Ceremonies of Pacific Northwest Coastal Indigenous Peoples

Overview of the Northwest Coastal Indigenous Peoples

People have been living along the Pacific Northwest Coast for more than 11,000 years. While the tribes and nations that developed there differed in their customs and cultures, they shared certain ceremonial practices — most notably those involving their most important beliefs and natural resources, such as salmon and the white deer.

The cultural region of the Northwest Coast is comprised of a narrow band of land roughly 50 miles wide (in places as narrow as one mile) and 1,500 miles long, encompassing the coastal regions of British Columbia, Southeast Alaska, Washington State, and Oregon. The geographic region is situated between the Cascade Mountains of the United States to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west, with the Coast Mountains of Canada to the north. The Pacific Northwest Coast also encompasses a number of islands of varying sizes, most notably Vancouver Island and the Queen Charlotte Islands.

There were a wide range of indigenous language families in the Pacific Northwest Coastal region, including, in alphabetical order: Athabascan, Chemakuan, Chinook, Haida, Salish, Tsimshian, Tlingit, and Wakashan. The indigenous groups that have occupied the Northwest Coast can be categorized into four basic divisions or "provinces": (1) speakers of Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and the Tsimshian-influenced Haisla (northernmost Heiltsuq or Kwakiutl) in the northern province; (2) the Wakashan province, which included the Bella Coola, the Nuu-chah-nulth, and all other Kwakiutl; (3) the Coast Salish–Chinook province, which extended south to the central coast of Oregon and included the Chinook, Tillamook, Makah, and Siuslaw, among others; and (4) the northwestern California province, which included the Athabaskan-speaking Tututni-Tolowa, Yurok, Wiyot, and Hupa, as well as the Karok. It should be noted that the only "genuine political unit for this culture area was the local band."

Taken together, the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coastal region were a diverse group that at first glance shared little beyond geographic proximity. On closer inspection, however, it becomes clear that these peoples shared a number of ceremonial practices, including those described below.

Ceremonies of the Northwest Coastal Indigenous Peoples

Potlatch

Perhaps the best known of the ceremonies of the Northwest Coastal indigenous peoples, the potlatch was used to formalize advancements in social rank within clans. While a loose hierarchy was in place, the potlatch was the ceremony whereby "changes could be processed, validated, and recorded for posterity. Potlatches functioned as the political conversion mechanism to facilitate such changes." The political conversions typically involved in potlatch ceremonies included promotions in rank, various rites of passage (girls and boys coming of age), the marking of special events (new careers, victories, deaths, and birthdays), repayment for assistance rendered in large projects such as building a house or canoe, and even face-saving occasions that required a public forum. While all Pacific Northwest groups used this ceremony, the Tlingit were especially known for their participation in potlatching.

Although the ceremony took different forms among the various indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, the majority of potlatches included games, dancing, dramatic reenactments, and feasting. The potlatch was not a spontaneous affair; families might spend several years accumulating sufficient goods to ensure that the event was memorable and that all attendees received adequate gifts. These ceremonies were not entirely altruistic — hosts typically had an ulterior motive, including the social assurance that the ceremony would be reciprocated by others in the future.

Potlatches also provided a mechanism whereby familial solidarity and prestige were enhanced through the collective effort required to host such a large ceremony. As one authority concludes, "Through potlatches the Northwest people confirmed their social positions, distributed wealth to the community, integrated their social groups (by making kin more dependent on each other), invested — often with interest — in their future, and perhaps channeled aggression into a harmless kind of rivalry, thus avoiding more physically and socially destructive conflict."

Salmon Ceremony

Much as the bison was fundamental to the indigenous peoples of the American Plains, salmon were central to the life of the indigenous peoples of the Northwest Coast and formed the focus of the salmon ceremony. According to O'Brien, "Religious life in the region has also been transformed by a return of first salmon ceremonies and the revival of traditional winter spirit dances (also known as the longhouse or smokehouse tradition)." The salmon ceremony typically begins by celebrating the annual return of the salmon, thereby reestablishing the longstanding connection between the tribal community and the fish, as well as the community's respect for these animals and its commitment to harvesting this bounty sustainably in order to ensure its availability for future generations.

After the first salmon is caught during this ceremony, it is brought back to shore to the accompaniment of drums and singing. The salmon is then cleaned, and everyone attending the ceremony is entitled to a single bite of the first fish. All remaining parts of the fish are carefully gathered up and ceremonially returned to the water to ensure future salmon runs. Although the salmon ceremony diminished in importance until the 1970s, it has since become an increasingly popular annual event.

White Deerskin Dance

Like the salmon ceremony, the White Deerskin Dance is an important ceremony that reflects the longstanding cultural and religious practices of the Hoopa Valley Tribe. The White Deerskin Dance is performed every two years by the Hoopa for between 5 and 16 days in order to attain "world renewal" for the Hoopa as well as "for all people." The ceremony is comprised of five dances performed to ensure the restoration of balance in the world and to achieve its annual renewal. The ceremony integrates elements from the natural world to celebrate the origin of the tribe, which is regarded as "the center of the [Hoopa] world."

The Hoopa perform the ceremonial dance on Bald Hill, which is regarded as a sacred and historic site on the tribe's reservation; archaeological evidence suggests the ceremonial site could date back as many as 50,000 years. The White Deerskin Dance is also performed in specially constructed longhouses built for this purpose. Beyond assuring the renewal of the world, this ceremony serves to transmit the tribe's cultural and religious practices to future generations and to promote social order.

The White Deerskin Dance is especially distinctive because participants wear and display albino deer skins, which are difficult to obtain, along with adornments of chert bifaces and obsidian pieces.

Jumping Dance

Like the salmon ceremony, the Jumping Dance was a ceremony of renewal. It featured highly decorated headdresses that might contain as many as 70 scalps of the redheaded woodpecker, along with dance baskets. In 1700, the Yurok staged a jumping dance in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent earthquakes from destroying their homeland in northern California. According to one ethnographer, "The jump dance was held in the spring, when the salmon had started to run. This dance, accompanied by singing, was characterized by the wearing of red woodpecker feather headdresses and by the carrying of special jump dance baskets."

Conclusion

The research showed that people have been living along the Northwest Pacific Coastal region for more than eleven millennia, and a number of indigenous peoples developed an elaborate system of ceremonies that typically included feasting, singing, dancing, and jumping — practices intended to reinforce social ties within the tribe and promote social harmony. These ceremonies were also used to ensure the continuing survival of the groups by reconnecting them with the natural resources they depended upon for their livelihoods.

The research further showed that the study of these indigenous peoples can provide modern ethnographers and the general public with an increased appreciation and respect for the importance and centrality of these ceremonies to the lives of indigenous peoples. The ceremonies of the Pacific Northwest Coastal region — the Potlatch, the Salmon Ceremony, the White Deerskin Dance, and the Jumping Dance — each represent sophisticated social, spiritual, and ecological systems that reflect thousands of years of accumulated cultural knowledge and community practice.