Salish Blankets: Robes of Protection and Transformation, Symbols of Wealth
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Salish Blankets presents a new perspective on Salish weaving through technical and anthropological lenses. Worn as ceremonial robes, the blankets are complex objects said to preexist in the supernatural realm and made manifest in the natural world through ancestral guidance. The blankets are protective garments that at times of great life changes—birth, marriage, death—offer emotional strength and mental focus. A blanket can help establish the owner’s standing in the community and demonstrate a weaver’s technical expertise and artistic vision. The object, the maker, the wearer, and the community are bound and transformed through the creation and use of the blanket.
Drawing on first-person accounts of Salish community members, object analysis, and earlier ethnographic sources, the authors offer a wide-ranging material culture study of Coast Salish lifeways. Salish Blankets explores the design, color/pigmentation, meaning, materials, and process of weaving and examines its historical and cultural contexts.
ISBN-13: 9780803296923
Media Type: Paperback
Publisher: Nebraska
Publication Date: 07-01-2017
Pages: 224
Product Dimensions: 5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)
Leslie H. Tepper is the curator of Western ethnology at the Canadian Museum of History. She is the author of Earthline and Morning Star: Nlaka’pamux Clothing Traditions and coauthor of Legends of Our Times: Native Cowboy Life. Janice George (Chepximiya Siyam) is a co-owner (along with Willard Joseph) of the L’hen Awtxw: The Weaving House studio. She is a hereditary chief of a Squamish family. Willard Joseph (Skwetsimltexw), the great-great-grandson of Harriett Johnnie, weaves and teaches.
Framework There is strength in the transformation over time; from hard times to plentiful times, having new experiences and influences. It is a fantastic story, a journey that is continuous throughout the years. We jump forward and backward in the timeline, do what our grandmothers and their grandmothers, and their grandmothers did, and the teachings stay the same for their grandchildren and ours. — Chief Janice George, Squamish The study of Salish textile traditions requires the intertwining of information from many different sources. Library research brings together the limited number of published articles and archival documents. Elders offer cultural teachings; spinners, weavers, and knitters share knowledge gained through the practice of their craft. Ethnologists, ethnobotanists, historians, and archaeologists examine the geography, climate, and natural resources of the area. Museum curators analyze the tangible and intangible records of human experience captured in Salish material culture. This chapter brings together these threads of knowledge to help frame our understanding of Salish weaving. Salish Knowledge Every aspect of Salish textile production is bound by an awareness of the spirit world and a respect for the Ancestral gifts of knowledge. Traditional teachings highlight the power of woven garments, particularly their importance in spiritual protection. They also emphasize the responsibilities of the weaver and the obligations of the wearer. Salish cosmology maintains that the realm of human experience exists alongside spiritual or supernatural worlds. The teachings emphasize acceptance of different ways of being and an awareness that the inhabitants of these supernatural worlds can offer support or bring harm to individuals. The sky, mountains, bodies of water — oceans, lakes, rivers — and other geographic and physical manifestations are viewed as living beings. A tree is treated with the respect given to a human and thanked for the use of its wood, bark, and roots. Ancestral Spirits, the deceased members of a family or community, are said to exist in a supernatural realm not far from the villages of their living descendants. They are remembered, fed, and honored in prayers and rituals. Animals, birds, and fish are said to live in their own villages in remote areas of the mountains, in a sky world, or under the ocean in houses that are architecturally similar to those of Salish construction. Once inside their own homes, these supernatural beings remove their furs, scales, or skins and appear as people. Occasionally they take husbands or wives from the human world. The resulting children share traits of both domains. Be strong in your intentions, stand firm in your love for your people, in the land we own. This teaching makes us able to return from travels to the other dimensions. We can have access to the past and the future, but we must be able to return to use the teachings. To do this you must be strong. — Chief Janice George; a teaching from the late Jacob Lewis Sr., Squamish Humans may travel into these other worlds in their dreams or experience encounters with supernatural beings when traveling through sacred areas in their traditional territories. Hunters, fishermen, and craftspeople in particular are said to