Stó:lô People and Cultural Identity

Art produced in Stó:lô tradition has a set of rules and forms which define it as a distinct art form. It is set apart from other Northwest Coast peoples' traditional work such as the Xaada Haida or Kwakwaka'wakw, although in some formal respects common themes in traditions can be seen.

Distinctive Stó:lô art traditions extend far back into antiquity, with the earliest examples dating over 6,000 years. Of course, changes have occurred in both form and style of art over this long period of time, as artists continue to innovate and express themselves and their culture. Traditional Stó:lô art can be viewed at in a number of different formal categories, including: ancient art, two-dimensional design and sculpture, basketry, and textiles.

Discussing Stó:lô artistic traditions is difficult to do respectfully and with authority without being a cultural insider. To facilitate this, a discussion of Stó:lô artistic traditions from several perspectives is provided below. They give a rich and diverse sense of the meaning and complexity of these artistic traditions. Although at one level, the objects shown in the figures speak for themselves, these voices give the pieces additional cultural voices and meanings.

Figure 2. Coast Salish languages spoken in the Straight of Georgia Region (B. Thom 1995).

Stan Greene on Traditional Stó:lô Design and Form

The following discussion is taken from an interview recorded with Stan Greene regarding Stó:lô artistic traditions.

Formal Elements of Salish Design

Well, I went to the carving school up at Hazelton and before I went there I only carved a few pieces where I'd look at them in pictures and figured out the carving. When I went [to] the K'san school they taught me there was a set way. Robert Davidson said that it was like the ABC's of carving. You follow your rules and out pops a piece. And it was the same way when I came home. I tried to learn about the Salish. And there was nobody I could really talk to. I talked to a number of the Elders. There wasn't anybody reliable that could tell me what were these elements on this old carving, or the spindle whorl or such. I went to the libraries and museums and I studied the pieces. There seemed to be a set pattern down, the same way as the northern pieces. If you study the northern pieces, they have the ovoid, the u-shapes and the s-shapes. That's what they teach you.

When you look at the Salish pieces and repeatedly, you see the oval, for the main source taking place of the ovoid. They have a split-u shape, a softer-u shape. West Coast people have a similar idea of a soft split-u shape. Not the same as the Salish, but their own different style. Another thing that distinguishes it, parallel lines, the splits, the crescents. They all add up and make the Salish design. So, if you study the old pieces you can see all these down on the old carvings where they show the designs, the rattles, the masks, the spindle whorls. You can see that in the style of carving of the faces. How the faces are carved, the strong brow, the slender nose, the small mouth, the head.

A lot of the carvings... I'm not even sure what the word is... the proportion of the carving are almost natural. Natural where, the body is split in six different sizes to measure everything. In the Haida the carving is split into two, the head is half of the size, the rest of the body is the other half. Tsimshian is split in thirds. There is a third for the head, a third for the top, and a third for the bottom. But the Salish design is pretty well proportioned, almost natural, how its split in six different parts. The design isn't as abstract as the northern pieces.

The northern pieces to me, you have to be able to understand the design. They are all very close, the birds, the owl, the hawk, the eagle. There's only very subtle differences in the beak, and sometimes in the claws, or the ears, that distinguish the birds. The animals, the bear, the beaver, the wolf, they are all very similar in style and design. Again, it is only the snout, the ears and the claws which distinguish the animals. The Salish, to me, they are a little bit more natural in form. If you got an animal with a long tail, you can see it climbing down, the otter, or a beaver, or a wolf, that is very simple in form, yet very distinctive with what they were trying to portray.

