Nuxalk

By ADAM ARTHUR SOLOMONIAN

Bella Coola Indians

Nuxalkmc are the descendents of indigenous peoples who have inhabited the Bella Coola Valley region since time immemorial. This presence is recorded in Nuxalk oral histories known as smayustas. Nuxalk territory is a vast area of land extending from the coastal channels to the Interior Plateau region of central British Columbia. Like most of what is now British Columbia, the Bella Coola region is unceded First Nations territory as per the ordinances of the Royal Proclamation of 1763. This does not mean that Nuxalkmc have not been systematically removed from control of their territory and culture through years of federal and provincial legislation, and generations of colonial violence. The Bella Coola Valley lies in the Coast Mountain range of British Columbia. Much of Nuxalk life centers on the numerous rivers, ocean channels, and fjords, such as the Bella Coola, Dean, and Kimsquit rivers, that run through their territory, and the surrounding Great Bear rainforest, a coastal temperate rainforest with some of the oldest and largest trees on Earth. Ancestors of Nuxalkmc were scattered throughout this territory in numerous politically autonomous village sites at places like Talyu (Tallio), Suts’lhm (Kimsquit), Kwalhna (Kwatna), Q’umk’uts, Stwic, and Nusqlst (Boas 1898; McIlwraith 1948). In the 1920’s, anthropologist T. F. McIlwraith recorded the names of some 45 remembered villages. After contact, Nuxalkmc gradually migrated from these village sites and took up residence at the reserve community of Bella Coola, a town site now located on the southern shore of the Bella Coola river, near the location of the Nuxalk village of Q’umk’uts.

The Nuxalk (pronounced new-hulk) are a Canadian First Nations group located in the country’s westernmost province of British Columbia. The Nuxalk Nation is located in the Bella Coola Valley area of British Columbia’s Central Coast, approximately 430 kilometers northwest of the province’s largest city, Vancouver. The name “Nuxalk” is a term in their language to denote both language of the people, and one of the main territories from which Nuxalkmc (pronounced new-hulk-um, meaning “Nuxalk people”) claim ancestry. Since contact, outsiders have referred to the group as the “Bella Coola Indians,” the name by which Nuxalkmc were officially known until the 1980’s. This is thought to derive from a term in the Heiltsuk language, bilxula. In the 1980’s Nuxalk political and cultural leaders put forth “Nuxalk” (and the political designation “Nuxalk Nation”) as the name by which they wished to be thenceforth known.

Before contact, the estimated Nuxalk population in the Bella Coola Valley was approximately 3000 individuals. The population was decimated following the effects of colonial contact, particularly a massive smallpox epidemic between 1862-1864. By 1868 the Nuxalk population was recorded as a mere 402 individuals. By the 1920’s the number had dropped to 300. This number has been steadily rising in recent years. Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) statistics list the “registered” Nuxalk population to be 1534, as of April 2010. The Nuxalk hereditary government, however, estimates the number to be closer to 3000, accounting for people of Nuxalk ancestry who are either not registered with the federal government or registered to another Band. As of 2010, the majority of the Nuxalk population in the Bella Coola Valley lives on reserve at Bella Coola or Four Mile, another reserve community approximately 5 kilometers from the Bella Coola townsite, with a combined population of 900. Many more Nuxalkmc live outside of Bella Coola at places like Vancouver and Williams Lake, BC. Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) statistics list the “registered” Nuxalk population to be 1534, as of April 2010. The Nuxalk hereditary government, however, estimates the number to be closer to 3000, accounting for people of Nuxalk ancestry who are either not registered with the federal government or registered to another Band.

Nuxalk is a dialect of the Salishan language family. Salish languages are spoken by a significant number of groups inhabiting the coastal regions of what is now British Columbia in Canada, and the states of Washington and Oregon in the United States of America. Nuxalk is considered to be a “language isolate.” Nuxalkmc are significantly geographically disconnected from other Salish-speaking groups and are bordered by Athabascan and Wakashan-speakers.

Nuxalkmc and their ancestors have occupied the Bella Coola Valley and its region since time immemorial. At the beginning of time the creator, Atquntam, made the Four Carpenters who constructed their original heavenly home, Nusmata, which means “the place of myths” and all life, both natural and supernatural, within it. Here the carpenters and their workers carved from wood a number of human beings that were the forefathers of all people. When the creator decided to populate the earth below, he instructed the first humans to choose from a number of bird and animal cloaks that were hanging on the walls of Nusmata. Once each had chosen their preferred cloak, they turned into the bird or animal. After this they were given names and food for their journey to Earth. The first humans then descended from Nusmata in their transformed state. Each landed on one of the mountain peaks that surround the Bella Coola area. Upon landing, they removed their cloaks and resumed human form. The cloaks then floated back up to Nusmata.

