This refers only to the letters published in Pritchard, Vancouver Island Letters. A record of the purchase or other information may exist in the Verney family archives.
8. Teit produced an extensive archive of photographs for Edward Sapir. Along with portraits and images of artifacts, he often asked members of the Nlaka’pamux community to pose wearing or holding items he had acquired for museum collections. See Tepper, Interior Salish Tribes.
9. Castile, Indians of Puget Sound, 75.
10. Teit, Thompson Indians, 191.
11. Rev. R. J. Staines to Rev. Edward Cridge, October 1849, Cridge Papers.
12. Dr. Ellen White, elder, personal communication.
13. Amoss, “Hair of the Dog,” 17.
14. R. J. Staines to Rev. Edward Cridge, ca. 1854, Cridge Papers.
15. For information on the arrival of domesticated sheep and the availability of sheep wool for spinning and weaving, see Olsen, Working with Wool, 104–5.
16. Haeberlin, Teit, and Roberts, Coiled Basketry, 131. Teit worked for Boas as a field researcher from 1884 until 1910.
17. The majority of the weavers were from Interior Nlaka’pamux communities.
18. Haeberlin, Teit, and Roberts, Coiled Basketry, 437.
19. Haeberlin, Teit, and Roberts, Coiled Basketry, 437.
20. Dawson, interview.
21. Haeberlin, Teit, and Roberts, Coiled Basketry, 438.
22. Haeberlin, Teit, and Roberts, Coiled Basketry, 438.
23. Among the sailors were those under the command of Perez on the Santiago and Cook on the Resolution.
24. See, for example, Malloy, “Boston Men.”
25. A trading post in the Plateau area was established at Fort Astoria, Oregon, by 1811. The North West Company had established posts along the Columbia River by 1811 and in Kamloops by 1812.
26. Gibson, Lifeline of the Oregon Country.
27. The equivalent woodcut of a woman at Old Fort Walla Walla shows a traditional-style outfit of buckskin dress and leggings. Women’s dress may have remained more conservative because of the absence of European women in the early expeditions or in the fur trade posts. See, for example, University of Washington Libraries, neg. no. NA3998 (figure 14) and NA3999; Wilkes, Narrative, 425–26.
28. Willmott, “From Stroud to Strouds,” 200, lists ceinture fléchées among the 1804 inventories of items shipped to trading posts in the Great Lakes region. Willmott, Stroud to Strouds, 200.
29. Miles, Swan, Stenzel, and Stenzel, James Swan.
30. J. W. McKay, file 39, McKay Papers.
31. Gustafson, Salish Weaving, 48.
32. Rae, Quilts of the British Isles, 112.
33. The authors wish to thank Dan Savard, former curator of photographic collections, Royal British Columbia Museum, for bringing this image to their attention.
34. A parflêche is a folded rawhide carrying case traditionally used by Indigenous people on the Plains and Plateau.
35. Haeberlin, Teit, and Roberts, Coiled Basketry, 374.
36. The movement of early and mid-nineteenth-century Northern New Spain patterned blankets on the Prairies and Plains is being explored by a number of researchers. See, for example, Herold and Yellowman, “Washita Chief Blanket.”
37. Marshall, “Mapping the New El Dorado.” McKay notes the discovery of silver by Mexican miners near Yale; file 39, McKay Papers.
38. Boyd, Popular Arts, 189. See also Mera, Spanish-American Blanketry, which shows complex patterned blankets woven ca. 1860. For a different opinion, see Wright, Time of Gathering, 44.
39. Wheat, Blanket Weaving, 250–69.
40. Collections research for early saddle blankets and other southwest style textiles was briefly undertaken by Tepper for the exhibit and associated publication Baillargeon and Tepper, Legends of Our Times.
41. Kapoun, Language of the Robe, 34.
42. Bancroft, Works, 338.
43. Kapoun, Language of the Robe, 39.
44. Vivian Campbell quoted in Weavers at Musqueam, 19, http://collections.ic.gc.ca/musqueam/vivian_campbell.html.
45. Gustafson, Salish Weaving, 48, 50, 67; Jonathan King, personal communication, 2012.
46. See Carlson, “Rethinking Dialogue and History.”
47. Oliver Wells was a local farmer and historian. Wells, “Return of the Salish Loom”; Wells, Salish Weaving.
48. Rena Bolton, personal communication, 2010.
49. Johnson and Bernick, Hands of Our Ancestors.
50. Funding was provided by the Royal Bank of Canada, the Squamish Nation Trust, the Canada Council, and Simon Fraser University.
