Coast Salish People: Ceremonies, Traditions & Culture

Introduction to the Coast Salish People

The Coast Salish people are members of Nations and Tribes whose traditional roots lie along the west coast of British Columbia and Washington State. The Coast Salish region extends from the northern Vancouver Island and Lower Mainland regions to the western part of Washington State. Most Coast Salish First Nations groups are found in British Columbia and Washington State ("Coast Salish Fast Facts," p. 1). The Coast Salish people share some surface similarities with other cultures of the Pacific Northwest Coast; however, a close analysis of their traditions, customs, ceremonies, and celebrations demonstrates that they are a distinctly unique people. This paper examines a brief history of the Coast Salish people and offers a thorough evaluation of their traditions, customs, ceremonies, and celebrations in order to support this thesis.

The term Coast Salish refers to several distinct languages belonging to one branch of the larger Salishan language family. The Coast Salish people are a group of linguistically and ethnically related Indigenous people from the Pacific Northwest Coast who currently live in British Columbia and Washington State. This group comprises several tribes with varying and distinct cultures and languages ("Coast Salish Fast Facts," p. 1). Their cultures differ significantly from those of their northern neighbors, making them one of the few Indigenous cultures along the coast of British Columbia with such marked distinctiveness. Based on recent statistics, it is estimated that there are more than 56,000 Coast Salish people in British Columbia and more than 28,000 in Washington State.

The Coast Salish people and their tribes occupy three geographically divided areas: the Central Coast, the Northern Coast, and the Southern Coast. Although no single language is known as "Coast Salish," these people share a cultural and ethnographic designation. According to archaeological evidence, Coast Salish people have inhabited parts of the coastal regions of British Columbia and Washington State since approximately 9000 B.C.E. Today, the Coast Salish people are actively working to regain their language and culture, much of which was nearly lost following the dispossession of their lands and disruption of their traditional lifestyles.

History and Social Organization

The Coast Salish people are located along the coastline of the northwestern United States and British Columbia in Canada. Their first documented encounter with European explorers took place in 1592 with Juan de Fuca. Despite having a complex society, the Coast Salish people settled in permanent homes built of timber and grew significantly in the region. The early settlement of these people was also characterized by a stable diet of salmon and an abundance of seafood, plants, and wildlife. In their early years along the coastline, the Coast Salish people's spiritual traditions and customs involved deep relationships with the spirit world—including guiding spirits, ancestors, and animal spirits—though most converted to Roman Catholicism following the arrival of missionaries in the 1800s.

According to ethnographic and archaeological records, Coast Salish communities were characterized by a mixture of socioeconomic and religious networks (Lepofsky, Trost & Morin 2007:190). Social interactions among various groups within these communities were organized around these networks, though scholarly knowledge of interactions among certain specific groups remains uneven. There also existed smaller networks and spheres of interaction within the wider and more complex social and economic relations among Coast Salish communities.

Coast Salish communities divided themselves into local units that were integrated through a regional network serving as the basis for redistributing people, information, and food across a wider area (Kennedy 2007:3). Marriage relations established economic links and contributed to social and political alliances, facilitating an individual's involvement in activities beyond his or her own village and helping to mitigate risk in a variable natural environment. In addition to marriage ties, kinship in these communities developed from practical and complex strategies and served as an important factor in building networks for social interaction. Kinship and marriage also functioned as crucial elements of biological, social, and cultural reproduction. The Coast Salish people utilized marriage and kinship to promote exchanges and to distinguish social groups from one another.

Traditions and Cultures of Coast Salish People

As noted above, the Coast Salish people are currently working to reclaim their culture and language that was nearly lost following the dispossession of their lands and traditional lifestyles. While Coast Salish people in British Columbia belong to First Nations, their counterparts in Washington State belong to Tribes—a distinction that makes it difficult for these communities to maintain a fully unified common culture (Webber & Neumeyer par. 1). Nevertheless, throughout their history these people have maintained distinct traditions and cultures that set them apart from other groups in British Columbia. Some of the major components of their cultural beliefs and traditions include the following.

