Culture and Religion

Among the Coast Salish there has been a tremendous revival of ceremonial life, particularly the winter Spirit Dance, since the 1950s, with perhaps the greatest increases in participation coming in the 1990s. The resurgence coincided with the ending of the prohibition on potlatching in the Indian Act of 1951. In 1961 it was estimated that there were less than one hundred dancers in total, but by the late 1990s one could encounter five hundred or more dancers at a single gathering. Many new winter houses have been constructed for spirit dancing. Initiation into spirit dancing follows from a diagnosis of sickness or upon a decision by the individual or family to improve the initiate’s life. Initiates are confined to winter houses for the winter, with the exception of time spent ritually bathing in the wilderness, are limited in their food and water, and receive spiritual advice and training. During this period of seclusion, initiates receive a song and spirit helper.

Potlatches, once held in other seasons, are now ordinarily held in the winter at spirit dances. Families wishing to give ancestral names to younger members, to bestow ritual prerogatives, or to hold memorials for the deceased invite guests from all over the Salish community to winter houses to witness the work. Funerals are another important occasion which draw large numbers of guests from throughout the region and often involve components from several religious traditions. Many families continue the practice of holding ritual burnings. A ritualist places plates of food into an outdoor fire to feed the dead and subsequently burns the personal possessions of the deceased. In some cases, all the items within the family house are removed and given away.

There has also been a revival of carving, weaving, and painting. Cedar carvings, baskets, and other objects are made by men and women and displayed in many homes. Among the many Salish artists, Susan Point, of Musqueam, is perhaps the best known. She works in the Salish idiom, producing carvings, prints, and glass works, and her massive carved pieces are prominently displayed inside the Vancouver airport. Summer festivals centring around canoe racing draw female and male racers, and thousands of others from all over the Coast Salish region, to socialize and to participate in team gambling (slahal) and other sporting events.

For both the Interior and Coast Salish, powwows, intertribal social and competitive dance gatherings, have gained in popularity in the 1990s, with new events added to the calendar annually. Drumming is an important part of these events, and drumming groups also perform during ceremonial and public occasions. Many Salish songs are owned by families, and, owing to their connection to sacred winter ceremonies, cannot be sung at powwows. Powwows, like canoe races, bring together people from over a wide area.

A number of individuals play important cultural and intellectual roles in their communities and region. Some have arisen in response to the new interest in documenting community history and in preparing for treaty negotiations. Among these is Sonny McHalsie, a Sto:lo, who has spent many years researching Halkomelem place names and documenting Sto:lo connections to the landscape. He is employed by the Sto:lo Nation as a culture specialist. George Manual, 1921–89, a Shuswap, was a major figure in the World Council of Indigenous Peoples. His co-authored 1974 book, The Fourth World, was an important contribution to the study of contemporary indigenous peoples’ circumstances.

Salish peoples continue to practise, as before contact, a ceremonial life focused on the maintenance of respectful relationships between humans and the spirits of animated, sometimes anthropomorphic, non-human beings, including animals, plants, rocks, water, and other immortals. Some of these spirits are thought to be beings organized into communities of their own, with will and intelligence. Humans are regarded as somewhat weaker than immortal spirits, who possess the power to change shape. Many immortal beings become guardian spirits for individual males and females, although this is ordinarily not explicitly revealed. Through a process of ritual purification starting in childhood, individuals can seek out guardians in areas of solitude where spirits live.

Formerly, all successful, competent adults sought out such relationships; now, only some do. Canoe builders, warriors, and shamans, among others, were understood to have a particular spirit helper in order to do their work.

Important group rituals help maintain relations with immortals, including the first salmon ceremony. Salmon are believed to live in the ocean in longhouses and to don their salmon clothes to swim upriver and make themselves available to humans. The first salmon to go upriver, the chief of the salmon, is treated ritually, cooked, and its bones returned to the water. The chief then resumes its form and informs the other salmon that it had been treated properly, thereby guaranteeing the return of the run. First-berry ceremonies are similar.

Since contact a prominent feature of religious life has been apocalyptic prophecy, inspired in part by devastating epidemics and social changes. Many prophets gained followers for a short time and disappeared with little trace, but others, such as Smohalla, on the Plateau, who rejected white influence, had greater and longer-lasting influence. The Shaker Church, which combines Christianity and indigenous concepts of spirit power, is based on the death and rebirth experience of a Coast Salish man, John Slocum, in 1882. It was established in Puget Sound and adjacent portions of the lower mainland of British Columbia, and it is still active today. Christianity made inroads through the work of Catholic and Protestant missionaries in the mid- and late nineteenth century and, as noted above, through Salish people working independently and with their own interpretations of Christian “power.” Many Salish people are still nominally Christian, others are active Christians, and many participate in more than one religious tradition. Recently, Pentecostal ministers, often community members, have established followings among Salish people. Pentecostalism, however, has not developed an institutional infrastructure, and congregations disperse after the death or departure of the minister. A recent development has been interest in Plains or Pan-Indian spiritual practices, including Medicine Wheel concepts. Some community members regard these practices as obstructing local spirituality.