The Salish People: Volume II. Charles Hill-Tout
Squamish housekeeper possessed cooking pots of both cedar and basketry. Food was served in large shallow cedar troughs or dishes. Smaller platters of the same material were also in use, likewise spoons, though these were also made of horn. When eating they sat on mats or squatted on their haunches. Of baskets they had a great variety. Some of these were made from the split roots of young cedar, spruce, or fir trees, others from the bark of the alder and birch.
Dress
The dress of the Squamish in pre-trading days did not differ materially from that of other tribes of this region. The men commonly wore high leggings and waist-cloth. Over their shoulders, when they were not actively engaged, they wore, toga-fashion, a native blanket. The women of the nobler class wore a dressed deer-skin shroud or smock, which reached from the shoulders to below their knees; inferior women wore only short petticoats of woven slowi. Moccasins were worn at times by both sexes. The women sometimes covered their heads with a plaited conical hat with broad sloping brim. This served also as a receptacle for berries and other small things if no basket were at hand. The exterior of these hats were commonly figured in red and black paint or dyes. Some of the older women may still be occasionally seen wearing them, but they have gone out of use generally.
Markings on right arm above back of the hand. Colour blue.
Markings on left arm above back of the hand. Colour blue.
Tattooing and Painting
In earlier days the men used to paint themselves for dancing and other ceremonies. I could not learn that the men ever tattooed their bodies. A favourite decoration was that effected by sprinkling particles of mica over their faces and bodies upon a groundwork of grease. This gave their bodies a glistening appearance. They obtained the mica for this purpose from disintegrated granite. The women commonly employed a kind of red clay for facial decoration. This they smeared over their cheeks, chins, and foreheads. When confined only to the cheeks and not too lavishly put on the effect was not displeasing to the eye. It gave them a ruddy, comely appearance. The old women of pagan habits still decorate themselves this way. The women were accustomed to tattoo themselves on the arm or wrist and lower leg. The markings were always simple and generally crude, bearing no resemblance whatever to the elaborate and fanciful designs of the Haida and other northern Indians.
Games
The Squamish had a variety of games. I obtained some information on some of these. The commonest and most popular were the ball games. Of these they had two called kekqua and tequila. The former was a kind of lacrosse, and the ball was caught and thrown with an instrument similar to the lacrosse stick. The other was a kind of football. They played also a game called tckwie. This was a kind of shuttlecock and battledore, and a favourite pastime of the girls. They were acquainted also with qauwilts, or the “cat’s-cradle" game. But dancing and dramatic impersonations of animals were their favourite pastimes, and these played an important part in the tribal festivities in earlier days.
Dances
The Squamish had three kinds of dances, called respectively metla, koqoks, and skaip. The first was the common dance, which anyone could perform; the second was characterised by spasmodic shakings of the head on the part of the dancer; the third had for its distinguishing feature a shaking or violent trembling of the hand, which was held aloft in the air during the dance. In this dance the dancer spits much blood, or something which has the appearance of blood. I have not myself seen a dance of this kind, so cannot say whether it is really blood or not. As they appear to be none the worse after the dancing is over they probably do not spit blood. When dancing they invariably sing. These dance-songs are private property. No one can use another person’s song unless permission has been given, or unless it belongs jointly to more than one person. These dance-songs are acquired by inheritance or they are learnt in dreams. Dreams or visions are the original source of all their dances. A person dreams of a certain dance, and on the next occasion introduces it. Not everyone is a dancer; only those who are by mental temperament fitted for the part ever become noted dancers.
The reason of this is simple. A dancer during the performance of his dance is not in a normal condition of mind. He or she is practically in a hypnotic trance state. On the occasion of a dance the dancers come foward as they are moved or promoted by self-suggestion or the mental suggestion of the waiting audience. They sit passively waiting for the “psychological moment,” just precisely as do the sitters in a mediumistic circle. The monotonous beating of cedar boards on all sides, which is their dance music, has the effect of sending some of them into hypnotic trances. First one and then another heaves a deep sigh, or utters sounds indicative of mental disorder; some swoon outright, and have to be brought to a dancing condition by the dashing of cold water over them; and some start off in a kind of frenzy, and dance from fire to fire all round the building till they fall exhausted from their exertions.
Dancers had to undergo a certain training. When young men or women desired to become dancers they had first to subject themselves to a four days’ fast. In this condition it was easy for them to pass into the hypnotic state. In the case of girls in particular they would invariably swoon away on the fourth night, when the dance would be held, and the sqomten and the siu would work upon them to restore them to consciousness. Presently a girl would come out of her swoon with a deep sigh and begin singing, and then start off dancing for half an hour. This dance she is supposed to have learnt in her trance. When she has finished her performance she is driven out into the forest among the trees. The purpose of this is that she may learn a new dance from the bushes and trees, which they think are able to hold communication with the neophyte in her present state and impart to her some of their knowledge. After a while she returns to the building again and performs a new dance. When a novice performs his or her first dance it is called their hausalktl. Nearly all the spectators of the dances beat time with sticks on loose cedar boards placed on the beds. The movements of the dancers are various, agility and endurance being more aimed at than what we should call grace. Prancing like a high-stepping horse is a noted feature in some of the men’s dances. An old resident of the district, Mr. Jonathan Miller, now postmaster of Vancouver City, but who formerly had much to do with the Indians in his capacity of provincial constable, informed me that at the close of one of their dances, which took place about thirty-eight years ago at the village of Qoiqoi ‘masks,’ in Stanley Park (which then had a population of 700, and now contains but one family) a noted medicine-man, or sqomten, gave a performance. He came into the circle with a small living dog in his teeth. As he danced he devoured the creature piecemeal. He bit the skin from its nose and tore it backwards with his teeth till he reached the throat. He then tore off piece after piece of the flesh and danced round the building devouring it as he went. This dance was known as the “dog-dance.” This is no longer practised even by the pagan bands, as far as I can learn.
There is a custom among the Squamish of “bringing out" a girl, not altogether unlike the custom among ourselves. In the case of a girl who had lost her mother when she had reached the age of puberty she was publicly “brought out" at the next dance, and sang and danced her mother’s song and dance before the whole community. She was attired for the occasion in a special garment or head-dress. When the people were assembled for the dancing an elderly man of the girl’s family would proclaim aloud that So-and-so was going to dance and sing her mother’s song. Her brothers or her cousins would now prepare and robe her. This ceremony was called soyumaitl, and consisted in placing upon her head a kind of veil composed of tails made from the wool of the mountain-goat, which hung down all around her person, and bobbed and swayed as she moved. The garment was called soyumen. If the girl were a good industrious sister, the brothers would show their esteem and regard for her by seating her on a pile of blankets, afterwards to be given away to mark the occasion. Usually the ceremony took place in the house, but sometimes a platform would be erected on several canoes