The expansionist forces of settler colonialism had, by the beginning of the twentieth century, greatly affected Bella Coola and its Nuxalk inhabitants. The devastating effects of smallpox and other diseases, which reduced the Nuxalk population from 3000 to 300 over the course of a century; the imposition of the reserve system; missionization and the federal government ban on potlatch ceremonies; and the introduction of capitalist labor forms (primarily resource-based industries of fishing and timber) greatly disrupted Nuxalk life in the Valley. This was manifest in the abandonment of ancestral village sites and the concentration of Nuxalkmc near the mouth of the Bella Coola River. By the early 1900s most Nuxalkmc were living in a reserve village on the north shore of the mouth of the Bella Coola River, directly across from where the current community now stands. Nuxalk relations with both the province of British Columbia and the Canadian state continue to be structured by this history. Nuxalkmc continue to assert their sovereignty in light of this history and stress that their territory and culture were never ceded by official treaty.

Nuxalkmc were connected through intermarriage and trade to other coastal and inland native groups. Documented Nuxalk interactions with non-native peoples extend as far back as 1793 when both Captain George Vancouver and Alexander Mackenzie encountered groups of Nuxalk during their separate travels into the Bella Coola region. By the late nineteenth century, Nuxalk contact with non-native outsiders was firmly entrenched in social, political and economic relations with the institutions of the nascent Canadian state. Increasing Euro-Canadian settlement in the Bella Coola Valley began with a party of Norwegian settlers moving into the area from Minnesota in 1894 and establishing the town of Hagensbourg. This was the first major non-native settlement in the Valley.

After contact, the devastation of smallpox, and the imposition of the colonial reserve system, Nuxalkmc gradually left their ancestral family territories and came together on the reserve site of Bella Coola by the early 1900’s. The original reserve was located on the north shore of the Bella Coola River across from the old Hudson’s Bay Company trading post (which operated between 1867 and 1882) and the Nuxalk village site of Q’um’kuts. Following a massive flood in 1936, the reserve moved across the river, adjacent to the growing white community, where it currently remains. The establishment of the main reserve site at Bella Coola saw the complete abandonment of the plank house in favor of more European-style houses. Even still, as late as the mid 1920’s, several Nuxalkmc continued to live in the older, decaying structures.

Nuxalk territory is divided into four main areas in which ancestors of Nuxalkmc lived in numerous village sites and seasonal camps - Ats'aaxlh (Talyu); Suts'lhm (Kimsquit); Kwalhna (Kwatna ; and Nuxalk (Bella Coola). The majority of Nuxalk village sites were located along the banks of the many rivers that run through their territory. The rivers provided both a network of transportation and communication between villages, as well as a major source of food. Most villages were organized around particular family units that claimed hereditary ownership of a given area.

Before contact, Nuxalk principally lived in cedar plank houses. These structures measured from twelve to eighteen meters square, and housed the descendents of a particular lineage. Nuxalk plank houses were typically constructed around a framework of upright cedar posts. Moveable overlapping cedar planks were hung horizontally around this frame to form the walls of the structure. Some houses were raised above ground level to account for seasonal flooding. Nuxalk architectural styles changed through time, particularly with the influence of European-style construction. More and more the houses of higher-ranking lineages incorporated gabled designs into their structures. By the mid to late nineteenth century, Nuxalk houses displayed a mixture of coastal architectural characteristics, with some structures employing vertical planks instead of the horizontal ones traditionally found on the central coast. Increased European contact and settlement also saw the abandonment of hand cut and carved planking in favor of milled lumber.

Nuxalk plank houses, as with other similar structures on the Northwest Coast, were elaborately decorated with paintings and carvings that displayed the wealth and prerogatives of a particular lineage. Wealth was also further displayed with the incorporation of European elements such as glass windows, hinged doors, and various trims. Lineage houses were the center of Nuxalk ceremonial as well as family life. Houses contained the displayed status and prerogative rights of generation upon generation of a lineage. As such, houses themselves were more than simply dwelling structures. They were important elements in larger displays of the power of a particular lineage, and locations for a variety of ceremonies that reaffirmed the social position of a given lineage.

