This thesis attempts to depict and analyze an area or time space in the life of two selected Coast Salish informants from the Musqueam Reserve. A series of interviews with the informants produced an extensive and comprehensive account of their work patterns, information on other closely related facets of the life style of the informants, and their relationship to various culture groups. Perhaps the most important features revealed are implicit — the informants' concepts of self in society. Through these texts a Native perspective of recent history can be seen emerging. This perspective is more evident in the verbatim transcripts than it would be in a closely edited text. The analysis attempts to demonstrate the relationship of work history to total life history, the importance of the culturally related patterns and cycles to work. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington. / Bibliography: L. 352-359.

The significance of the contemporary "winter dances" of the Coast Salish has been explained in terms of the Indian's 'search for status'. In this paper I attempt to establish the significance of Indian institutions for the Cowichan's 'search for status'. On the basis of informant interviews, I empirically describe the range of institutions in which a sample of the members of the Cowichan Band participate. Using a typology of institutions, I further delineate the type of viable 'status sets' maintained by band members and characterize the individuals who maintain them. In addition I test a theory which I feel might partially explain the differential participation manifested in the Cowichan status sets but is hopefully applicable to the members of any minority ethnic group. Briefly the theory assumes that: Actors who participate predominantly or exclusively in 'ethnic institutions' do so because their perception or definition of non-ethnics in terms of 'threat' prevents them from attempting to acquire status in non-ethnic institutions. A second hypothesis is also tested, namely that: Actors who participate predominantly or exclusively in ethnic institutions do so because they have failed in attempts to acquire status in non-ethnic institutions. The available data suggests that both the theory and the hypothesis are invalid. Contrary to expectations based on the theory, the perception of non-ethnics in terms of threat is greatest among those actors who negatively evaluate ethnic institutions but who have been unable to acquire non-ethnic status. In order to explain this result new assumptions focusing on the concept of 'negative self-evaluations' are introduced. With regard to the second hypothesis it would appear that predominant or exclusive participation in ethnic institutions is not a reaction to an initial failure to acquire non-ethnic status but more a function of the fact that ethnic statuses are more highly valued than non-ethnic statuses. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate

This paper aims at demonstrating the close association of Indian alcohol abuse with the Indian-White relationship as it has developed throughout the contact period. The author became aware of this association in the course of her study of Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) among the Coast Salish Indians. In contrast to the situation obtaining among the Coast Salish Indians, lack of interest in A.A. is reported for most Indian groups of North America. The author reviews Coast Salish culture traits with regard to their relevance to the socio-cultural problems of the Indian population today, and explores the relationship between patterns of alcohol use and abuse and Westernization. Alcohol abuse among British Columbia Indians has become a major factor in social, physical, and mental pathology according to statistical evidence, and it is in this context that the function of A.A. and its efficacy in combating alcoholism is investigated. Alcoholics Anonymous maintains that all members are equal, regardless of racial, ethnic or religious background. But Indians with alcohol problems find it difficult to speak openly among non-Indians in A.A. Alleged or real discriminations led to the formation of Indian A.A. groups among the Coast Salish some ten years ago, and participation in them has been steadily growing. Patterns of traditional social structure and behaviour are reflected in the way the Coast Salish conduct their A.A. meetings, and this clearly sets their groups apart from other A.A. organizations. Indian A.A. meetings are important social events on the reserve; sometimes they take the form of a family court, the participants having to justify their behaviour towards kinsmen in front of the whole A.A. group. Considerable discussion is devoted to Indian-White relations, a fact which demonstrates the importance of this conflict area to Indians with alcohol problems. There is a strong emphasis on rebirth through A.A. The "power greater than ourselves" in the A.A. programme is to the local Indian member a syncretic amalgamation of the Christian God with the spirit power of the Salish winter ceremonials. Many Indian A.A. members also attend the revived spirit dances, and the same building is used for both purposes on a local reserve. The author discusses the social movement-aspects of Indian A.A. and the possibility of its development into a nativistic movement. Abstinence from alcohol has been extolled by many religious movements among North American Indians such as the Handsome Lake Religion, the Ghost Dance, the Indian Shaker Church, and the Peyote Cult, which are described in the context of Indian efforts to combat alcoholism. The inefficiency of purely Western methods of helping Indians with alcohol problems is the basis of the author's conclusion that any assistance rendered by Western agencies, in order to be effective, must rely on Indian initiatives and actively involve the local Indian population. Only anti-alcoholic programmes integrating Indian A.A. groups with Indian community centres and professional consultation services in an organized effort, will have a chance to meet with success. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate

This thesis examines the impacts of indigenous dispossession from lands and resources by utilizing a concept in ecology, that of ecological keystone species, and extending it to species that play a key, characterizing role in a particular culture or society. A storytelling methodology is used to determine the presence of cultural keystones in stories and place names of Tla'amin peoples, a Northern Coast Salish group whose traditional territory is located along the coast 130 kilometres northwest of Vancouver, British Columbia. I extend the storytelling methodology to encompass film and video projects that exhibit characteristics of Fourth World Cinema and discuss how such films can be used to empower indigenous communities and reclaim cultural and political rights.

