Since the Time of the Transformers: The Ancient Heritage of the Nuu-Chah-Nulth, Ditidaht and Makah

265 Pages·1999·28.383 MB·English

by  Alan D. McMillan

Since the Time of the Transformers
Pacific Rim Archaeology
This series is an initiative of UBC Laboratory of Archaeology and UBC Press.
It provides a source of scholarly reporting on significant new archaeological
research along the entire Pacific Rim - spanning the region from Southeast
Asia to western North America and Pacific Latin America. The series will
publish reports on archaeological fieldwork in longer monograph form as
well as edited volumes of shorter works dealing with contemporary themes.
The general editors of the series are Michael Blake and R.G. Matson, both
faculty members in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at the
University of British Columbia.
Since the Time of the Transformers is the second volume in the series. The
first was Hidden Dimensions: The Cultural Significance of Wetland Archaeology,
edited by Kathryn Bernick.
Alan D. McMillan
Since the Time of the Transformers:
The Ancient Heritage of the
Nuu-chah-nulth, Ditidaht, and
Makah
UBCPress /Vancouver
© UBC Press 1999
Reprinted 2000
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
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Printed in Canada on acid-free paper °°
ISBN 0-7748-0700-8 (hardcover)
ISBN 0-7748-0701-6 (paperback)
Pacific Rim Archaeology (ISSN 1483-2283)
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
McMillan, Alan D. (Alan Daniel), 1945-
Since the time of the transformers
(Pacific Rim archaeology, ISSN 1483-2283)
Included biblographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7748-0700-8 (bound); ISBN 0-7748-0701-6 (pbk.)
1. Nootka Indians - History. 2. Nootka Indians - Antiquities. 3. Makah Indians -
History. 4. Makah Indians - Antiquities. I. Title. II. Series.
E99.N85M36 1999 971.1'2004979 C99-910015-7
This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Humanities and
Social Sciences Federation of Canada, using funds provided by the Social Sciences
and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
UBC Press also gratefully acknowledges the ongoing support to its publishing
program from the Canada Council for the Arts, the British Columbia Arts Council,
and the Multiculturalism Program of the Department of Canadian Heritage.
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Contents
Figures, Maps, and Tables / vii
Acknowledgments / xi
1 Setting the Stage / 3
2 Differing Approaches to the Nuu-chah-nulth Past / 30
3 Archaeological Research in Nuu-chah-nulth Territory / 47
4 The Emergence of the West Coast Culture Type / 104
5 The Late West Coast Culture Type /126
6 The Transition to Recorded History / 178
7 Recent History and the Modern Communities / 215
References / 225
Index / 248
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Figures, Maps, and Tables
Figures
1 John Webber watercolour (1778) of Nuu-chah-nulth man at Nootka
Sound / 9
2 Photographs taken in the 1860s of Nuu-chah-nulth (Tseshaht) man,
Ditidaht man, and Makah woman / 11
3 The village of Yuquot in Nootka Sound, as seen by Cook's officers / 12
4 John Webber watercolour (1778) of the interior of a house at Yuquot / 13
5 Nuu-chah-nulth whaler attaching the harpoon head to the shaft / 19
6 Nuu-chah-nulth women with open-weave baskets and digging sticks / 20
7 Part of the Makah village of Neah Bay, photographed by E.S. Curtis,
c. 1916/21
8 Chief Joseph of the Tla-o-qui-aht, wearing a Thunderbird headdress,
1929 / 22
9 Nuu-chah-nulth Wolf headdress, of the type used in the tlukwana
ceremony / 23
10 Aerial view of Barkley Sound / 26
11 The boundary rock between Ucluelet and Toquaht territories / 27
12 Aerial view of Yuquot, 1976 / 53
13 Excavation in progress at Yuquot, 1966 / 54
14 Toquaht chief Bert Mack discusses an artifact found at Macoah with
project co-director Denis St. Claire / 63
15 Macoah (DfSi 5), looking north to the rocky point for which the site is
named / 65
16 Aerial view of T'ukw'aa (DfSj 23) / 67
17 T'ukw'aa from the terrace at the eastern end of the site / 67
18 Profiling a completed excavation unit at T'ukw'aa / 68
19 Ch'uumat'a (DfSi 4) / 69
20 DfSj 30, a lookout site on the outer George Fraser Islands / 72
21 Excavation in progress across the centre of DfSj 30 / 73
22 Excavation in the main house area at Ozette, 1973 / 89
viii Figures, Maps, and Tables
