The Salish People: Volume II. Charles Hill-Tout
the neighbour’s hands, without touching it herself except with her mouth. After she had eaten her four mouthfuls of fish she might partake of other food, but must be careful to abstain from eating it before her children. Should the food be eaten in the presence of the children it was believed that they would all shortly die, the act being regarded as equivalent to “eating up their life.” This rule must be strictly observed for the space of a month. For the same period she must bathe the first thing every morning and scrub her body with boughs, after which she must blow on the tips of her fingers four times successively if she desired to get stout or fat, and if she wanted to become thin she must suck in the air from the tips of her fingers the same number of times. Another practice she must observe was to place tsutzetcaie (spruce-boughs) under her bed, and also hang some at the head of it. The object of this was to preserve her from her husband’s sickness. She must also eat her food off these boughs for at least a month. The widow always accompanied the corpse of her husband to the burial-place. Her blanket is painted for the occasion with streaks of red paint, as is also the crown of her head. Excessive weeping sometimes made her so weak that she had to support herself with a staff (ttcatc) while walking to and from the graveyard. The customs to be observed by the widower are simpler. He must likewise bathe every morning at daybreak, and must also abstain from eating before his children for the space of a month; but his head was not painted, only his blanket; and he puts the tsutzetcaie only at the head of his bed, and not under it. Some three or four days after the burial all the relatives of the deceased, except the widow or the widower, must cut their hair. The severed hair is always carefully collected and buried. After the ceremony of hair-cutting is over all those who have attended the funeral go in a line to the river or the inlet, according to the locality, and walk down into the water till it is up to their breasts; then at a word they all dip together once and come out again. If they are wearing blankets at the time they cast them aside, but otherwise do not trouble to disrobe.
It was customary for widows and orphans some time during the mortuary rites to take a small white pebble and roll it in their mouths four times. This was supposed to prevent the teeth from decaying.
Birth Customs
It was customary among the Squamish women to retire to the woods when they were about to give birth to their children. Usually a woman went quite alone or accompanied only by her husband. Midwives were called in for the first child, but afterwards only in cases of difficulty or when the labour was unduly prolonged. Usually the woman would fulfil her daily duties to within an hour of the child’s birth, and be ready to take them up again a few hours afterwards. In the case of first children parents of standing would engage three or four midwives or experienced women for the occasion. Each had her own special duties to perform. These were prescribed by long-established custom. It was the office of one to sever the umbilical cord and of another to “cook the milk" and generally look after the mother. They were paid for their services immediately afterwards by the husband with gifts of blankets. This honorarium was also prescribed by usage, the number of blankets given on the occasion depending on the husband’s social position.
Immediately after the birth of the child it is washed all over in cold water and then wrapped in the softest slowi (inner bark of the cedar, beaten till soft and fine) and placed in a cradle of cedar-wood. This cradle was constructed in the following manner. A piece of cedar-wood about thirty inches long and ten or twelve inches wide was first taken; a second, and shorter, but considerably broader piece was then bent over this in the form of an arch, and fastened in this position to the longitudinal edges of the other, thus forming a kind of pocket. The lower piece, or bed of the cradle, extended about four inches beyond the other at the foot, and about six inches at the head. The extension at the foot was bent upwards till it reached an angle of thirty or forty degrees, and fastened in this position to the upper piece by lacing. This formed a kind of foot-board the object of which was to keep the baby from slipping down out of the cradle and allow at the same time the liquids to escape. The head of the cradle was left open. The child passed the first year of its life in this receptacle, never leaving it except to be washed twice daily. It was both fed and dandled in its cradle. If the mother had outside work to do, the cradle was usually slung to her shoulder or to a swing-pole. In carrying it the weight was borne on the hip.
It was during this cradle existence of the child that the cranial deformation formerly practised by this tribe took place. This was effected by frontal pressure, pads or bands of slowi being tied across the anterior part of the cranium and held there by thongs fastened to the bottom of the cradle. A pad was also tied across the top of the head about the line of the coronal suture to prevent the head from rising to a ridge here, as was common among the Siciatl [Sechelt] tribe, the Squamish regarding this as ugly and unsightly. The immediate effect of this pressure was threefold. It caused a flattening of the occipital region by contact with the cradleboard; it gave a peculiarly receding sweep to the frontal bone, a line of beauty in Squamish eyes; and it produced a compensatory bulge of the head laterally; the general effect of all which was to make the head appear abnormally short and the face unusually broad. This practice of cranial deformation has now, I believe, been wholly given up by the Squamish, though the infant still passes the greater part of the first year of its existence in a cradle as formerly. On one of my visits to the Squamish I observed an Indian mother nursing her baby in a rush-made cradle with open top. This, I was informed, was the style now commonly used.
“It gave a peculiarly receding sweep to the frontal bone, a line of beauty in Squamish eyes.”
Should the birth take place in the winter, or when it was not convenient for the mother to retire to the woods, a temporary screen of reed mats would be put up in the general dwelling, behind which the woman would give birth to her child. A very peculiar custom obtained among the Squamish in the case of first-born children. The mother might not feed the child from the breast for four days. Her breasts must first be steamed with a decoction of the rind of the elderberry (Sambucus mcemosa), and then covered with poultices of the same material. This was kept up for four days, its object being to “cook" the mother’s milk. The process, called in the Squamish wutlkwai miukwum ‘cooking the breast,’ was sometimes repeated at the birth of the second child, only on this occasion the infant was not deprived of the breast. It was thought that the mother’s milk was harmful to the child before the fourth day and before it had been “cooked.” This strange custom, amongst others, may perhaps have had something to do with the high death-rate among the old-time children. In earlier days, before contact with the whites, it was not at all uncommon for a mother to give birth to a dozen children; but there were few households which contained a family of more than half of that number. It is true that female children were commonly strangled at birth if there were too many girls in the family. This unnatural practice was effected by the parents themselves — usually by the mother — by stopping the nostrils and placing a gag of slowi in the child’s mouth. My informant was herself doomed to this fate at her birth, and was only spared at the earnest solicitations of an elder sister.
After the birth of the child, when the woman had passed the afterbirth, she was taken or went down to the river or inlet and bathed in the icy-cold water, no matter what time of year or what kind of weather it was. My informant stated that she had been thus taken to the river and washed all over after the birth of her first child in the month of January, when the water was covered with ice and the ground with snow. Ablutive ceremonies played a very important part in the lives of the old-time Squamish, as we may easily gather from their old customs. Men, women, and children bathed constantly. Among the young men it formed an important feature of their training. Each sex had is own special bathing place, men and women, or boys and girls, after childhood never bathing together.
The birth of twins was a very special event, twins always possessing, it was believed, supernormal powers, the commonest of which was control of the wind. It would seem that the birth of twins was usually presaged by dreams on the part of both parents. In these dreams instructions would be given to the parents as to the course they must pursue in the care and upbringing of the children. These they must follow implicitly in every particular. If they were neglected it was thought and believed that the twins would