Thesis (Ph. D)--UCLA, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 291-325).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington. / Bibliography: l. [493]-494.

The thesis examines in detail the histories and customs of Coast Salish gambling games, and looks at the game structure and its attending spirit power affiliations. Three principal sources of data were employed in the explication of the thesis: (1) pertinent ethnographical data recorded in published reference literature and archival documents, (2) information acquired from various museums on the relevant material culture in their collections and the attending documentation, (3) empirical data collected in the field through direct game observation and the interviewing of informants. The study concludes as the circumstance of Coast Salish gambling games suggests that these games are not just a simple set of rules, and that the games discussed here have, on the other hand, meaningful functions and serve as a form of social expression. As a social mechanism, Coast Salish gambling games are a forum for supernatural power. The existence of power is seen as the basic influence in Coast Salish life, and as such, powers are given meaning as ontological expressions. The gambling games are seen to be an expression of man's power affiliations. Power is an element which may affect the outcome of each gambling event, and the gambling games thereby may be an endorsement of power favour. In view of this concept, Coast Salish gambling games appear to be useful devices to measure the differential degrees or strengths of power among players. Further, it can be said that one of the functions of these games is that they give tangible and observable verification of the influence of power. / Arts, Faculty of / Sociology, Department of / Graduate

The Island Halkomelem Indian people live on the southeastern part of Vancouver Island and on some of the southern Gulf Islands in British Columbia. A total of three hundred two (302) place-names are known to these people today, in their Coast Salish language. Each of these names is transcribed in a practical writing system, corresponding to the pronunciation of the Indian words by some of the thirteen elderly Island Halkomelem people who collaborated on this study. For each geographical name, information regarding its traditional and present utilization by the Indians is given. This data is derived from interviews with the Indian people conducted by the author over a ten year period and also includes all the available information on each place-name from the pertinent ethnographic, linguistic and historical literature. After the information on the place-names is presented a brief analysis of the Indian names is attempted, focusing on a preliminary typology of the names derived from the use, English translations and etymologies of each name. A complete and detailed series of maps is included. The study concludes with some statements about how the Indian geographical toponymy reflects Island Halkomelem culture. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate

Narratives serve many functions within a given cultural group. As well as reflecting and transmitting the social values of that group, narratives provide children with a cognitive framework that is an important factor in the learning process. Although the structure of narratives has been described for mainstream children, there is some debate as to whether different cultures share the same narrative structure. A culturally-based difference in narrative structure may contribute to the fact that Native Indian children (as well as children from other minority cultures) are overrepresented among those children who have difficulty in school. The present study set out to investigate whether there was a discernable difference in the structure of narratives told by five Coast Salish children aged 5;0 -8;6 and those told by mainstream children reported in the narrative development research literature. Two types of narratives (personal experience and fictional) were collected and analyzed according to three analysis procedures: high point analysis, which emphasizes evaluation of events; episodic analysis, which emphasizes goal-based action; and poetic analysis, which emphasizes the poetic form of the narratives. The high point analysis revealed that the Coast Salish children ordered events in their stories in a different order than mainstream children do. Both the high point and the episodic analyses showed that the Coast Salish children expressed relationships between events implicitly more frequently than mainstream children. The poetic analysis was the most revealing of potential intercultural differences. This analysis revealed that falling intonation, grammatic closure, lexical markers and shifts in perspective (reference, action, focused participant, time frame, comment, etc.) defined structural units in the narratives of the Coast Salish children. This evidence of structural unit markers was consistent with predictions based on research by Scollon & Scollon (1981, 1984). The results of this investigation have implications for educators and speech-language pathologists in their interaction with Native Indian children. In addition, the results provide a useful indication of the necessary considerations and appropriate procedures for carrying out a more focused study of the narratives of a larger group of Native Indian children. / Medicine, Faculty of / Audiology and Speech Sciences, School of / Graduate