One of the defining issues among Coast Salish communities—one that transcends political boundaries—is a shared commitment to the maintenance of natural resources. These people focus on the preservation and restoration of the Salish Sea's natural resources, which form the very foundation of their culture. The Coast Salish people have an enduring desire and commitment to preserve, safeguard, and manage the natural resources of the Salish Sea. This desire has led to unity between Coast Salish people from Washington Tribes and British Columbia's First Nations, resulting in the formation of the Coast Salish Gathering, whose primary objective is to engage in co-management of Salish Sea resources. Their deep focus on maintaining natural resources stems from the belief that the earth is the ultimate source of knowledge and nourishment—providing food, clothing, shelter, and medicine.

From the earliest period of their existence, Coast Salish people have relied on fishing as the cornerstone of their culture and survival. The mainstay of their diet was fish, particularly the wide variety of salmon ("The Coast Salish," p. 7). Consequently, these people developed several widely used fishing methods: the purse seine, the weir, and the reef net. Across all generations, the Coast Salish people observe ceremonies and recount legends associated with salmon and salmon fishing, which testify to the sacred relationship between their culture and the salmon. Some of the most well-known ceremonies related to fishing include the Tale of the Salmon Woman and the First Salmon Ceremony. The abundance of salmon in Puget Sound each spring and fall led the Coast Salish people to create Indigenous fishing tools and techniques to make the most of this abundant resource ("Coast Salish Peoples," p. 7).

Religion is another important aspect of Coast Salish culture and tradition. The Central Coast, Northern Coast, and Southern Coast Salish shared largely similar religious beliefs, ceremonies, and myths (Suttles & Lane 1990:486). The foundation of Salish society was a class system of wealthy families that served as the basis for religious beliefs and practices. Despite differences in form across groups, Coast Salish people broadly believe in guardian spirits and in the possibility of transformation between human and animal forms. As with other peoples of the Northwest Coast, religious customs and beliefs were passed down orally through songs, stories, and dances ("The Northwest Coastal People," par. 1). The Coast Salish people believed they were surrounded by supernatural beings that interfered with the natural world, and their culture emphasized the spiritual link between all living things. They also maintain complex and fluid relations between the living and the dead, and between a person and his or her soul or souls.

The arrival of missionaries in the mid-1800s had a significant impact on the religious beliefs, customs, and practices of the Coast Salish people. Missionaries introduced Christianity and Catholicism, which led to the neglect of many traditional religious practices and customs. Most surviving accounts of those older practices were drawn from the memories of elders and the few individuals who recorded oral traditions. While the Catholic faith has become a significant facet of Coast Salish religious life, there are ongoing efforts to reconcile Christian beliefs with a renewed respect for traditional religious beliefs and practices.

Artwork, found in a variety of forms, is another major component of Coast Salish traditions and culture. The importance of artwork in this culture is reflected in the fact that the Coast Salish were skilled painters and carvers, working in a distinctive style that depicted mythical figures, animals, spirit beings, and human beings. Coast Salish artwork is especially notable for its use of specific colors—particularly red and black—that represent positive and negative dimensions. As a result of this distinctive quality, Coast Salish art design has attracted growing global attention and increasing demand for these works. Common themes in Coast Salish artwork include spirituality, mythology, and the natural environment, all of which help generate themes with broad international appeal.

One of the most important aspects of Coast Salish artwork is weaving, a critical element of their cultural identity. Coast Salish weaving involved techniques that encompassed plaited and wrapped structures, plain and diagonal twinning, checker and twilled weaving, and woven decorative bands (Tepper 2008:189). The textile traditions of the Coast Salish also conventionally incorporated weaving, plaiting, and sewing (Tepper 2008:190). In Coast Salish culture, woven blankets were regarded as symbols of prosperity and were commonly gifted at potlatches ("Coast Salish Spinning and Weaving," p. 1). Because spinning and weaving were managed by women, ceremonial blankets were largely woven from mountain goat hair.

Conclusion

Throughout their existence, the Coast Salish people have differentiated themselves from neighboring groups through a sustained commitment to retaining their culture, traditions, and practices. Determining the cultural uniqueness of these people has not always been straightforward, given their surface similarities with other cultures in the Pacific Northwest. Nevertheless, an evaluation of their traditions, customs, ceremonies, and celebrations demonstrates that they are distinct from other cultures in this area. Their patrilineal social structure, reverence for both the salmon and the Western Red Cedar, ancestral sacred trust, and unique ceremonial life—including the First Salmon Ceremony, Longhouse ceremonies, and religious celebrations—collectively affirm the distinctiveness of the Coast Salish people and their enduring contributions to the cultural heritage of the Pacific Northwest.