POWER, PRACTICE, ANARCHISM AND WARFARE IN THE COAST SALISH PAST by WILLIAM O ...

374 Pages·2009·12.11 MB·English

"THEY RECOGNIZE NO SUPERIOR CHIEF"
POWER, PRACTICE, ANARCHISM AND
WARFARE IN THE COAST SALISH PAST
by
WILLIAM O. ANGELBECK
M.A., The University of Missouri, 1997
B.A., Southwest Missouri State University, 1992
A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
in
THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES
(Anthropology)
THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
(Vancouver)
April 2009
© William O. Angelbeck, 2009
ABSTRACT
This inquiry focuses on warfare in the Coast Salish past. Located in the
Northwest Coast of North America, the Coast Salish practiced warfare as a basic
component of their culture, and warfare manifested in two main periods.
Archaeologically, fortified defensive sites were constructed from 1600 to 500 BP.
According to ethnohistoric documents and oral histories, conflicts also erupted in the
decades after Euroamerican contact, about AD 1790. For this study, I incorporate
archaeological, ethnographic, ethnohistoric, and oral historical data for an investigation
of warfare, including Coast Salish practices, protocols, and ideology. I assess the types
of settings in which warfare occurred and evaluate the motivations for conflict. Finally, I
examine these practices for insights into Coast Salish sociopolitical organization and
how it altered through time.
To evaluate the array of data, I employ a theoretical framework integrating
power, practice, and anarchism. For power, I implement Eric Wolf’s modes of power to
assess the intensity of conflicts and scales of defensive site construction. For practice, I
harness Pierre Bourdieu’s materialist approach to culture, which is focused on historical,
human actions, or practices; moreover, Bourdieu’s multiple types of capital provide a
rubric for assessing motivations for warfare as individuals pursue and exchange various
forms of capital. The theory of anarchism provides principles for evaluating the
dynamics of societies without formal governments. These include an emphasis on local
autonomy, voluntary association, mutual aid, network organization, and the
decentralization of authority (and resistance to concentrations of authority). This
framework illuminates how these principles varied throughout the Coast Salish past and
highlights significant differences in defensive structures between precontact and
colonial periods.
–– ii ––
Both periods of warfare appear after phases of increasing entrenchment of elite
power and hegemony (2400 - 1600 BP and ca. 500 to 200 BP). Both periods also exhibit a
broader expanse of elites, or nouveau riche. I conclude that warfare was an anarchic
practice implemented by Coast Salish factions to destabilize elite power structures and
allow non-elites to gain wealth and prestige. These practices resulted in the
decentralization of power––a heterarchy of chiefs, rather than a centralized chiefdom.
–– iii ––
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract ..........................................................................................................................ii
Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................iv
List of Tables .......................................................................................................................vii
List of Figures ......................................................................................................................viii
Acknowledgments.........................................................................................................................x
Chapter I: Introduction................................................................................................................1
The Subject of Warfare.....................................................................................................4
Nested Levels of Analysis: Power, Practice, and Anarchism....................................6
The Theoretical Approach and Argument....................................................................7
Chapter II: The Theoretical Framework––Power, Practice, and Anarchism...................15
Power ........................................................................................................................15
Practice Theory ...............................................................................................................22
Anarchism........................................................................................................................27
Core Principles of Anarchism................................................................................28
Individual and local autonomy.......................................................................29
Voluntary association........................................................................................29
Mutual aid...........................................................................................................30
Network organization.......................................................................................32
Decentralization and antiauthoritarianism....................................................34
Justified authorities............................................................................................35
An Anarchist Theory of History............................................................................36
Integrating Anarchism, Practice, and Power..............................................................39
Chapter III: The Anthropology and Archaeology of Warfare............................................40
The Concern with Origins.............................................................................................40
Scalar Approach to Power......................................................................................43
The Concern for Causes.................................................................................................49
Anarchist Theories of Warfare......................................................................................53
Interrelating Scales through Alliance Formation................................................58
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................65
Chapter IV: Histories of Warfare from Documents and Oral Histories...........................69
Early Accounts of Warfare.............................................................................................69
The Fort Langley Journals.......................................................................................73
Accounts from the 1840s and 1850s.......................................................................75
The Memoirs of Samuel Hancock..........................................................................77
A Scalar Approach to Accounts of Warfare................................................................79
Expressions of Increasing Modes of Power..........................................................79
(i) Power as an attribute of a person, or individual power..........................80
(ii) The ability of one to impose its will on another, or relational or
interpersonal power....................................................................................80
(iii) The control of social settings, or organizational power .......................81
(iv) The ability to establish or demolish the settings themselves, or
structural power. .......................................................................................83
A “Continual State of Fear”: The Power of the Lekwiltok........................................88
