The Salish People: Volume II. Charles Hill-Tout
original home and territory of the Squamish seems to have been on the banks of the river which gives them their tribal name, and along the shores of Howe Sound, into which the Skuamish runs. Their settlements on the river extended for upwards of thirty miles along the banks. Their northern neighbours were the Lillooets, and the Tcilkotin [Chilcotin] division of the Dene stock. Their southern neighbours were the Lower Fraser tribes. According to one of my informants the Indian villages that used to exist on English Bay, Burrard Inlet, and False Creek were not originally true Squamish. They were said to be allied by speech and blood to the Lower Fraser tribes. How far this is correct seems impossible to say.3 Squamish is everywhere spoken throughout this territory, and has been as far back as our knowledge of it goes; and the Squamish villages, according to my informants, extend to and include Mali, at the mouth of the Fraser, which place Dr. Boas was informed by the River Indians belonged to them, and which he has accordingly included in their territory.4 It was probably the dividing line, and, like Spuzzum, farther up the river, was composed partly of the one division and partly the other.
Our first knowledge of the Squamish dates back to rather less than a century ago. The first white man to sail into English Bay and Howe Sound and come into contact with them was Captain Vancouver. He recorded briefly his impressions of them in the diary of his voyage to this coast, a short extract from which may be of interest in this first formal account of the tribe. He writes thus:
Friday, June 15, 1792
But for this circumstance we might too hastily have concluded that this part of the Gulf was uninhabited. In the morning we were visited by nearly forty of the natives, on whose approach from the very material alteration that had now taken place in the face of the country we expected to find some difference in their general character. This conjecture was, however, premature, as they varied in no respect whatever, but in possessing a more ardent desire for commercial transactions, into the spirit of which they entered with infinitely more avidity than any of our former acquaintances, not only bartering amongst themselves the different valuables they had obtained from us, but when that trade became slack in exchanging those articles again with our people, in which traffic they always took care to gain some advantage, and would frequently exult on this occasion. Some fish, their garments, spears, bows and arrows, to which these people wisely added their copper garments, comprised their general stock-in-trade. Iron in all forms they judiciously preferred to any other article we had to offer.5
They have not altered much in these points of their character since Vancouver’s visit, and many of them have today, I am told, snug little sums judiciously invested by their good friend and spiritual director, the late Bishop Durieu, in safe paying concerns. It is only fair to say, however, that they deserve to be prosperous. They are probably the most industrious and orderly band of Indians in the whole province, and reflect great credit upon the Roman Mission established in their midst.
I obtained the following list of old village sites, not ten per cent of which are now inhabited. The list is not perfectly complete. There were a few more villages at the upper end of Burrard Inlet which have been long abandoned, and whose names my informants could not recall. My enumeration contains in all some ninety-three villages, each of which, according to Chief Thomas of Qeqios and others, was formerly a genuine Squamish okwumuq, containing from fifty to several hundred inhabitants.6
On Squamish River. Right Bank: (1) Cotais; (2) Ncaitc;(3) Tktakai ‘vine-maple’; (4) Sqaqaiek; (5) Kwanaken ‘hollow in mountain’; (6) Yukuts [Yookwitz]; (7) Stotoii ‘leaning over’ (a cliff); (8) Komps; (9) Slokoi; (10) Nkukapenatc ‘canoes transformed to stone’ (see story of “Qais,” below); (11) Kwolan ‘ear’; (12 Kauten [Kowtain] ; (13) Qeqios; (14) Sietcem ’sandy' [Seichem, Brackendale]; (15) Npokwis [Omega Mountain] ; (16) Ekuks [Ainwucks] ; (17) Tciakamic [Cheakamus] ; (18 Toktakamai ‘place of thimble-berries’; (19) Spapak; (20) Etleuq; (21) Skauican [Skowishin]; (22) Poiam [Poyam].
Left Bank: (1) Sklau ‘beaver’; (2) Stamis [Stawamus]; (3) Smok; (4) Qaksine (on Mamukum Creek) [Memsquum, Mamquam River] ; (5) Kiaken; (6) Ikwopsum [Yekwaupsum] ; (7) Qekwaiakin; (8) Itlioq; (9) Pokaiosum ’slide' [Poquiosin]; (10) Skumin ‘keekwilee-house’; (11) Cemps; (12) Tcimai; (13) Tcuktcukts [Chuckchuck].