The Popularity of Salish Design

The Diminishment of Salish Artistic Traditions

A lot of it had to do with residential schools and the coming of the missionaries, that's where a lot of it went in. The government made their own stop a long time ago ... the rules and restrictions that were put on them, the children being taken away from their homes. And that's where the traditions and the culture were lost. We weren't allowed to participate in it any more and when I was a young boy, it was only just a few things that people would talk about. And some of them were the family ways that give us the sxwó:yxwey, the syiwméxwtses, the longhouse. But the vast majority was never talked about. That dances, the rituals, the culture, the ceremonies, the beliefs were talked about very little. And now, today also, not many of the parents of the people understand the culture and teach it to the children. There has been programs like what you are doing here [the Stó:lô Curriculum Consortium], that help the people to understand about it. A lot of times the children learn something about the people and they go happy and tell their parents about it and the parents maybe heard about it a little bit a long, long time ago but never ever talked about it, or a large majority never knew about it until then. And that's the sorry part about our people now. A lot of them don't understand Salish, what it is to be Salish.

Stories and Art

This one here is "Lost in the Fraser." This is one of my own designs. After I did the "Spindle Whorls" I was working with a company in Vancouver. They were people that..the public was like sucking up, here is a Salish artist finally and doing Salish work. And they were buying up my work pretty good all of the time. Then I wanted to do a square, rectangular picture, I says. All of the artists, they said "no, just stick to the spindle whorl design the people know you of your people [Salish]. I said "well all of the other tribes do rectangle, they do any kind of picture they want to do." They said no. So I went home, I had this one piece and I brought it down to them and showed and explained to them what it was. They thought it was a strong design and a nice design and what it is the background is out in the Fraser River. The fish in the front here are the sturgeon. The man in the middle here holding on to the sturgeon with his hands forming the fins on the surgeon. Is pushing himself out. There was a man that drowned in the Fraser River and he lost his life. A lot of the people along the side of the river, the fishermen, a lot of them lost there lives. They had to learn to respect the river. If you didn't respect the river then it take your life. To ease the people's minds, there's a sturgeon that went up, if somebody got lost in the river, they were alright. But the sturgeon people went and they took them. They took them to the bottom of the river. The bottom of the river was a village there and he lived there then, that fisherman. And he was alright. That was the only way of easing the peoples minds that "all my sons drowned in the river and ... there's a lot of stories like that the animals taking the man to the other world where the people go and they die. But they say that when you die, we go the other world and I'm going to be with my grandmother, my mother, my father, I'm going to be there with them when I leave this world. We will all be together. And so our life goes on, on and on again. It's a part of the way of life, a part of belief.

Rena Point Bolton learned the skill of basketry from her mother. She weaves coil-wrapped cedar root basketry, which is one of the most distinctive and traditional techniques of the Stó:lô. She was filmed by the National Film Board of Canada for "Hands of History." The following transcript documents some of her perspectives on basket making.

Being obedient to the teaching of my Elders

I was considered a great find in the 1950's and 60's, that I still remembered how to weave bullrushes. I was found weaving a basket that I had dug the roots and split, and everybody said "oh, we have an expert here, an artist." I had never considered myself an artist. I was only doing what I was taught to do. But because no one else was doing what I was doing, I was called an artist. To this day I don't think of myself as an artist. I just think of myself as being obedient to the teaching of my Elders. And I'm passing on my teaching to the next generation.

Basketry was of use to the people

Status of Artisans

They were special people in the village these canoe carvers, or house builders or basket weavers, blanket weavers. They were treated with great respect. The people looked upon artists as almost holy. They were revered. And if they didn't have imaginations they wouldn't hold a position like that. They had to be unique like that, you know.

Basketry and Politics

My children were growing up and going their own way, so I got involved in Indian politics. I did this very rebelliously because I knew it was against the law for us to do this sort of thing. We were not allowed to. It was in the Indian Act that we were not allowed to participate in any kind of functions, weaving Indian garments, or anything to do with potlatching. But I wanted to prove that it wasn't wrong. So very openly I made skirts out of cedar bark and capes and I dressed my children and we performed. And because I did this, a lot of political people saw me do this, they were at the festival, so I was asked to take part in the cultural revival of our people, so I did this.