Colonist and Coast Salish Conflict...............................................................................94
–– iv ––
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................96
Chapter V: Welfare and Warfare: Modes of Production and Destruction.......................99
Weapons, or the Means of Destruction......................................................................101
Melee Weapons......................................................................................................102
Projectile Weapons.................................................................................................103
Equipment and Appurtenances for Warfare............................................................105
Armour....................................................................................................................105
War Canoes.............................................................................................................106
Defensive Architecture and Head Poles.............................................................108
Warriors ......................................................................................................................109
Leaders for Defense...............................................................................................114
Roles for Defense....................................................................................................116
Women and Warfare.............................................................................................117
Organization of Defense.......................................................................................118
Warriors and Fighters............................................................................................119
Leaders for Offense................................................................................................121
Protocols of Conflict.....................................................................................................122
The Forces of Destruction............................................................................................127
The Various Forms of Capital..............................................................................129
Chapter VI: An Archaeological History of Warfare in the Northwest Coast................137
Initial Colonialization & Archaic Period (ca. 11,000 to 3500 BP)...........................138
Early Pacific (4500 to 3500 BP).....................................................................................143
Middle Pacific (3500 to 1500 BP).................................................................................147
Early Middle Pacific (3500 to 2000 BP)................................................................147
Late Middle Pacific (2000 to 1500 BP).................................................................152
On the development of an elite class............................................................155
On storage and its implications.....................................................................157
Late Pacific (1500 BP to contact)..................................................................................159
Postcontact Period.........................................................................................................163
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................167
Chapter VII: Lookouts, Refuges, Fortifications, and Stockades......................................168
The Case for Defensiveness.........................................................................................168
Defensive Aspects of Residential Villages................................................................170
Plankhouses............................................................................................................170
Household Arrangement......................................................................................173
Defensive Sites...............................................................................................................174
Lookouts..................................................................................................................174
Refuges....................................................................................................................180
Blockhouses......................................................................................................183
Underground houses.......................................................................................185
Trench-Embankment Fortifications.....................................................................190
Bluff top fortifications.....................................................................................195
Indian Fort Site (DgRr-5)..........................................................................195
Cardale Point (DgRv-1)............................................................................196
Peninsular spits................................................................................................201
Rebecca Spit (EaSh-6)................................................................................201
Manson’s Landing (EaSf-1)......................................................................204
Rocky headlands..............................................................................................204
EaSd-3..........................................................................................................205
Manor Point (DbRv-13)............................................................................207
Rock-Wall Fortifications........................................................................................209
Stockades.................................................................................................................213
–– v ––
Labour Organization....................................................................................................215
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................218
Chapter VIII: Defending Against Whom? ..........................................................................222
Coast Salish Sociopolitical Organization and Defense............................................226
Internal versus External Warfare................................................................................227
The Battle at Maple Bay...............................................................................................229
The Contextual Nature of Enmity and Alliance.......................................................241
Chapter IX: Autonomy and Alliance.....................................................................................244
The Distribution of Defensive Sites............................................................................245
Archaeological Evidence for Networks of Defense.................................................248
Historic Evidence for Strategies of Defensive Site Distribution and
Cooperation.............................................................................................................257
Indications for the Increasing Frequency of Attacks...............................................261
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................275
Chapter X: Elites, Hereditary Tradition, and Limitations to Social Mobility...............276
New Forms of Capital: The Development of the Nouveau Riche...........................277
The Balkanization of Marpole.....................................................................................281