Nuxalkmc are salmon people. Their subsistence economy has, since time immemorial, centered around fishing in the many rivers and ocean channels in their territory. Salmon, as well as halibut, trout, cod, and eulachon, are the primary species harvested annually by Nuxalkmc. Eulachons are prized especially for their role in producing grease. Eulachon grease was a staple foodstuff as well as an important trade item. In recent years, eulachon numbers have plummeted in the Bella Coola region and harvesting has all but ceased. This has greatly affected the traditional subsistence practices of Nuxalkmc. Similarly, depleting salmon numbers as a result of commercial over-fishing and environmental degradation pose a significant threat to Nuxalk subsistence practices. The hunting and gathering of plants and animals in the surrounding forests, mountains, and intertidal zones also forms a significant part of Nuxalk subsistence activities. Moose, deer, and mountain goats are hunted annually, while berries, fungi, and other plants are gathered on a seasonal basis. The over-logging of forest regions in recent years is a growing concern to Nuxalkmc who view this as an unwanted destruction of their traditional territory that is having a detrimental effect on their subsistence practices.

With the introduction of a wage labor economy after European contact, many Nuxalkmc took up seasonal work at fish canneries or in logging camps in the Bella Coola region. The increasing tourist industry has also provided work for Nuxalkmc as fishing, hunting, and wilderness guides. Over the last two decades, the Nuxalk Nation has established several companies as a move towards larger interests of self-determination. These include an ice-making plant as well as a cannery. Many Nuxalk entrepreneurs in the Bella Coola Valley have opened various businesses such as gas stations and art galleries that cater both to the local population and seasonal tourists. Others still have found temporary or permanent employment through the Nuxalk Nation band council as administrators, teachers, fisheries supervisors, caretakers, and etcetera. The colonial history of Bella Coola, however, continues to affect Nuxalk economic life in the region with the majority of businesses and commercial ventures being controlled by non-Nuxalk peoples.

The relative remoteness of Bella Coola and the overall lack of employment opportunities has caused many Nuxalkmc to seek employment outside of the Valley. Nuxalkmc continually migrate back and forth between Bella Coola and larger urban centers like Vancouver, Williams Lake, and beyond to find work, and receive higher education or training. Over the last several decades a growing number of younger Nuxalkmc have found careers in areas like medicine, social work, fashion, and education. These jobs often require that people permanently, or at least temporarily, move away from the Bella Coola Valley and their extended families. This is often viewed with regret.

Nuxalkmc are excellent carvers, weavers, basket makers, jewelry makers, and painters. Many Nuxalkmc, both inside and outside of the Bella Coola Valley, make a living as commercial artists. The production of artworks for non-ceremonial purposes, and their sale outside of the Valley, continues to be met with a degree of ambivalence by some Nuxalkmc who view this as a culturally inappropriate practice. Despite these tensions, Nuxalk art continues to be in high demand by collectors and institutions the world over.

Before the arrival of Europeans and a more commodity-oriented wage labor economy, trade was of extreme importance to Nuxalk life. Nuxalkmc were connected by trade with other Nations along the coast of British Columbia and the interior through the numerous waterways and overland trails throughout their territory, especially the Grease Trail. Nuxalkmc would exchange items such as eulachon grease, fish, meat, and furs with their neighbors. A currency in more intangible items existed as well, and continues to thrive. Dances, stories, masks, and other ceremonial rites are exchanged with neighboring nations, in particular the Heiltsuk. The arrival of an increased European presence in the Bella Coola region saw increased trade with agents of the British, and later Canadian, government, in particular the Hudson’s Bay Company. Trade relations with the Hudson’s Bay Company in neighbouring Bella Bella began as early as 1843, with a permanent settlement of the Company being established in Bella Coola in 1869. Nuxalkmc would also engage in trade with the white residents of the Bella Coola area, often trading foodstuffs or artworks for various commodities.

Before European contact the Nuxalk subsistence economy operated along noticeable, but not rigid, gender lines. Generally, men were responsible for fishing and hunting, while women gathered berries and other foods, cleaned fish, made baskets and other utilitarian objects, and performed general housekeeping duties. Gender roles were ingrained early in life through the education of children within the family unit. At an early age young boys joined their fathers on hunting and fishing trips, while young girls assisted their mothers. Social position also affected the division of labor within Nuxalk communities. When slavery was still an active practice, slaves made up a significant portion of a village’s workforce, the duties of individual slaves, however, were subject to the desires of their master.

