Nuu-chah-nulth

T. Penney

"Noo-CHAA-nulth"

The Nuu-chah-nulth are from the western side of Vancouver Island, comprised of 14 communities with language, family, and cultural affinities, including a traditional practice of whaling. Historical signs in this hall refer to them as “Nootka,” a misnomer used by Captain James Cook after his 1778 visit to the area.

Population: Approximately 9,500 (as of 2014)  Language: Nuu-chah-nulth, three dialects

Nuu-Chah-Nulth Language

 

Woman holds a baby, with a whiteboard in view behind her.
Gold River, Vancouver Island, B.C.  The Nuu-chah-nulth language is also called T'aat'aaqsapa, meaning “putting your words in order”—speaking properly. Here, Georgina Amos (Thla-quas), a traditional chief, holds Leo Blondeau during a language class she is attending. Fewer than 150 people speak Nuu-chah-nulth proficiently today. Amos is still learning. Her family attended a government-run residential school, where indigenous languages were forbidden, affecting how much Nuu-chah-nulth was passed on to her. Listen to phrases in the Ehattesaht dialect from nearby Ehatis.
V. Wells. Audio: ʔiiḥatisatḥ/čiinaxint Tribe. n̓aaskuusaƛ — Fidelia Haiyupis, elder voice.

Ehattesaht_what is your name

Ehattesaht_I love you

Trail through a dense, verdant forest. Wild Side Trail, Flores Island, B.C.  For centuries the Nuu-chah-nulth community on Flores Island, the Ahousaht, have walked a seven-mile (11km) forested trail from their village to the resource-rich beaches on the west side of the Island.
T. Penney
Mist rises over the river, partially blocking the mountains from view. Wild Side Trail, Flores Island, B.C.  In the 1990s the Ahousaht expanded the use of the trail as an ecotourism venture.
T. Penney

From the Collections: Nuu-chah-nulth headdress

Headdress

Nuu-chah-nulth people call this type of headdress a hinkiitsim. It is worn above a dancer’s forehead and appears in pairs—male and female. This one’s pair is in the Anthropology collection upstairs. The right to wear a hinkiitsim in potlatches, or ceremonial feasts, is handed down from generation to generation. This one represents a serpent, possibly a lightning snake, an important supernatural being in the Nuu-chah-nulth tradition.

This headdress is from Clayoquot in Nuu-chah-nulth territory on the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.

AMNH 16/1900, acquired 1897

Child raises a cardboard replica of a headdress over his head. Fifth grader David Little shows a hinkiitsim-style headdress he made for his winning project at the Alberni Valley Museum Regional Heritage Fair on Vancouver Island in 2015.
Image credit: S. Morrow/Ha-Shilth-Sa
Several people wearing headdresses ride in the back of the pickup truck. Several dancers wear hinkiitsim on a decorated truck around 1929. At the back, Chief Dan Watts carries a sign saying ”We are the Real Native Sons of Canada.”
Image credit: Alberni Valley Museum

Nuu-Chah-Nulth-Territory

Aerial view of land masses and waterways.
Ucluelet, Vancouver Island, B.C.  The town of Ucluelet straddles a peninsula of coastal rainforest. It is the homeland of the Yuułuʔiłʔatḥ, a Nuu-chah-nulth community. In 2011 the Yuulu?il?ath signed a treaty with the Canadian government to regain title to their traditional lands. They are developing new economic ventures here as fishing and logging industries decline.
R. Heinl
Bull kelp washed up on a sandy shore.
Ucluelet, Vancouver Island, B.C.  Bull kelp, a marine algae, washes up on the beach of the secluded Ucluth Cove near the resort. In the past, hollow lengths of this seaweed would be used as tubes to store oil from whales, seals and fish.
 T. Penney
Two people look at mounted information while in the midst of a stand of trees in Cathedral Grove.
MacMillan Provincial Park, Vancouver Island, B.C.  The Douglas fir trees in Cathedral Grove are ancient remnants of the coastal rainforest that typically covered Vancouver Island before logging. Some are more than 800 years old, 250 feet (75 meters) high and 9 feet (2.75 meters) in diameter. Near the park, towering cedar trees show use by the local Nuu-chah-nulth community, the Huupach’esat-h, past and present: strips of bark are peeled off and processed to make baskets and other items.
H. Alonso/© AMNH
Wooden seating lines the sides of the main hall of the cultural center.
Yuquot (Friendly Cove), Nootka Island, B.C.  The former Catholic church at Yuquot is now a cultural center, with carvings that honor chiefs of the Mowachaht-Muchalaht. In the 1770s, explorers from Spain led by Juan Pérez, as well as Captain James Cook from England, visited Yuquot. Their governments laid claim to the land because of its strategic location for the sea otter fur trade, establishing a fort, church, and other colonial enterprises. Today, the Mowachaht-Muchalaht run Yuquot’s historic site.
D. Williams
A man sun-dries branches of hemlock or spruce on a rack near the sea.
Yuquot (Friendly Cove), Nootka Island, B.C.  Historically, Yuquot was a seasonal village for food gathering by the local Mowachaht community of the Nuu-chah-nulth. In this Yuquot image from around 1909, a man sun-dries branches of hemlock or spruce on a rack. The branches had been placed in the sea to pick up thick clumps of pale yellow eggs, or roe, from spawning herring. Herring roe is still harvested using similar methods in many Northwest Coast communities.
RBCM/BC Archives PN 7226
View of Meares Island from a dock across the bay.
Meares Island, Clayoquot Sound, B.C.  Meares Island appears through the mist across from the town of Tofino in Clayoquot Sound. “Clayoquot” is an anglicized version of Tla-o-qui-aht, the Nuu-chah-nulth community whose homeland this is. In the 1980s, the Nuu-chah-nulth and allies fought plans to clear-cut Meares Island’s old-growth forests. In 1993, their blockades culminated in a massive, landmark protest over natural resource policies in the area. The protest resulted in the arrest of nearly 1,000 people—and an agreement that Nuu-chah-nulth communities in Clayoquot Sound have authority to make decisions about its land and waters.
T. Penney
Man sits at a workshop table with containers of tools and brushes and a half-completed sculpture next to him.
"I grew up with my grandparents, and that was very good for me. The very first carvings I did were when I was 11 years old. My grandmother would say to me, “take the cedar chip. Put it in your hand.” She knew exactly what I was going to be. She could foresee.Life was about preparation. This is how you hold your knife. You go over and over it until you get it right. If you did it improperly, it was like, “Just put it away.” Go see your cousin. Come back when you’re ready. Later, when I was an adult, my granduncle used to say, “You’re near finished now, Tim. It’s alive, and you can talk to it. I’m going to go inside.” That’s putting yourself into that piece and making it come alive." — Tim Paul | Master Artist  
L. Allen/© AMNH

