The thesis attempts to fill one of the many gaps in the research of Northwest Coast Indian musics by providing the first study of Bella Coola songs as they have been preserved on tape. The work is based on my own field recordings and notes, the wax cylinder recordings and contextual reconstrucr tions of T.F. Mcllwraith, tapes made by the B.C. Indian Language Project, by Mildred Valley Thornton, by Philip Davis, and by the Bella Coola. themselves. Part One of the study describes the ethnographic context of the songs. A discussion of the situations in which they were used, the performance organization (principal performers, instruments and so on) with which they were associated, and the two types of compositional processes employed to create them is included. Part Two consists of an analysis of the music's structural characteristics. Modal and formal processes, drum rhythms, language-melody interactions, and style change (over a 51 year period) are examined. Dance, language, and histrionics played significant roles in determining certain of the music's attributes. The hierarchy of the music's structural characteristics was found to strongly reflect that of their functional categories. Finally, Part Three provides 73 original transcriptions that encompass a broad spectrum of the Bella Coola ceremonial and non-ceremonial repertoires. / Arts, Faculty of / Music, School of / Graduate

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The major factors which influenced the settlement system of the late prehistoric Nuxalk of the Bella Coola valley are examined in this study. Detailed data on settlement, subsistence, environment and the socio-political and socio-economic worlds of the Nuxalk are presented. Ethnographic, ethnohistoric, archaeological and environmental data have been compiled for this purpose. The theoretical approach applied in this thesis differs from other comparable studies on the Northwest Coast. Many studies are concerned only with the relationship between energy gains and settlement. In this study the potential determinants of settlement patterns are compiled from both the natural and cultural environment of the Nuxalk. Each determinant is examined within a cultural framework that would have been relevant to the Bella Coola valley Nuxalk. The nature of the analyses and methodology employed here also sets this study apart from other settlement studies. Salmon-settlement studies investigate the importance of a single species at several sites, while site catchment studies concentrate on the relative importance of several resources at a single site. Here, several different sites are compared according to eight different determinants (the presence of salmon, other aquatic resources, plant resource, animal resources, mineral resources, trade, shelter from the elements and protection from raiding); each determinant is measured in a different manner according to the nature of the data set. A rank order of each village location is produced according to its accessibility to each determinant analysed. From this, an overall ranking of settlements which combines all the determinants is generated. The Nuxalk results are then compared to the settlement systems of other Northwest Coast groups, as a means of identifying more general statements concerning the pre-contact settlement systems of Northwest Coast Native peoples. Results indicate that the presence of a range of food resources, especially plants and fish, was among the most important criteria for a preferred settlement location in the Bella Cool a valley. The presence of a variety of other resources and cultural attributes was the minimum requirement of a suitable Nuxalk village location. Among other coastal groups, preferred village sites were those which offered the greatest number of resources from a single location. In the instances where primary villages were situated in areas that did not offer a range of resources, other (cultural) factors seem to have influenced the decision to settle in a specific location. Additionally, it is hoped that this study contributes to the field of ecological anthropology by offering new methods for quantifying economically important plants. Previously uncollected information from Nuxalk elders adds to the body of knowledge concerning land use among the Nuxalk people specifically and the peoples of the Northwest Coast in general. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate

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