Discipline and Basketry

Well, the first thing I learned was discipline. I was made to sit certain lengths of time when my grandmother told me stories. I was allowed to help her to tease wool that she was working on. But learning to sit for great lengths of time was the hardest for me. But as I grew older, it became easier. I was not allowed to play with other children until I learned obedience. And then I learned to spin wool on my knee with a spindle whorl, which we call sélseltel. And then I learned to weave on the loom and to knit sweaters.

Making a living

The first group of baskets I remember I finished, with a mat. I brought them down to the arts and crafts society and I went there and sold them. And I felt like a traitor. After they wrote out the cheque and gave it to me I went and sat in the car and I was sitting there alone, and I started to weep, you know. And I felt as if I had sold my Elders down the river, because here they had given me this beautiful art and I was selling it. I felt so guilty and I sat there and I was crying away and my husband came and he looks at me and he said "what's wrong, dear?" you know and I told him, "well I don't feel right about selling those baskets." And he told me "well in the old days we would have been taken care of. People would have made sure you had a good place to stay and food, but today it is not like that. You have to sell them in order to make a living if this is what you are going to do for a living."

Anabel Stewart, from Chilliwack, is one of the original women who participated in the Salish Weavers Guild. This group of Stó:lô women got together in the late 1960's to revive the distinctive art of Salish weaving. At the time, only one woman, Mary Peters was still living who learned the techniques of weaving from her ancestors. Working with local resident and Indian activist Oliver Wells, the Salish Weavers Guild produced a generation of successful weavers, many of whom are passing the traditions on today.

Anabel's words come from a conversation [she and I had] about teaching weaving in the schools.

Revival of Salish Weaving

It takes quite a while to learn. I'm still learning on lots myself. I learned from watching Mary Peters for the first weaver. I picked up a lot of tricks, just watching. She was the only one weaving and Oliver Wells seen her and I don't know what he was doing up in Seabird but she had a weaving on her loom. So he got her talking about it. He got the wool there not the rags she was weaving with. But her rag weavings were nice. Like I've never tried weaving with rags yet but maybe in the old times my great grandmother did hey. She had weavings that she gave away, people like Amy Cooper, she had the last one that I knew of. I don't know if it's in that museum, I got to find out.

Traditional materials and uses of weavings

They used the mountain goat and dog to make this fibre and the weavings that they used in potlatches. The chiefs wore them. If you look in the history of the valley and you see these chiefs, they all had these blankets on. They all had them. I see old pictures and when I really look, all the chiefs or whoever, they had these blankets. I think even at Coqualeetza, they say it is the meeting place here, you know Coqualeetza. The chiefs used to come down here and meet. I think long time ago they used to really use the blankets so they can keep warm. I see people, even young ladies with it wrapped around their shoulders. And they all look long, they had big blankets.

Making a weaving

When you work you have to move the middle bar along. It has to be able to move. I usually work from the top of that bar. Then I work up towards the top. Mary Peters used to work down but when we started, we all worked up. I don't know why, but it works for me anyway.

I start weaving from the left side. I get the threads and work half way then go around once. Then I start stitching one way go around and then start back. Cover your warp with the weft threads. I just keep going until I get down to the end and then I go around. Then I go back. This is twining.

Materials used for weaving

I usually use the four ply, Mary Maxim, four ply heavy wool. Usually I like to stick with white. Sometimes white is hard to come by. For the warp I used to use, what did they call that, it's just about like rope. Jute. It works out alright but it's really hard on your fingers. It will wear your fingers out fast from rubbing on that.

For the weft, I use sheep's wool. This is spun for weaving and it usually is a little thicker than how it is spun for Indian sweaters. Twice as thick, usually. After you get it spun and you do the dying.

Dying the wool

We usually get whatever we are going to dye what colour we are going to dye the wool. Like the gold and that, you can get it from flowers like dahlias, or goldenrod, that's for the golden colour. The greens you get from barks, and you have to know where to get these things. The cedar bark makes a red, it's real deep red.