After contact, with many Nuxalkmc seeking integration into the wage labor economy, gender and social based divisions of labor became more obscured. With both men and women of various social positions coming together in canneries and logging camps it is difficult to tell in what ways a more pre-contact division of labor continued into these new spaces or to what degree it was altered. It is clear that with the introduction of a capitalist economy, more traditional economic patterns and practices became integrated with these newer forms.

Land and its ownership is an extremely important aspect of Nuxalk cultural life, both before European contact and in light of a recent history of colonial dispossession. At the most basic level, territories are controlled by the descendants of specific ancestral families. Land ownership is thus linked directly with the prerogatives and rights given to each family by Atquntam] upon their descent from Nusmata. Owned territories include not only village sites and seasonal camps, but also specific hunting, fishing, and gathering territories. With the institution of the Douglas reserve system in the nineteenth century, Nuxalkmc were gradually dispossessed and removed from their lands. While Nuxalkmc have never ceded their territory through any treaty with either the provincial government of British Columbia or the federal government of Canada, their lands and resources have been appropriated, settled, and exploited by non-Nuxalkmc for over one hundred and fifty years. Nuxalkmc maintain strong connections with their territory and have been actively asserting their rights to their land for over a century.

Nuxalk extended families constitute the primary social network. Nuxalk families are extremely large in size and trace their descent to a particular area of Nuxalk territory. Each family is associated with a particular crestgrizzly bear, killer whale, raven, eagle, black bear, wolf, blackfish, merganser, loon, and mythical double-headed serpentas well as a host of prerogatives inherited from their ancestors. Each family has its own origin stories, or smayustas, which both affirm these rights in the present and serve as a way through Nuxalkmc can trace their descent. While descent is ambilineal, pre-contact Nuxalk culture was characterized by patrilocality and the predominantly matrilineal inheritance of prerogatives, although the latter is thought to have shifted over time from a more patrilineal system of inheritance.

As the family forms the most basic unit of Nuxalk social structure, Nuxalkmc employ a complex form of classificatory kinship terminology that falls roughly under the characteristics of the “Eskimo type.”

Before European contact and the influences of Christianity, Nuxalk marriages were heavily governed by the relative social position of the ancestral families from which perspective marriage partners could claim descent. Typically, it is the family of the man who, from very early on, would begin to seek out an appropriate marriage candidate. Marriage partners were typically close in age, usually around seventeen or eighteen. While not common, Nuxalk oral history contains accounts of several chiefs who took more than one wife. It was considered inappropriate for a man to marry too closely within his lineage. Thus, marriage to a sister, aunt, niece, or first cousin was considered incestuous. Marriage within ancestral family of one of the man’s parents, however, was considered optimal. A suitable wife was thus commonly a grandchild or great-grandchild of a first cousin. Strategic marriages between high-ranking members of different ancestral families or even different nations became a common practice beginning in the latter part of the nineteenth century possibly as a result of the massive population decline following the outbreak of smallpox around 1860.

While the traditional social and political motivations that originally governed Nuxalk marriage practices lessened over the twentieth century, due to the increased assimilationist policies of the Canadian state, marriages have continued to be an extremely important part of the social fabric of the Nuxalk community. Wedding ceremonies, as in the past, are cause for much ceremonial fanfare. Families host a community feast in which they display their ceremonial prerogatives, inviting their guests to witness the union. In recent years it has become somewhat common for a couple to have both a church wedding and a “Nuxalk wedding” which observes more traditional practices.

The family constitutes the most important social unit in Nuxalk culture. The standard family consists of a husband and wife and their children, although historically a man may have had more than one wife. Before contact, the domestic unit typically occupied one room in a larger lineage house. In contemporary Nuxalk culture the family usually has its own house, although it is not uncommon to see several generations living under one room. Children are raised primarily by their parents, however, in certain circumstances a child’s maternal or paternal grandparents may take on this role. In families with more than one child, the eldest occupies an important position with regards to raising his or her younger siblings. Adoption is also a common practice and usually occurs between members of the same ancestral family. Nuxalk family structure was greatly undermined by the imposition of residential schooling, which separated several generations of children from their families. As a result, the skills usually passed down from parents to children were and the vital knowledge contained within the family unit cut off. Nuxalkmc are still struggling to cope with this legacy of abuse and disconnection.

