The Salish peoples are the Indigenous peoples which speak or historically spoke the Salishan languages.[1] The Salishan peoples are in two cultural areas, the Northwest Coast and the Plateau areas.
The term "Salish" originated in the modern era as an exonym created for linguistic research. Salish is an anglicization of Séliš, the endonym for the Salish Tribes of the Flathead Reservation. The Séliš were the easternmost Salish people and the first to have a diplomatic relationship with the United States so their name was applied broadly to all peoples speaking a related language.[citation needed]
The Salishan languages are divided into fthree to five groups: Bella Coola (Nuxalk), Coast Salish, Interior Salish, Tsamosan, and Tillamook (the latter two are sometimes considered as part of the Coast Salish languages, sometimes considered a full branch).[citation needed] Among these branches, there are twenty-three documented languages. At least five of these are no longer in use, while the rest are seriously endangered. The majority of fluent Salish-speakers are elderly, and younger speakers are quite rare. In spite of this, there are ongoing efforts to keep the languages alive through revitalization programs planned and conducted by various tribal organisations. Currently, a team of scholars is conducting research on the languages in order to create reference material and educational resources.[2][bettersourceneeded][3][bettersourceneeded]
Salish languages, especially those of the Coast peoples, are threatened primarily by assimilation. State programs such as the Canadian residential schools (where indigenous languages were prohibited) have been a major factor in reducing the number of fluent Salish speakers. Schools today, however, from the secondary to the university level, are actively promoting knowledge and use of the Salish languages.[4][bettersourceneeded]
Pre-contact distribution of Salishan languages (in red)
In 1988, the Self Governance Demonstration Project of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (the CSKT) was successful, and the U.S. government returned full autonomy to their tribal leadership in 1993. Over the following decades the CSKT has reverted to traditional governance in which Elders provide counsel, to the chief, on tribal policies, culture and education, and in turn tribal policies have grown out of a desire to strengthen the community's ties to their cultural heritage.[5]
In a move to self-identify and push back against the effects of the Indian Termination policy, namely assimilation, in 2016 the tribe chose to change their name from the anglicized "Salish-Prend d'Oreille" to Séliš-Ql̓ispé. The change was part of a wider movement to include more Salishan in the community's daily lives.
For the Séliš-Ql̓ispé, language and culture are entwined — through oral histories, food practices, horticulture, environment, and spirituality. By reviving the language, they hope to also reclaim their identity, their health, and their culture.[6]
Community efforts to revitalize the Salishan language and culture, aside from efforts to teach classes on language (in some cases, full-immersion into the language with no falling back onto English), include such things as virtual tours and museums, such as the Sq'éwlets, which is a Stó:lō-Coast Salish Community in the Fraser River Valley.[7] There is also the People's Center Museum[8] that opened in 1994 and hosts a rotating exhibition of Salish and Kootenai cultural artifacts. The museum is supplemented with an oral tradition of story-telling that explains the significance of the pieces on display and shares the stories of the people who lived in the time before and during the European invasion.[8]
Salish weavers used both plant and animal fibers. Coast Salish peoples kept flocks of woolly dogs, bred for their wool, to shear and spin the fibers into yarn. The Coast Salish would also use mountain goat wool, waterfowl down, and various plant fibers including cedar bark, nettle fiber, milkweed and hemp. They would combine these materials in their weaving. A type of white clay was pounded into the fibers, possibly for the purpose of extracting oil from the wool.[9] Not all Salish blankets were made with dog's wool—commoners' blankets were usually made of plant fibers. The designs of Salish weavings commonly featured graphical patterns such as zig-zag, diamond shapes, squares, rectangles, V-shapes and chevrons.[10][11]
In the early to mid-nineteenth century, the fur trade brought Hudson's Bay blankets to the Pacific Northwest. The influx of these cheaper, machine-made blankets led to the decline of native wool blankets that were expensive and labor-intensive to produce. Salish weaving continued to a lesser extent, but the weavers largely transitioned to using sheep's wool yarn brought to the area by traders, as it was less costly than keeping the salmon-eating woolly dogs.[12]
There was a revival of Salish weaving in the 1960s, and the Salish Weavers Guild was formed in 1971.[13]
Objects made with cedar at Tulalip Tribes Hibulb Cultural Center
Use of cedar
Plentiful in the Pacific Northwest, the Western Red Cedar was a vital resource in Coast Salish peoples' lives. Canoes, longhouses, totem poles, baskets, mats, clothing, and more were all made using cedar.
Totem poles
Totem poles did not exist in Coast Salish culture until the twentieth century, when the totem pole tradition was adopted by Coast Salish peoples from their northern neighbors. Originally, Coast Salish peoples carved house posts in the interior and exterior of longhouses.[14][15][16][17]
"Musqueam welcome figures" by Susan A. Point in the International Arrivals hall of Vancouver International Airport
Salish peoples located in the Pacific Northwest and parts of Southern Alaska were known to build totem poles that were meant to symbolize a tribe member's spirit animal or family crest. They continue on this legacy today by selling hand carved totem poles formed in the same fashion.[18]
Contemporary Salish artists
Susan A. Point is a Musqueam wood carver and glass artist. Her work "Musqueam Welcome Figures", inspired by Coast Salish house posts, is featured in the Vancouver International Airport.
Matika Wilbur is a Swinomish and Tulalip photographer, and the creator of Project 562, which documents contemporary Native Americans from the 562 federally-recognized tribes in the United States.[19]
Debra Sparrow is a Musqueam artist and weaver. Her weaving was featured in The Fabric of Our Land: Salish Weaving exhibit at the Museum of Anthropology in 2017–2018.[20]
Corwin Clairmont is a Salish Kootenai printmaker, and a conceptual and installation artist.
Salish people groups are subdivided by their respective branches of the Salishan language family: Coast Salish (peoples) speaking the Coast Salish languages, Interior Salish (peoples) speaking the Interior Salish languages, and the Nuxalk (Bella Coola) people speaking the Nuxalk language.
The Nuxalk are the northernmost Salish peoples, located in and around Bella Coola, British Columbia. This area is separated from the main continuous land area known to be populated by Salish peoples.
Below is a list of most, but not all, Salish tribes and bands, listed from north to south.
↑ Ritchie, Morgan; Lepofsky, Dana; Formosa, Sue; Porcic, Marko; Edinborough, Kevan (September 2016). "Beyond culture history: Coast Salish settlement patterning and demography in the Fraser Valley, BC". Journal of Anthropological Archaeology. 43: 140–154. doi:10.1016/j.jaa.2016.06.002. ISSN0278-4165.
1 2 "Museum". The People's Center. Retrieved November 18, 2019.
↑ Hammond-Kaarremaa, Liz (Spring 2016). "A CURIOUS CLAY: The Use of a Powdered White Substance in Coast Salish Spinning and Woven Blankets". BC Studies. 189: 129–149, 197–198 – via Gale.
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