You have to boil it in an iron pot. You have to leave it in there a long time. If you use other kinds of pots and you can use salt. If you use the salt to hold the colours it changes them. If you put the salt into a yellow dye bath, it will change to green.

Designs on Salish weavings

We were told when we started to weave, to pick our own design. We had our own design that we done. As you go on with your weaving you pick up little tricks on how to put your design on there. You don't put your design on first you work it into your weaving. Like the diamond, you start off with one thread and you leave it hanging and you come back and pick it up and just keep adding on, on each side of that diamond. Then you go in from the where your diamond goes in, stitch on both sides. I work through the rug and my pattern goes on as I weave.

We were told to make our own design like you know figure out some pattern that we could put on our weaving. I come out with a couple of patterns at that time of my own. The one that I started with is a Wells rug. The reason why I call it the Wells rug is that Oliver Wells and his wife decided to keep the rug here instead of selling it. They were in the business of selling. When I did this weaving they decided to keep it. I don't know if Oliver's daughter Marie still has it or what they did with all the old weavings, but he had a lot. Any pieces that he saw and that he liked, he kept.

I usually have my own design plan, I just have to figure how big the rug is going to be. And I have to break it down like in half and work it out how wide it is. Then I put in markers for my diamonds. I usually have diamonds on there. I mark them and for every colour, this one colour carries along to the fourth warp before I start my design. Then I put on my warp and work it this way and bring it here and leave it with the string hanging down. Then I put on the other colour. I carry it along and have the centres of the diamonds marked. I always have to come back and count so the design is not off. Then I put on another colour and carry that along and weave it again. Then when I come back I'm going over one stitch each time on the one side and I take this one and I'm coming one stitch that's going in until I get to the end. I have one thread on top. I'm coming this way see this one thread just go right over that.

I keep working it until it's finished. Then if I want another colour I just put it on. Threads draw real easy sometimes you pull them and down like I put them over my warp. I pull them down if I need it you have to break them. You have to break them and sometimes when you're pulling it down, it will catch another thread and they will join. So they join quite easily. Just pull the thread around and they are joined. Put one side in and twist it and you go it's joined.

The meanings of the designs

They have different meanings just about everywhere that you go but diamonds is mostly used on the weavings and I heard that it is everlasting life. The other diamonds are friendship. People in Coqualeetza they had a book with the meanings on there. This weaving of mine that I call the Wells rug. When they put a name on that they call it the butterfly rug. It doesn't look like a butterfly but that's what they called it.

There's a lot of people that would like to know meanings what designs are and that. But mostly they are just designs.

Learning by watching

If you are really interested in weaving you can't learn it right away. You have to come and it's better if you can see somebody doing it so that you can catch on faster. When I learn the basic stitch on the loom, and that was just the basic, no pattern. You have learn and maybe see somebody try to put the pattern on to have some idea how to put it on. You can't just go there to a loom, and it's going to come to you. You have to see somebody do it. And me, myself I would like to see somebody do the twill weaving. I have been wanting to get into that. I tried a few stitches but I don't carry it through when I was done.

Anything that you do with crafts, I think that you need somebody to show you then you will know. It's better than the trying to figure out from one book. If they are interested in learning then they can. I guess that's about it.

The Sxwayxwey mask is one of the most well known and beautiful objects of the Stó:lô artistic tradition. It is the only mask indigenous to Stó:lô people. The Sxwayxwey mask is extremely special, and is deeply connected to Stó:lô spirituality.

Below are two different stories which tell about the Sxwayxwey mask. The first was told by the late Chief Richard Malloway about the origin of the Sxwayxwey that his family carries. This story is a published account which he told to Dr. Norman Todd in order to teach people about the mask. It is printed here to further that teaching. The second story is one told by anthropologist Wayne Suttles describing a Sxwayxwey dance. Dr. Suttles has studied Coast Salish culture and attended many Sxwayxwey dances. His perspective is one of the observer. Knowing both of these stories provides a broader understanding about the mask than simply looking at its formal "artistic" features alone.