Howe Sound. West Side: (1) Tcewas; (2) Swiat [Woodfibre] ; (3) Cetuksem [White Beach]; (4) Cetusum [Potlatch River]; (5) Kwitctenem (McNab Creek]; (6) Kekelun [Kaikalahun, Port Mellon] ; (7) Koekoi; (8) Stcink (Gibson’s Landing).
East Side: (1) Kukutwom ‘waterfall’ [Shannon Falls]; (2) Cetsaken; (3) Cicaioqoi; (4) Qelketos ‘painted’; (5) Skutuksen ‘promontory’; (6) Kulatsen [Thunder Bay]; (7) Npapuk [Alberta Bay]; (8) Tumtis ‘paint’; (9) Tcakqai [Horseshoe Bay] ; (10) Stoktoks [Copper Point]; (11) Stcilks ’sling'; (12) Ketlalsm ‘nipping grass’ (deer come here in spring to eat the fresh grass) [Eagle Harbour] ; (13) Skeawatsut (Point Atkinson).
Islands in Sound: (1) Tlaqom (Anvil Island); (2) Tcalkunts (Gambier Island); (3) Qolelaqom (Bowen Island); (4) Sauqtitc (Hat Island) [Bowyer Island] ; (5) Mitlmetleltc (Passage Island).
English Bay, the Narrows, Burrard Inlet, and False Creek. From Coal Harbour to Mouth of North Arm of the Fraser: (1) Tcetcelmen; (2) Tcekoaltc; (3) Papiak (lighthouse) [Brockton Point]; (4) Qoiqoi ‘masks’ [Lumbermen’s Arch]; (5) Suntz; (6) Skeakunts; (7) Tcants; (8) Sqelc ’standing up' (Siwash Rock); (9) Stetuqk;(10) Helcen ’sandy beach, soft to the foot'; (11) Snauq (False Creek); (12) Skoatcais ‘deep hole in water’; (13) Skwaius; (14) lalmuq (Jericho); (15) Qapqapetlp ‘place of cedar’ (Point Grey); (16) Ulksn ‘point, nose’ [Point Grey]; (17) Tleatlum;(18) Tcitcileek; (19) Kulaqen;(20)Humelsom;(21)Mali. North Side from Point Atkinson, through the Narrows, up to the Inlet: (1) Stkqel [Cypress Creek]; (2) Smelakoa [West Bay] ; (3) Ktcam; (4) Homultcison (Capilano Creek, former headquarters of supreme chief); (5) Tlastlemauq (Saltwater Creek) [Mackay Creek]; (6) Stlaun [Mission Reservation]; (7) Qotlskaim ’serpent pond'; (8) Qoaltca (Lynn Creek); (9) Tcetcilqok (Seymour Creek); (10) Kiaken ‘palisade.’
Social Organisation
The social organisation of the Squamish has been so much broken up and modified by missionary and white influence that it is difficult now to learn any details about it. The tribe appears to have been divided, like the Thompson, into a number of okwumuq, or village communities, each of which was governed by its own local chief. I could gather nothing of their beliefs with regard to the origin of their different villages; they seem to have none or else to have lost or forgotten them. Of the origin of the tribe as a whole and some of the chief events of their existence I gathered an account a few years ago from an ancient member of the tribe, who was born a year or so after Captain Vancouver’s visit to them in 1792 [see article above]. Briefly it tells how the first Squamish men came into existence; how later the tribe was overwhelmed by a flood, and only one man and his wife escaped in their canoe, which landed on the mountains contiguous to the present Squamish territory; and how later again a severe and prolonged snowstorm caused, by cold and famine, the death of the whole tribe save one man and his daughter. From these two the Squamish trace their tribal descent.
The people were divided into the usual threefold division of chiefs, nobles, and common people. The lines, however, between these classes were not absolutely rigid. According to my informants, a member of the lower class, if a woman, could rise to the class above her by marriage with a member of that class, the wife usually taking the rank of her husband if not a slave. But a man of the lower rank, even if he succeeded in marrying a woman of the middle class, could only become a member of that class by undergoing a long and severe training, in which daily washings and scrubbings of the body played an important part. This was evidently a form of initiation the further particulars of which I could not learn. As a rule the chiefs and their families and immediate relatives formed a class or caste apart, the title of chief or headman descending from father to son, patriarchate prevailing among the Squamish. Consequently a chief usually married a chief’s daughter or daughters. But this rule was sometimes broken, and a woman of a lower class was taken to wife. In these cases the chieftainship would properly descend to one of the chief’s brothers or his son, and not to his own son. This was the rule. But it was possible to break this also and transmit the headship of the tribe to his own son by giving many