B6-Paul_quote

Ongoing Traditions

Man stands in front of a sculpted metal doorway.
I am who I am today because of my grandparents. Family friends used to refer to me as my grandfather’s little shadow. He was Tluukwaana, or initiated into the wolf clan when he was young. At that time, traditional ceremonies were outlawed by the government and church, so his initiation was done secretly. My grandmother is the eagle clan. She was the pillar of our family and community. I’m so thankful my grandparents held onto the culture. They passed it to their children and me. It was fitting for me to acknowledge them on the front of my art gallery with a carved eagle and wolf post. My grandmother always said: “Our culture is just like nature, always moving. If it doesn’t, it ceases to exist.” That’s what I want to do here, keep the artwork and culture moving forward. — Gordon Dick (Timʕaaʔa) Nuu-chah-nulth | Artist, gallery owner
L. Allen/© AMNH
Man holds baby in his lap so the baby can look at a traditional drum.
Ehatis (ʔiiḥatis), Vancouver Island, B.C.  Charles John, a song leader, teaches his son James at a weekly singing and drumming practice for families in Ehatis, the small village of the Ehattesaht community of the Nuu-chah-nulth. This is one way that teachings are orally passed between generations. Charles John’s Nuu-chah-nulth name is čačinsiinup, which means “making things right.”
V. Wells
Man leans on table in workshop.
Port Alberni, Vancouver Island. Nuu-chah-nulth artist and singer Stan Lucas, Jr. paints a cloth banner that will be used in a ceremony with Coast Salish communities near Vancouver. The communities are marshaling to protest an underground pipeline through the area from Alberta’s tar sands. Above Lucas are the lyrics to a song he and his relatives composed for the event. The song is about an earthquake, symbolic of the corporate actions they are fighting.
L. Allen/© AMNH

From the Collections: Nuu-chah-nulth fish rattle

Rattle

Doctor Atlieu, a shaman from Clayoquot, Vancouver Island, called this rattle Hemetsee, or gatherer of the fish. Before salmon season, Atlieu would put on a mask of the spirit Entina, then wade into the river up to his neck with the rattle in hand. His singing and shaking would summon Entina to summon the fish. After Atlieu sold this rattle to a collector, he began to regret it—few salmon came that season.

This rattle is from Clayoquot in Nuu-chah-nulth territory on the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.

AMNH 16/1966, acquired 1897

photo
Dr. Atlieu, the shaman who used this rattle, is at left. He is with Charles Nowell, Bob Harris, and an unidentified man at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904.
Image credit: AMNH Library 333573

 

From the Collections: Nuu-chah-nulth Shell Rattle

 

Scallop shells hang on a looped piece of leather.
RattleThis rattle is made of very large shells from a scallop species locally called weathervanes or pecten. This type of rattle is part of a masked dance called the X̱wix̱wi (prounounced “hway-hway”) The dance is done to cleanse and protect people of high rank. The right to perform it was passed from Coast Salish people to the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw and Nuu-chah-nulth through marriage.This rattle is from Clayoquot in Nuu-chah-nulth territory on the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.
AMNH 16/1971, acquired 1897