The Sxwayxwey was picked up by two young girls. They lived at Harrison Mills, and where they picked it up was at the mouth of the Chehalis and Fraser rivers, where it comes together there. And these girls happened to be - I know they called them - old maids. I don't know how old they were, but they weren't married you see - they were single, and their brother was single too. Seems to me there was three in the family.

These girls were out fishing, and while they were fishing they caught something very heavy on their fishing line, so they pulled it in -- they didn't get scared and let it go -- they pulled it in. When it came out of the water there came those spinners we use now in the spiritual dance. There were four spinners, and they were spinning as they came out of the water. As it came out of the water, whatever was in it slipped away, so they pulled the mask and spinners out of the water, and took it home.

The spinners were fixed to a band at the top of the mask, and they gave this to their brother, who used it just around the river. At that time, there was a lot of fighting among the Indians and when he was down the river one time he was cornered by the enemy. He had no way to get away, so he jumped in the river. When he went in the water, the band came off his head and started floating down the river, and the people who were after him shot at it, and he got away. So the feathers and band saved his life, and that's why we came to treasure these feathers, and when we started using feathers on our spiritual uniforms we used one on each uniform.

So that's how we came to use feathers, although they don't really belong to the Fraser Valley, but they belong to the Eastern people. We treasure them because they saved a life.

When you see a Sxwayxwey dance today it's all girls who sing the song, for the simple reason that it was girls who picked it up.

Later on those two girls got married and left home. One of the girls got married in Sumas (Kilgard). One of them got married there, and then the other got married down at Musqueam, and she went down there. From there her daughter went across to Duncan, and that's how the Sxwayxwey went from Harrison to Musqueam and then to Duncan.

The girl who went to Kilgard had a daughter, and she got married and came up to Chilliwack. She came over this way, and made a home just about where I live. And they started the masked dance there, and my great-grandfather, he was the head of it. He used that mask, but I don't know if he was the one who married this girl or not. His name was Yukpalem, Yukpalem was his name. I know the name and passed it over to my brother (Vincent Malloway).

I tried to find out who were the descendants of these people, and I asked the people who live over there at Harrison Mills. "You know anything about these girls, and the young man?" Nobody seems to know anything about it. I suppose that all of them were wiped out, so I couldn't get any satisfaction out of it.

My mother told me the story that I am telling. I don't know about this other Sxwayxwey mask down there at Laidlaw. I never heard about this until after my brother Bob Joe had passed away. He was married to Amelia, and she came from Laidlaw. She was the one that told the story to Wilson Duff when he came up here. I think that story comes from Laidlaw.

My mother was born in Chilliwack, on the Skaw reserve in 1876, and this is her story -- the Chilliwack story. I know the song of the Sxwayxwey and I recorded it. It says that the brother has a stomach of stone. That means that he in unfriendly and nobody likes him, and he doesn't like women.

We are trying to revive the Sxwayxwey here, and, you know the rules of the Indians are strict. You have to belong to the family which found the mask if you want to use it. This is one of the reasons I want to record this. Since the mask came up here to my family we have the right to use it.

The time is the latter part of the last century. The place is a Stó:lô village on the Fraser River. It is just before dawn. The houses of the village stand in a row, end to end, their walls an almost solid front of great cedar planks. Their roofs are nearly flat and thin smoke rises here and there from gaps between the roof planks. Inside, the people - hosts and guests - are sleeping on the bed platforms. Suddenly there is a thunderous crash. Someone has raised one of the heavy roof planks and let it fall. We hear chanting. The sleepers awaken, knowing that the family whose turn it is to potlatch today will be using the Sxwayxwey.