23 Broken plank, carved with the images of Thunderbird and Wolf, exposed
during excavation at Ozette / 90
24 Hydraulic excavation in the intertidal zone at the Hoko River wet site,
1978 / 94
25 Composite fishhook, with wooden shanks, bone barb, and spruce-root
wrapping, in the waterlogged deposits at Hoko River / 95
26 Large fragment of open-weave carrying basket in the waterlogged deposits
at Hoko River / 96
27 Surface collected lithic artifacts from DhSf 31, an elevated site in the
Alberni Valley / 107
28 Chipped stone bifaces from intertidal contexts in Barkley and Nootka
Sounds / 108
29 Chipped stone artifacts from Ch'uumat'a / 115
30 Ch'uumat'a ground stone and bone objects resembling Gulf Islands
complex artifacts /116
31 Decorated schist object from the base of deposits at Ch'uumat'a / 117
32 Valves from whaling harpoon heads, decorated with incised designs / 133
33 Nuu-chah-nulth whaling ceremonies in staged E.S. Curtis photograph,
c. 1915 / 138
34 Cleaning halibut on the beach at Neah Bay, c. 1915/141
35 Makah plank houses are visible below the lighthouse in this 1912 picture
of Tatoosh Island / 142
36 Decorated whalebone club handles from West Coast sites / 146
37 The defensive site (DfSh 79) on Dicebox Island, Broken Group, Barkley
Sound / 149
38 The Huu-ay-aht village site of Kiix7in (DeSh 1) and its defensive site
(DeSh 2), known locally as "Execution Rock" / 149
39 Engraving showing the Ditidaht village of Whyac, at Nitinat Narrows,
in 1864 / 150
40 Inside the whaling shrine near Yuquot, showing a row of carved wooden
human figures, along with wooden whales and human skulls / 161
41 Richard Daugherty poses with a carved wooden effigy of a whale dorsal
fin at Ozette, 1970 / 162
42 Red ochre pictograph of Thunderbird (DkSp 8), Hisnit Inlet, Nootka
Sound / 165
43 Anthropomorphs and whales, Clo-oose Hill petroglyph site (DdSe 14) /166
44 Petroglyphs on boulders at the Wedding Rocks site (45CA31) south of
Ozette / 166
45 Detail of the Sproat Lake petroglyphs (DhSf 1), showing mythical marine
creatures / 167
46 Sailing ship and vulvic image carved on beach boulder, Wedding Rocks
site (45CA31) / 168
47 Artifacts of the late West Coast culture type /170
Figures, Maps, and Tables ix
48 Grooved bark beater of whalebone, found in late precontact deposits at
T'ukw'aa / 174
49 Plot showing relative similarity of six site assemblages by multi-
dimensional scaling / 176
50 John Webber drawing of Nuu-chah-nulth canoes encircling Cook's ship,
the Resolution, at anchor in Nootka Sound in 1778 / 180
51 Chief Maquinna of Nootka Sound, from a 1791 sketch by Spanish artist
Tomas de Suria / 182
52 Chief Tatoosh of the Cape Flattery area, as drawn by the Spanish artist
Jose Cardero in 1791 / 183
53 The Spanish settlement at Yuquot in 1791 / 187
54 Maquinna and Callicum, chiefs at Nootka Sound / 199
55 Carved house post and beam in upper Barkley Sound at Ekool (Hikwuulh),
the main village of the Ekoolthaht (Hikwuulh7ath), 1912 / 206
56 A house frame and two large carved figures at the Huu-ay-aht village of
Kiix7in I 210
57 Makah children dancing at Makah Days celebrations, 1997 / 219
58 Makah Days celebrations, 1977, showing women wearing modern replicas
of hats excavated from Ozette / 220
59 Makah woman wearing large headdress in Makah Days parade, 1982 / 220
60 Nuu-chah-nulth men play lahal, the "bones game," at Neah Bay during
Makah Days, 1975 / 221
61 A Nuu-chah-nulth whaling canoe, carved by Hesquiaht artist Tim Paul in
1997, is taken for a test run on Sproat Lake / 222
Maps
1 Traditional territories of the Nuu-chah-nulth, Ditidaht, and Makah in the
nineteenth century / 7
2 Location of Nuu-chah-nulth, Ditidaht, and Makah political groups by the
early twentieth century / 14
3 Barkley Sound, showing nineteenth-century Nuu-chah-nulth group
territories / 25
4 Location of excavated sites in Nuu-chah-nulth, Ditidaht, and Makah
territories / 49
5 Excavated sites in Nootka Sound and Hesquiat Harbour / 52
6 Toquaht traditional territory in western Barkley Sound, showing locations
of five sites excavated as part of the Toquaht Archaeological Project / 64
7 Contour map of T'ukw'aa, showing location of excavation units / 66
8 Map of Ch'uumat'a, showing locations of excavation units / 70
9 Location of recorded defensive sites or lookouts in Nuu-chah-nulth,
Ditidaht, and Makah territories / 148
10 Location of recorded rock art sites in Nuu-chah-nulth, Ditidaht, and
Makah territories / 164