1. Dawson, interview.
2. Four is considered to be a sacred number.
3. Natraoro, interview.
4. Gustafson suggests that blanket scrambles were rare, occurring only in particularly wealthy villages or only with trade blankets. Salish Weaving, 75. Elder Dr. Ellen White did not make such a distinction, and Gustafson’s suggestion has not appeared in other oral histories told to the authors.
5. Grace Harbour is north of Powell River, near Desolation Sound Provincial Park.
6. Tal masks were derived from the story of Tsonoqua, the wild woman of the woods. Barnett, Coast Salish, 170.
7. Barnett, Coast Salish, 205.
8. The ceremonial activity may vary in different communities and according to family traditions.
9. For images of the 1906 departure of the delegation, see also, for example, RBCM photographs 7789 and 9692. For images of the 1927 welcome, see, for example, RBCM photographs 16761 and 22575.
10. RBCM photograph 13967. Patricia Bay is located along the shoreline of the North Saanich peninsula, Vancouver Island near the current site of the Victoria International Airport.
11. Baker, interview.
12. Barnett, Coast Salish, 186.
13. In some communities blankets are burned as part of the memorial ceremony. Brotherton, personal communication, 2013.
14. Joseph-McCullough, interview.
15. See, for example, RBCM photographs 11743 and 88-00114.
16. A photograph of two men on horseback ca. 1906 shows that twilled blankets were also used as saddle blankets in a parade. RBCM 6386.
17. The term nested refers to the orderly placement of a pattern motif within the same motif of larger size. Diamond shapes often have other diamond shapes placed around them as a pattern combination. Zigzag lines are often woven in parallel and appear nested between the selvages of a tumpline or as a pattern block on a blanket. See also the discussion on nested diamonds under “Framed Pattern,” chapter 5.
18. RBCM photograph 9692. Another photograph from 1906, RBCM 5911, shows ten men, all wearing twilled white blankets with stripes, parading on Hasting Street during the visit of Governor General Earl Grey. There is no twined pattern visible on these blanket robes.
19. Weavers we have worked with tend to use measurements in feet and inches rather than centimeters and meters.
20. See, for example, Debra Sparrow’s cape of red and green designs bordering a decorated central white square. Spahan and Wherry, SMASH, 49.
21. Peabody Harvard blanket 90-17-10-48411.
22. The somewhat smaller size of the Peabody Harvard blanket may reflect the difficulty of obtaining the material and/or the small size of the wearer.
23. See, for example, Howay, “Dog’s Hair Blankets”; Kissell, “New Type of Spinning”; and Orchard, “Rare Salish Blanket.”
24. Gustafson, Salish Weaving, 55.
25. Kissell, “Organized Salish Blanket Pattern.”
26. Lakwete, “Salish Blankets,” 512.
27. NMNH 1896.
28. National Museum of Finland VK-1; Perth Museum and Art Gallery 918.120 (figure 47); NMNH E2124 (figure 31).
29. Gustafson, Salish Weaving, 48.
30. Gustafson, Salish Weaving, 52.
31. Jonaitis, Art of the Northern Tlingit, 99.
32. Chaussonnet, “Needles and Animals,” 217.
33. See chapter 2, under “Tradition and Innovation.”
1. Tepper, Earth Line and Morning Star, 74.
2. Teit, “Tattooing and Face and Body Painting,” 418.
3. Andrea Laforet, personal communication.
4. Teit, “Tattooing and Face and Body Painting,” 430.
5. Peabody Harvard catalog, numbers 90-17-10-48411 and 90-17-10-48410.
6. The authors checked blanket corners for signatures but found no consistent weaving element corresponding to that used by weavers of Chilkat robes.
7. These would include, for example, the NMAI blanket 144864 (figure 33) and the Peabody Harvard blanket 22-10-10-97917, among others.
8. Wheat, Blanket Weaving.
9. Stroud is a coarse woolen fabric used during the early period of European trade. For a discussion of this and other trade textiles, see Willmott, “From Stroud to Strouds.”
10. See, for example, Danford, From Periphery to Centre, 11.
11. Haeberlin, Teit, and Roberts, Coiled Basketry; Farrand, Basketry Designs.
12. Haeberlin, Teit, and Roberts, Coiled Basketry, 242.
13. See, for example, RBCM basket 18605.
14. Some of the early blankets restrict design space to the relatively narrow borders. This may reflect the influence of traditional tumpline and band weaving and the arrangements of basketry designs.
15. AMNH 16.1-1784.
16. For discussions of Plains influences on Salish designs, see Haeberlin, Teit, and Roberts, Coiled Basketry; and Waterman, Notes on the Ethnology.