have supernatural helpers or a guardian spirit to assist them in completing their tasks. Among the Interior Salish adolescent boys were sent into the mountains for a period of time to discover their personal supernatural helper. Ceremonies celebrating a new stage in a person's life cycle are often a time and place when individuals move in and out of the spirit world. During these events the family's Ancestors are acknowledged and people are said to be particularly aware of the proximity between the worlds of the living and the dead. In such ceremonies, the individual may wear a specially woven robe and stand on newly woven blankets. The power of the prayers and the strength of the songs and dances performed during a ritual may shift an individual into another dimension, where he or she feels surrounded, supported, or "held up" by the Ancestors. The Salish worldview understands that robes and blankets already exist in the spirit world and it is the weaver who brings them into the human realm. She is directed by an Ancestral Spirit that the weaver has called on for guidance. Many people have spoken of feeling their grandmothers or great-grandmothers near them and of having their hands guided during the creation of the work. The robes themselves are considered to be objects of power and are talked about as being alive with a heartbeat of their own. The touch, sweat, breath, and voice of the maker become woven into the textile, animating it, shaping it, and giving it memory. The artists' states of mind, along with their emotions and physical well-being, can also be transferred into the weaving. These teachings and stories form an intangible framework that guides weavers through the process. Women know how to prepare themselves to begin the textile, how to create robes of protection and transformation, and how, when the weaving is done, to safely separate themselves from the finished work. Ethnography At the end of the nineteenth century anthropologists began to classify Indigenous communities in Canada and the United States into "culture areas." Distinctions were made according to language family, aspects of material culture, occupation of village sites, and other unique traits. In the United States, Salish-speaking communities occupied — and continue to live on — traditional tribal lands in the states of Montana, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. In Canada, Salish First Nations live on the eastern coast of central and southern Vancouver Island, on the southern mainland, and along the Fraser and Thompson River watersheds. Ethnologists have further divided these communities into the Northern Coast Salish, Central Coast Salish, and Interior Salish. The blankets and weavings of particular interest to this study were collected from the historical villages of Vancouver Island, southern British Columbia, and Washington State. This group of traditional communities covers a large geographical area that was classified into two ethnographic culture areas, the Northwest Coast, home to the Coast Salish, and the Plateau, site of the Interior Salish communities. The Northwest Coast culture area encompasses the geographical region of the Pacific shoreline and the western watersheds from southern Alaska to the southern Oregon border. The topography is one of snow-topped mountain ranges that enclose secluded valleys and sharply descend to narrow beaches at the shorelines. Ocean currents and prevailing winds maintain a moderate temperature with heavy rainfall reaching, in some areas, an annual precipitation of 250 cm. The environment is classified as a cool rainforest. Ethnobotanists have identified three distinct biogeoclimatic zones differentiated by altitude and location. In British Columbia they are named the Coastal Western Hemlock, the Mountain Hemlock, and the Coastal Douglas Fir zones. Archaeological research in this area indicates human occupation of at least ten thousand years. Changes in climate along the northern Pacific coast started around 4400 BC. A corresponding increase in the availability of food resources, particularly salmon, is reflected in settlement patterns and the modification of tools used in food gathering. Excavations show established villages along riverbanks and on oceanfront inlets that provided shelter from winter storms. These communities were primarily maritime based. People were dependent on the spring and fall return of salmon to the rivers but also ventured out onto the ocean for deep-sea fishing of herring, black cod, and halibut. They hunted sea mammals along the coast and some groups, such as the Nuu-chah-nulth, were whalers. Shellfish were gathered during the winter months to supplement depleting food stocks. In the spring and summer people left their winter villages and moved inland or along the coast to family-owned fishing, hunting, and berry-picking sites. Tall, straight cedar trees were a major source of building material for houses and canoes and for the manufacture of bowls, boxes, and other household utensils. Roots and bark from various grasses, trees, and bushes provided