Short-Cutting Traditional Practices to Higher Status..............................................283
Limiting or Enhancing Social Mobility––The Poles of Entrenchment and
Flexibility.................................................................................................................289
The Centrifugal Nature of Coast Salish Warfare......................................................296
Oral Histories and Accounts Concerning the Abuse of Power..............................301
Chapter XI: Conclusion............................................................................................................304
Summary of Inquiry and Arguments........................................................................304
Suttles’ Quandaries.......................................................................................................312
Bibliography ............................................................................................................................315
Appendices ............................................................................................................................354
Appendix A: Sources for Defensive Sites Listed from North to South from
Archaeological, Ethnohistoric and Ethnographic Sources. ....................................354
–– vi ––
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Types of coalitions (adapted from Tattersall 2006)..................................................63
Table 2: General chronology for the Northwest Coast and Gulf of Georgia. ..................139
Table 3: Size of Smelt Bay village, its defensive houses, and regional defensive sites....253
Table 4: Radiocarbon dates recovered at trench-embankment sites. ................................262
Table 5: Historical and ethnographic records documenting dates for stockades. ...........263
Table 6: Size of stockades from ethnohistoric descriptions.................................................264
Table 7: Underground house size and depth.........................................................................264
Table 8: Trench-embankment fortification sizes. .................................................................265
Table 9: Average size of underground houses and trench-embankment sites to
postcontact stockades...................................................................................................266
Table 10: Maximum midden depths within the defended areas of trench-
embankment sites.........................................................................................................270
Table 11: Traits of Late Period trench-embankments versus postcontact stockaded
villages............................................................................................................................271
–– vii ––
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Map of Coast Salish area, including most groups mentioned in the text.............3
Figure 2: Map showing locales of early encounters, forts, and most places
mentioned in the chapter. .............................................................................................70
Figure 3: Map showing approximate spread of smallpox in 1782 and population
estimates in the 1830s.....................................................................................................92
Figure 4: Model of the exchangeability of various forms of capital for the Coast
Salish. ......................................................................................................................130
Figure 5: Example of plankhouse as fully wooden enclosure; from a detail of a
photograph taken at a potlatch in Songhees territory in 1874................................171
Figure 6: Lookout sites in the Coast Salish area as noted in ethnographic and
archaeological sources..................................................................................................175
Figure 7: Locations of refuge areas and blockhouses. ........................................................181
Figure 8: Location and depiction of "Block House" at Lamalcha Bay village based
on British accounts in April of 1863. ........................................................................184
Figure 9: Underground refuge locations in the Coast Salish area from
archaeological and ethnographic sources.................................................................186
Figure 10: Semisubterranean pit features at Penn Cove, Whidbey Island (45IS50),
interpreted as underground refuges by Bryan.........................................................187
Figure 11: Wireframe surface map of an underground house (UH 1) at Smelt Bay
(EaSf-2) with plankhouse outline to the north (left) to indicate surface level. ...189
Figure 12: Newcombe’s drawing of two trench-embankment types on southern
Vancouver Island, including the peninsular bluff at Albert Head
and a triple trench-embankment at Cadboro Bay....................................................191
Figure 13: Locations of trench-embankment fortifications..................................................193
Figure 14: Buxton’s depiction of three major types of trench-embankments...................193
Figure 15: Typology of trench-embankment sites for this investigation...........................194
Figure 16: Harlan I. Smith’s photograph of DgRr-5 from August 7, 1915, with a
view of the trench. ........................................................................................................195
Figure 17: Drawing and interpretation of Indian Fort Site, DgRr-5, by Don Welsh........196
Figure 18: Surface map of Cardale Point (DgRv-1)...............................................................197
Figure 19: View of eastern portion of trench embankment. ..............................................198
Figure 20: View of embankment and trench from the east, Profile Trench 1....................199
Figure 21: Profile of eastern portion of trench embankment at Cardale Point as
measured with a total station (Profile Trench 1)......................................................200
Figure 22: Stratigraphic profile of the lower portion of eastern trench-embankment
(Trench Profile 1). ........................................................................................................200
Figure 23: Surface map of Rebecca Spit (EaSh-6), reconstructed from Mitchell’s
contour map. .................................................................................................................202
Figure 24: Mitchell’s stratigraphic profile of the top portion of the western trench-
embankment feature, showing stakemould of barricade and midden
material abruptly stopping at barricade wall. .........................................................203
Figure 25: Surface map of Manson’s Landing trench-embankment site (EaSf-1).............205
Figure 26: Surface map of fortification in Desolation Sound (EaSd-3), view from
the east. ......................................................................................................................206
Figure 27: Village near Bute Inlet with house-floors at top of slope extending out-
ward protectively; detail of a drawing sketched by a member of
Vancouver’s crew in 1792............................................................................................207
Figure 28: Surface map of Manor Point (DbRv-13)...............................................................208
Figure 29: View of trench at Manor Point (DbRv-13) from the east, from the
–– viii ––
highest point on the promontory behind the trench. .............................................209
Figure 30: Map of rock-wall fortifications in the Coast Salish area from