17. Chaussonnet, “Needles and Animals.”
18. See information on RBCM photo 1315. Roderick Finlayson (1818–92) was an important figure in the development of the Hudson’s Bay Company in British Columbia and in the settlement of southern Vancouver Island and the city of Victoria. See, for example, “Finlayson, Roderick,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/finlayson_roderick_12E.html.
19. Southern Northwest Coast art styles are becoming an important focus of research. For example, Coast Salish art, with its distinctive elements of circle, crescent, and trigon (a four-point cut design), is recognized as a unique iconography on the Northwest Coast. See, for example, Kew, Sculpture and Engraving; Suttles, “Recognition of Coast Salish Art”; and Miller and Pavel, “Traditional Teachings.”
20. See Haeberlin, Teit, and Roberts, Coiled Basketry; and Teit, Thompson Indians.
1. Sparrow, “A Journey,” 156.
2. Krista Point, personal communication, 2005.
3. The lozenge shape on this blanket, when isolated as a two- or three-part unit, is reminiscent of the patterns on the Fuca-style blankets, but without the separating vertical lines. See, for example, the Smithsonian blanket NMNH E221408-0 (figure 32), where there are a set of four dark-colored diamonds outlined in red with side triangles of varying colors.
4. The attention to fine details must have made weaving this blanket very time consuming.
5. Chaussonnet, “Needles and Animals,” 224.
6. Gustafson, Salish Weaving, 50.
7. Kissell, “Organized Salish Blanket Pattern,” 87.
8. Collection documentation, Pitt Rivers Museum.
9. Artifact number Hd.36, Danish National Museum; original Smithsonian Institution number E2122. Sharing of collection materials was a common practice among American and European museums in the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth centuries.
10. Peale, Collections, entries 321–24.
11. Jane Walsh and Felicia Pickering, Smithsonian Institution, personal communication, 2014.
12. The Smithsonian’s posthumous publication of his ethnology identifies him as a medical doctor. Gibbs, Tribes of Western Washington.
13. Gibbs was the original owner of the woolly dog named Mutton whose pelt is in the Smithsonian collections, USNM 4762.
14. Gibbs, Tribes of Western Washington, 215.
15. Haeberlin, Teit, and Roberts, Coiled Basketry, plates 78–94.
16. It is interesting to compare the Yale blanket AMNH 16.1-1784 with this design. Less complicated in the layering of nested triangles and zigzags, the Yale blanket is also composed in three sections around a central frame, and the weaver has successfully woven completed diamonds at the base and top.
17. McKay was also sometimes spelled MacKay. See Mackie, “McKay.”
18. Teit thought that they were probably made by a weaver in Spuzzum; Newcombe Papers.
19. The Newcombe photographs show the four blankets and Newcombe/Teit’s numbering. RBCM, pn 443; 10837; 444; and 445.
20. Newcombe to McKay, January 2, 1905,Newcombe Papers.
21. Teit to Newcombe, June 14, 1904, folder 143, A01749, vol. 5, Newcombe Papers.
22. Homer Sargent was a wealthy businessman who hired Teit as a guide to go big-game hunting in the British Columbia interior. He funded acquisition of Salish artifacts for Chicago’s Field Museum and other institutions.
23. Teit to Sapir, April 6, 1914, Sapir Correspondence.
24. The museum purchased it from Mrs. Percy Roberts of Kuper Island, British Columbia, in 1922.
25. Gustafson, Salish Weaving, incorrectly states that the blanket was collected by Sir Harry Verney (Edmund’s father) and has reversed the caption information on page 49.
26. Pritchard, Vancouver Island Letters, 198.
27. Pritchard, Vancouver Island Letters, 123.
28. As noted earlier, a pair of dance leggings, CMH VII-G-336ab, made of rectangular pieces cut from a larger textile, is also considered part of this group of textiles.
29. A number of Squamish weavers refer to the pattern on Chief Capilano’s blanket and similar blanket patterns seen in the photograph as the Capilano Pattern.
30. CMH documentation continues with further information that may have confused the dates and purposes of an earlier visit to England: “Other blankets of the same type are to be seen in coloured postcards in the Provincial Museum, Victoria, showing the celebrations when Chief Joe Capilano left Vancouver for London on the occasion of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897.”
31. MOA artifact label A17200.
1. This chapter is taken from Joseph-McCullough, interview; it has been edited for length and clarity.
2. Krista Point is a weaver from the Musqueam Reserve. For examples of her work, see Danford, From Periphery to Centre.
3. Charlene Williams, Squamish. See also Williams, interview
4. The Squamish-Lil’wat Cultural Centre (SLCC) was opened in Whistler BC as part of the 2010 Olympic celebrations. Large textiles were commissioned as architectural features—wool tapestries from Salish weavers and bark hangings from Lil’wat basket makers.