fibers for basketry, clothing, and cordage. Typically, Northwest Coast social organization was stratified into three groups: nobles, commoners, and slaves. Noble or chiefly families controlled access to food-gathering sites as well as the intangible, but inheritable, property of names, songs, and dance performances. Slaves were individuals or descendants of individuals taken as prisoners in raids or during warfare. The Plateau culture area, situated behind the Cascade Mountain range, extends to the Rockies and encompasses the Fraser and Columbia River systems. This large region incorporates several mountain ranges and a mixture of plateaus and valleys that vary from one hundred meters to twenty-five-hundred meters above sea level. Seven habitat zones have been identified for the Plateau, including steppe grasslands, woodlands, forests, and meadows. The area of particular interest for this study is the Thompson Plateau and Fraser River valley. Here the climate is one of hot summers and cold winters with an annual precipitation of 25–40 cm. Archaeological evidence suggests human occupation in this area of about nine thousand years. Winter villages, usually built along a riverbank or lakeshore, consisted of several circular semi-subterranean houses. Summer dwellings constructed near hunting, fishing, and gathering sites were shelters of poles, often conical in shape, covered with woven mats. Freshwater lakes held a variety of fish and, in the spring and fall, spawning salmon were taken from local rivers. Deer and small game were important sources of meat, fur, or hides for clothing. Their bone, teeth, and antlers were used for making tools. Roots and berries were gathered for food, and plants such as nettle, willow, and cedar supplied resources for weaving and basketry. Social organization in Plateau cultures was less stratified than on the coast. Decisions were made using a communal process, though leadership roles were often assigned to individuals with particular skills in organizing a hunting party or conducting a raid on a neighboring village. Slaves were taken during warfare or raiding. Among the Northern Thompsons (Nlaka'pamux), children or women of this class were occasionally integrated into the general population. Resources for Weaving Salish weavers in these culture areas harvested and prepared local plant and animal fibers from the spring to the fall as they became available for gathering. The fibers were usually spun and woven during the winter months. Mountain goat hair, sometimes supplemented with dog hair and plant fiber, was primarily used for ceremonial items. Cedar roots, withes, and bark supplied materials for baskets, tumplines, and clothing on the coast. In the interior, willow was used for capes, headdresses, aprons, and leggings. Examples of clothing made from sagebrush and black tree lichen are found in several museum collections. The binding thread for such garments was usually a finely spun Indian hemp, nettle, or bark fiber. Other animal fibers, such as bear and raccoon, along with bird down and feathers, were incorporated into the threads or weavings to add a decorative element or to increase the warmth or softness of the textile. Bedding or mattress material in the form of large mats was made from sewn or twined reeds and bulrushes. Sleeping blankets of animal or plant fiber were sometimes thickened and given extra warmth by including the fluff or seed material from fireweed and milkweed. Myron Eells describes a typical blanket in the Puget Sound area as being made of "dog's hair, geese or duck down, and the cotton from the fireweed. These were twisted into strings and woven together." A small blanket in the Canadian Museum of History is composed of grouse feathers twisted in sagebrush bark, and a similar blanket or robe made of waterfowl down is found in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution. The preparation of thread from plants such as nettle and hemp for use in weaving and cordage or to make fish and deer nets is well documented. Weavers collected plant stems or tree bark that offered long, straight fibers. To separate the outer layer from the inner bark or usable core, the gathered material could be either dried or soaked, and the resulting strands were often hackled or splintered to soften the fibers for spinning. Among the Nlaka'pamux, for example, Indian hemp (Apocynum cannabinum), or "specn," is gathered in the fall. The stalks are cut near the ground, then stripped of leaves and small branches. They are soaked to help remove the outer bark, and the softened stems are split down the center to form a flat strip. The inner pith or core of fibers is cleaned and separated by being pulled over the edge of a wooden board. The resulting filaments are spun by rolling them downward between the hand and the thigh or over the knee. Additional length is added by splicing new fibers into the end of the spun thread. This form of hand spinning, which may also require the plying of two or more spun threads to create a stronger yarn, is a slow process. For example, a recently