When the sun is up and the people have bathed and eaten, the potlatchers begin bringing out blankets and hoisting them up to the roof of their house. They place a canoe in front of the house and pile more blankets and other things in it. Beside the door they set up a cubicle, a kind of roofless tent, of poles and blankets, and nearby they set up a long box drum. Neighbours and guests gather to watch, filling the space between riverbank and houses.

Toward midday the event begins. From time to time sounds have been heard coming from the cubicle. Several women sit beside the drum and one begins a steady beat. Now a figure emerges from the cubicle. It is a Sxwayxwey dancer. High on his head he wears a wooden mask, painted black, red and white. It has a round face with a pair of horns rising upward and a long, broad lower jaw and tongue extending downward. Its eyes project on stalks like the eyes of a crab or snail. Its nose is the head of a bird and the tops of its horns are also birds' heads. The mask itself is topped by feathers and flexible wands bearing tufts of white down. Around the sides of the face and under the tongue is a semicircular ruff of stiff feathers, evenly trimmed. A cape covers the back of the dancer's head and his back. Around his body are cords with large white feathers hanging from them, and on his legs, leggings of white downy bird skin and anklets with deer hoof rattles. He carries in his right hand a rattle made of a pair of wooden hoops strung with big scallop (Pecten) shells and in his left hand a hemlock bough.

He advances, dancing with short prancing steps, raising his right arm along with his right knee and his left arm along with his left knee. After a few steps forward he retreats in the cubicle. He advances and retreats a second time and a third, and then with the fourth advance he continues onward. He is followed out by a second dancer, who likewise makes three starts before proceeding on the fourth. A third follows, doing the same, and then a fourth. Now all four are dancing around the canoe in a counter-clockwise direction. We see that the dancers wear slightly different masks and differ a little in style of dancing. As they dance they shake their heads, the motion of their heads and bodies causing the tufts of down on their crowns to sway and the feathers on their bodies to rise and fall.

Now the dancers move to the door of the house. A boy and a girl come out, covered with strands of mountain goat wool. The dancers escort them to the canoe and seat them on the pile of wealth. Now the women at the drum begin a song. The dancers bring their rattles down hard with each beat. As the song ends they converge on the children. They pull back and converge again and again and on the fourth time stand over the children and brush them with their hemlock boughs. The song and brushing are repeated three more times. Now the dancers move faster around the canoe. People come out and hand them blankets, which are taken from them by helpers. Finally, one by one the dancers return with a shuffling gait to the cubicle, each advancing and retreating and entering, now exhausted, on the fourth advance.

Next the potlatchers themselves, the parents of the children, come out with their speaker. There are interruptions from the relatives who give wealth to show their support. After these speeches, the potlatchers' speaker calls the names of the invited guests, important persons from other villages, and the potlatchers give each a gift from the canoe. When this is done, the speaker explains the reason for this day's gathering, the bestowal of hereditary names on the children. Some of the guests reply and receive more gifts. The potlatchers now mount the roof and throw down the blankets piled there for the throng below to scramble after. This day's potlatching is over. Feasting and games will follow. Tomorrow will be another family's turn.

Recommended Further Readings:

Charles Borden, Prehistoric Art of the Lower Fraser Region, in Indian Art Traditions of the Northwest Coast, 1983.

Harry Calkins, Art Legacy of the Coast Salish, Puget Soundings, 1977.

Wilson Duff, Prehistoric Stone Sculpture, 1955.

Edward Gibson, Simon Charlie: Salish Carver. From the Todd Collection. A Catalogue on and Exhibition Curated by Simon Fraser Gallery, 1992.

Edward Gibson, The Salish Spirit: The Works of Stan Greene. A Catalogue of an Exhibition Curated by Simon Fraser Gallery, 1994.

Priscilla, Gibson-Robsers, Salish Indian Sweaters: A Pacific Northwest Tradition, 1991.

Paula Gustafson, Salish Weaving, 1980.

Bill Holm, Art, in Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 7, 1990.