archaeological sources..................................................................................................210
Figure 31: View of rock-wall feature at Xelhálh in the Fraser Canyon. ...........................211
Figure 32: Network of rock-wall fortifications in the Fraser Canyon.................................212
Figure 33: Map of stockaded villages from ethnohistoric and ethnographic sources.....215
Figure 34: Core areas for three defensive practices and the peripheral extent for
the sharing of each practice. ......................................................................................220
Figure 35: Trench-embankment sites recorded by Bryan and Buxton in relation to
boundaries of Wakashan groups................................................................................223
Figure 36: Defensive sites in the Coast Salish area................................................................225
Figure 37: Types of conflicts in compendiums of accounts of warfare, ethno-
historically at Fort Langley and ethnographically. ................................................228
Figure 38: Map of the Battle of Maple Bay, indicating coordination of Coast Salish
groups and roles............................................................................................................235
Figure 39: Scalar portrayal of social organization and corresponding defensive
manifestation.................................................................................................................243
Figure 40: Surface map of Smelt Bay (EaSf-2), Cortes Island, indicating two
underground houses....................................................................................................250
Figure 41: Late Period defensive sites in the Smelt Bay region. ........................................251
Figure 42: Smelt Bay village site compared to average size of regional defensive site
areas. ......................................................................................................................254
Figure 43: Northern Gulf Islands network of defensive sites..............................................255
Figure 44: Map of the Battle at Lamalchi Bay, indicating coordination of defensive
efforts. ......................................................................................................................260
Figure 45: Radiocarbon dates recovered at trench-embankment sites...............................262
Figure 46: Chart comparing the average size of underground houses and trench-
embankment sites to postcontact stockades.............................................................266
Figure 47: Battle Between Clallam and Makah at I-eh-nus, 1847, by Paul Kane..............268
Figure 48: Drawing by Spanish artist of “Indian fortification on the Strait of Juan de
Fuca.” ......................................................................................................................268
Figure 49: Elmendorf’s sequence of social class evolution among the
Twana. ......................................................................................................................284
Figure 50: Number of radiocarbon-dated burials according to presence/absence of
cranial deformation.......................................................................................................293
Figure 51: Cranial deformation in burials by period, including those dated by
radiocarbon association, interpretation, or radiocarbon dates...............................293
Figure 52: Chronological chart indicating periods of entrenchment followed by
periods of warfare.........................................................................................................298
–– ix ––
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many people helped me with this project in various capacities. Foremost, I want
to acknowledge my committee, from whose scholarship I have learned a great deal––
whose ideas have influenced my thought throughout this work. Having come from
doing archaeology in the Southeast and Plains, I was initially unsettled by the lack of
ceramics and the comparative paucity of lithics. R.G. Matson’s work and teachings on
the Northwest Coast helped me find a footing in the region’s culture history and think
through the theoretical issues at debate. Bruce Miller was also foundational in this
respect, helping to situate my understanding of Coast Salish culture and its political
context. My advisor, Michael Blake has really helped advance my thought, particularly
concerning broader archaeological theory and the development of social inequality. I
respect his emphasis on collaborating with local communities, situating the
contemporary importance of archaeology. It was my interest in these subjects and
practices that drew me to study in the Department of Anthropology at UBC. I gratefully
acknowledge the years of financial support through the Charles and Alice Borden
Fellowship––support that has made this whole endeavor possible.
I have learned a great amount from my colleagues with whom I've been able to
work over the past several years. Foremost among these are Colin Grier, Eric McLay,
and David Hall. Colin Grier helped me to sharpen some of the ideas presented here as
well as contributing to fieldwork at Cardale Point. Eric McLay enabled much of my
work in Hul’qumi’num territory and donated his time to these efforts, for which I am
indebted.
I tip my hat to many others who helped me with work in the region. Dave
Schaepe provided many leads for my work in Stó:lō territory. Rudy Reimer provided a
tour of defensive sites in Squamish territory for my archaeological field school and has
also been generous with other information about the area. Darcy Mathews helped to
provide access to one site for this fieldwork. He and Pete Dady were helpful with
information about defensive and other sites on Southern Vancouver Island.
Others provided access to many reports and documents that have proven
extremely valuable. Thanks are due to Grant Keddie, who provided me with his reports
on defensive sites in the Victoria area and led me to several oral histories of warfare. I
have also spoken with others about information, reports or accounts that have proven
useful: Donald Mitchell, Richard Brolly, Al McMillan, Rob Field, Peter Merchant, Simon
Kaltenrieder, Al Mackie, Robert Mierendorf, Eric Forgeng, and Don Welsh.
At UBC, I want to acknowledge the many discussions that I have benefitted
from, including those with Jesse Morin, Nadine Gray, Gaston Gordillo, Brian Chisholm,
David Pokotylo, Patricia Ormerod, Sean Lauer, Sue Rowley, Charles Menzies, Kisha
Supernant, Andrew Martindale, and Zhi-Chun Jing.
I thank my field school team for their work at several sites, including Sean
Aldcroft, Amy Davidson, Erin Hannon, Marlowe Kennedy, Matt McGinity, and
Stephanie Watts, as well as Mark Harry and Al Hanson from the Klahoose First Nation.
Special thanks to Meng Ying who helped lead the field school and helped to orchestrate
the mapping for some of the sites included here. I thank Steven Acheson at the B.C.
Archaeology Branch for facilitating the permit for this work, and Chris Kissinger for
helping with the permit to work in BC Parks.
It has been an honor to work in the Coast Salish region. I have gained many
insights from interviews and discussions I have had with many people throughout the
region. This is especially so for the weeks spent at Frank Malloway’s longhouse in Stó:lō
territory during the ethnographic field school. I want thank Sonny McHalsie for the tour
of the area he provided and the discussions we’ve had. I want to thank the Klahoose
–– x ––