From an early age children begin to inherit property, names, and ceremonial prerogatives from their parents and grandparents. This may include membership to the sisawk society, one of two Nuxalk ceremonial societies; masks; songs; dances; hunting or fishing access to a particular place; and etc. A person may inherit these things from both the maternal and paternal ancestral families to which they belong.

From the moment they are born children occupy an extremely important place in the lives of their parents and grandparents. All members of the immediate family shower children with affection, and births are celebrated with much fanfare. As indicated above, parents play the most important role in child rearing, although grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins also share the responsibilities. Furthermore, older children are expected to attend to the raising of their younger siblings. Socialization is in many ways subject to gender distinctions as children grow older. For example, young boys begin accompanying their fathers on hunting and fishing trips, while young girls help their mothers with the domestic tasks. In contemporary Nuxalk life, school and daycare play an equally important role in the socialization of children. The Nation also runs a Rediscovery Camp every summer where children travel out into Nuxalk territory for two-week sessions that focus on a re-acquaintance with the natural world, and Nuxalk cosmology and spirituality.

Nuxalk social organization is heavily intertwined with Nuxalk history and spirituality. The ancestral families, which tie Nuxalkmc back to their original ancestors who descended to Earth from Nusmata, form the principal framework around which Nuxalk society is organized. Members of ancestral families are linked in particular through names. An individual’s name, given soon after birth, links them to the smayusta, or origin myth of their ancestral family. It also bestows upon them particular prerogatives to which only members of the ancestral family have access. These can relate to both ceremonial as well as territorial rights. Whereas membership in an ancestral family constitutes a more abstract spectrum of Nuxalk social organization, the village group presents a more material manifestation of these more cosmological relations. Before European contact, the village group was composed of the descendants of one or more ancestral families who can claim aboriginal settlement of a given area. Village composition is fairly fluid with people free to migrate to another settlement should they choose to. The social fabric of Nuxalk villages was a mixture of higher-ranking nobility, commoners, and slaves. After contact, through the imposition of the reserve system in British Columbia and the legacy of residential schooling, the governing principles of Nuxalk social organization were greatly undermined. Despite this, however, Nuxalkmc retain immensely strong ties to their ancestral families.

Nuxalk political organization is deeply imbedded in the workings of the potlatch system. The potlatch, which was banned by the Canadian government between 1885 and 1951, constitutes the most important sociopolitical institution on the entire Northwest Coast. For Nuxalkmc the potlatch involves, primarily, the assertion and affirmation of family and individually owned prerogatives through the redistribution of wealth. Guests from within the village group and from other groups, or even other Nations, are invited by the host to witness, and thus politically and socially sanction, the work being done. The degree of business attended to at a potlatch ceremony is wide-ranging. A host may put up a potlatch at the end of a mourning period for a family member, to bestow names and privileges on members of their family, to dedicate a headstone or memorial pole for a deceased relative, to acknowledge the coming-of-age of a family member, to celebrate a marriage or engagement, and so on. Potlatches were and are extremely expensive undertakings. The money and material goods given away to guests in return for their bearing witness, as well as the expenses of putting up the large feast that accompanied every potlatch, are well understood throughout Nuxalk society. Thus, the more potlatches an individual or family puts on, the higher their social ranking. Nuxalk hereditary chieftanships were therefore continuously strengthened through the potlatch system. The banning of the potlatch in 1885 significantly undermined traditional Nuxalk political and economic systems. The reinstitution of potlatching in Bella Coola in the late 1970’s has significantly bolstered traditional forms of Nuxalk government. Alongside the political power instilled in hereditary chieftanships there is the elected Band Council system. The Band Council, which oversees the day-to-day management of the Nuxalk community as a federally recognized “Indian band,” is funded through Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC), a federal government department. It is the job of the elected Band Council to administer the funds and regulations from INAC. There exists a degree of tension between the traditional government of Nuxalk hereditary chiefs and the colonially-imposed Band government. In recent years, the power of Nuxalk hereditary chiefs, under the organization of the House of Smayusta, has been exercising more authority.