made hemp weft, prepared for an adult-sized willow bark cape, required about two weeks of work. Wool spinning is equally time consuming. A contemporary Haida weaver who "thigh spins" her warp and weft from fine merino wool roving estimates six months of work to prepare yardage for an adult Raven's Tail or Chilkat (naaxiin) robe. The mountain goat is held in highest regard for what it provided — food, ornament, bracelets, wool, rendering fat, and very strong sinew. All those things from the goat — the hair, horns, bones — must be treated with respect. These things are going from that life-form to another life-form. They can remain a long, long time; just look at the blankets in museums. — Chief Janice George; a teaching from Louis Miranda, Squamish Of particular interest to this volume are the Salish blankets and clothing that were woven of mountain goat fiber. The animal was and is held "in high esteem" by members of the Salish community. Its wool was generally chosen for use on objects and in clothing required for ritual occasions. The white color is considered a symbol of purity and is emblematic of the "new beginnings" that occur in a person's life cycle — receiving a new name, celebrating a marriage, or holding a memorial for a loved one. The remoteness of the mountain goat's habitat and relatively rare sightings of it also evoke associations of Ancestral encounters with supernatural beings in isolated places. And though all hunters receive teachings about the taking of animal life for food and sustenance, mountain goat hunters receive special training to build the required physical endurance, develop tracking skills for rugged terrain, and learn about the mountain goat's behavior and spirit. A Hunter's Story Chief Ian Campbell, Squamish I've flown our whole territory a few times by chopper and ... I pretty much know where all the goats are in our territory and there are a few experiences when I've gone out hunting for them. They're magicians. They're powerful. They'll challenge you if you are not fully prepared; if you haven't prepared yourself and you are not in the right frame of mind or heart or intentions, or if there are distractions in your life or relationships or anything else. If you are not prepared, fully giving them your homage, your intention, they just won't give themselves to you. There are some places up there where I've gone after this one billy three times. It has always been an arduous climb because there is nothing easy about it. You've got to put in days of hiking and camping on the ground and packing as little as you can. This one time I went after this billy up there that I'd seen when I was flying over in a chopper. There's a big billy like a three-hundred-pound billy goat. He stood up and looking at me as I was flying by and I was thinking, "I'm coming back you know." So I went after him and I had my nephews with me, there were three or four of us went in. Had my meals with me, my pack, but it was like minus 6 every day. It was crystal-clear skies every single day. We got right up into the bowl, right where he was. I camped in the bowl the last night just before I made the summit to go after him on the ridge. It was sunny every single day, really crisp out. The one night, right before I was going to go do the hunt, at about four or five in the morning it starts snowing like crazy. It snows and it snows and it snows. By the time I woke up there was a half foot of snow on me. So I go okay, I am going up on the summit here and have a look around. So I get up there and drop all my gear. Start doing the stalk over towards the ridge there and it just keeps snowing harder and harder until it is just whiteout conditions — like a complete whiteout. It is really dangerous up in the high country on these bluffs and cliffs when it is like that. I had my buddy with me and we see this fresh set of goat tracks. They are super fresh because it is snowing like crazy and I sort of like start following them. I'm stalking this goat, and he goes down and he goes around and he does this whole circle and brings us right back to where we started. And I am like, ah you crazy billy, he knew exactly where we were. 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Salish Blankets
Robes of Protection and Transformation, Symbols of Wealth
By Leslie H. Tepper UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS
Copyright © 2017 Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8032-9692-3
CHAPTER 1
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Excerpted from Salish Blankets by Leslie H. Tepper. Copyright © 2017 Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska. Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS.
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Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
List of Tables
Acknowledgments
Introduction
List of Abbreviations
1. Framework
2. A Weaving Legacy
3. The Weavings
4. Color and Motif
5. Great Weavings
6. Merged Objects
Finis
Appendix 1: Teachings and Stories
Appendix 2: Salish Textiles in Museum Collections
Notes
Bibliography
Index