Before contact, social control was usually undertaken at the family level. The heads of households would take on the responsibility for settling disputes between or within households. Offending parties were usually required to make some sort of material restitution for their bad behavior On very rare occasions people were required to leave a particular settlement and seek residence elsewhere for an offence. After contact, the Canadian state imposed a number of monitoring bodies to oversee the control of Nuxalkmc and enforce their laws, in particular the federal Indian agent and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). While there is no longer an Indian agent in Bella Coola, the RCMP remains as a symbol of the Canadian, and thus colonial, justice system. Nuxalk families, however, still take on a large degree of social control responsibilities in the community.

Nuxalkmc have always retained a relatively peaceful coexistence with neighboring nations up and down the coast of British Columbia and in the interior regions of the province. However, Nuxalk oral history relates several accounts of conflict with Tsimshian from Gitkatla territory, with Kwakwaka’wakw from Vancouver Island, and with Ulkatcho peoples from the interior plateau. While sporadic, these instances of conflict usually involved raiding parties entering an enemy territory and attacking particular settlements. These attacks were never the sources of a large number of deaths. Rather, they were usually undertaken in order to capture slaves or gain resources. During moments of conflict, different autonomous villages would join together. With the arrival of British (and later Canadian) law on the Northwest Coast tensions between groups could no longer be resolved in a traditional manner. In recent years Nuxalkmc have been embroiled in new kinds of legal conflict with the federal government of Canada and the provincial government of British Columbia over rights to their land and resources, and restitution for the legacy of colonialism that continues to affect their lives.

Nuxalk religious beliefs are located in a complex interrelation between the human, natural, and supernatural worlds. Heavily influenced by Christianity over the last century and a half, Nuxalk beliefs in recent years represent a unique integration of what might be deemed a more “traditional” cosmology within the structure of a more contemporary Christian spiritual philosophy. The Nuxalk universe is comprised of five worlds stacked on top of one another. Earth is in the middle. Earth is a flat, circular, island-like plane surrounded by water. East is considered to be the top of this world, West the bottom, South is marked by the sun at its zenith, and the North is nothing more than the opposite of the south. The Earth is surrounded by water. The undersea world is presided over by the deity Q’umukwa. The sky is the underside of a flat land, a lower heaven, in which a large number of supernatural beings dwell. This is the location of Nusmata, the house of myths, home of Atquntam, the creator, and a pantheon of lesser deities. The upper heaven is the home of the supreme deity, a woman called Qama’its. Ghosts inhabit the first of the lower worlds below the Earth. This world is a direct inverse of the human worldnight is day, winter is summer, and people walk on their heads instead of feet. The lowest world, thus the farthest west, is the land of the salmon. There is a significant amount of Nuxalk cosmology dedicated to the story of the salmon migration from their world to the world of humans. While Nuxalk cosmology is occupied with a host of supernatural beings that at different times have impacted the lives of humans on Earth, the primary deity to which most Nuxalk worship is directed is Tatau, or the Sun, who lives in the lower heaven alongside Atquntam.

While precontact Nuxalk religion did not recognize any full-time religious practitioners, such as priests, the role played by various kinds of “shamans” was significant. Shamans, a term that comes closest to the definition in Nuxalk, are important mediators between the human and supernatural world. While there were different kinds of shamanic individuals, both men and women, the majority were characterized by having a past interaction with a supernatural being of some kind. Shamans in Nuxalk society performed a degree of important tasks, such as curing illnesses, and could appeal to supernatural beings and deities on behalf of humans. The advent of Christianity amongst Nuxalkmc in the nineteenth century saw the power of shamans lessen, as missionaries and later priests and ministers took on the role of full-time religious practitioners. As indicated above, however, Nuxalk traditionalists have, in recent years, reinvigorated the acknowledgement of precontact belief systems.

Nuxalk ceremonial performances are generally divided between two ceremonial societies, the kusyut and the sisawk. Membership in the latter is passed down through family lineages. Sisawk performances, which involve the more elaborate masked dances, typically occurred at potlatches and were the owned property of families. The kusyut society, on the other hand, was a highly complex secret society whose membership and practices were kept quite guarded from non-members. Performances associated with the kusyut remain the most sacred in Nuxalk culture. Kusyut dances, which while highly sacred, involved less material finery. Masks associated with kusyut dances are more roughly carved and often unpainted. They were traditionally burned after a performance. Masks associated with sisawk society dances, on the other hand, are much more elaborately carved and painted. They are kept in the possession of families for generation upon generation. The most important events in the traditional Nuxalk ceremonial calendar were the Winter Ceremonials. It was here that kusyut dances were brought out. Whereas sisawk society performances were linked to the ancestral families from which Nuxalkmc claim descent, kusyut performances and the Winter Ceremonials in general, were associated with the supernatural world and its beings. The reinstitution of the potlatch and feasting in recent years represents the main form of ceremonies in contemporary Nuxalk life. Contemporary potlatching encapsulates an array of ceremonial dance performances, both sisawk and kusyut, that were kept quite separate in the years before the potlatch ban in 1881.

Many Nuxalkmc have gained recognition around the world as contemporary artists. Museums the world over have pieces of contemporary Nuxalk art alongside older works in their collections. Art production in Nuxalk society is heavily linked to both ceremonial practice and social status. It is for this reason that commercial art production by Nuxalkmc is often in tension with the views of traditionalists. Many Nuxalk artists mediate this tension by making art for both ceremonial and commercial uses. Some artists continue to only produce for ceremonies. Families continually commission artists to produce masks, plaques, and other work to be displayed or given away at potlatches. The visible presence of a thriving artistic tradition is quite apparent in Bella Coola. In recent years several families have commissioned the carving of totem poles and raised them in their traditional territories.

As indicated above, many Nuxalkmc make a living as artists. Carving, painting, and jewelry making are the most common art forms practiced by Nuxalkmc, both inside and outside of Bella Coola. Nuxalk art, while following many of the characteristics of Northwest Coast artistic style, is identifiable by several unique traits, particularly the pronounced use of the color blue.

Illness and disease in Nuxalk culture can arise from a degree of causes, in particular the maliciousness of a supernatural being or, even more problematic, as a result of witchcraft. Traditional forms of medicine and medical treatment in Nuxalk culture are, like most other facets of life, deeply intertwined with Nuxalk cosmology and social organization. While many medicines come from the natural world such as various species of ferns, mosses, nettles, a number of trees, berries, and etc., specific families often own the knowledge and application of these. This knowledge remains the property of Nuxalkmc. Each family would have traditionally had one or more members who took on the role of scientists and mastered this knowledge. Magic and the supernatural world also figure heavily into Nuxalk medical practices. Here the curative power of shamans and various kinds of sympathetic magic must equally be considered medicinal. Typically, a shaman would lie down beside or on top of a sick individual in order to “feel” for illness. The shaman would then knead or pummel the body in order to bring the sickness to the surface for extraction. Western biomedical culture has heavily influenced contemporary Nuxalk conceptions of illness and disease; however, many also understand the limitations of these explanations. Thus Western treatments exist alongside a host of Nuxalk curative practices.

Death in precontact Nuxalk culture was understood to occur primarily as a result of supernatural rather than natural causes. Except in cases of sudden loss of life, death was marked by the observance of a complex series of rituals that began long before a person actually died, and involved many individuals beyond the immediate family. The house of a sick person became a gathering place for concerned village residents. Shamans were often called in to attempt to heal the sick person. The women of the family would weep and wail. After death the body would be ceremonially washed and a ring was placed in the septum to ensure that the body would dissolve into its elements. The body was then dressed in fine clothing, bound in a squatting position, and placed in a coffin. Rites after death were governed by the social rank of the individual. Burial would typically take place one to four days after death. Every Nuxalk village had its own cemetery. After burial, the deceased’s possessions were typically burnt or piled on the grave. The immediate family of a deceased individual, particularly the widow or widower, must observe a series of taboos as they are considered ceremonially unclean. They must cut their hair short and widows cover their face in ash. Sexual intercourse is forbidden and remarriage is prohibited until at least one year after a death.

Nuxalk views of the afterlife are characterized by an understood separation of life and spirit within each living person. Upon dying, the life of an individual leaves the body and travels as a specter. In this form it visits all of the places frequented by the individual during their lifetime. The life of the person then descends to the lower world where it remains forever as a ghost. The spirit of the dead person ascends to Nusmata to be with Atquntam. The introduction of Christianity and Western medicine in the nineteenth century altered Nuxalk perspectives on causes of death and, more importantly, the afterlife. As late as the mid twentieth century, some cases of death were still understood to have supernatural overtones. The social aspects surrounding death in Nuxalk culture have, however, remained unaltered for the most part. In Bella Coola today, death remains a significant social event that brings the entire Nuxalk community together in support of the deceased’s family.

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