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Performing Archive

Salish

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Coiled basket with diagonal zig-zag patterns (stepped-patterned?) in brown and black/dark brown. Decorative rim with nine bunches of cellulose basketry (each approx. 3 cm) attached to top. Typed note inside vessel says: "19. Basketry Vessel. Tribe: Interior Salish or Klickitat. British Columbia and Washington State. Design: imbricated zig zag stepped band pattern from top to bottom in light black and red, with tan and light base. Size: 3 7/8" h., x 9 1/4" dia. Circa: 1900. Condition: v. poor rim condition."
Coiled basket with remnants of green and red pigment. Difficult to discern design; it is most apparent around the lip and the base. On the bottom exterior of the basket, there are concentric circles colored red. Rim has been broken in several places but is stabilized by early repair. Typed note inside basket says: "30. Basketry Storage Vessel. Tribe: Interior Salish or Klickitat, B.C. & WA. Design: utility vessel w/no apparent design pattern; splints of cedar or bundles of cedar roots and/or grasses make up the coil materials surface imbrication adds rigidity to the basket. Size: 9 1/4" h., 16" x 12" flattened oval. Condition: irreparably poor." A second handwritten note with basket says "No. West Coast, Thompson River?"
In the early years of the nineteenth century various explorers noted that the bands dwelling along the upper course of the Columbia, among which the Nespilim were included, wore practically no clothing. Excepting as the cold made some protection necessary. The hair of the women was arranged in two knots at the sides of the face ? a method of hairdressing still in vogue among the Salish on Fraser river. Prior to the middle of the century the use of deerskin garments had become common, and gradually other customs such as the style of hairdressing here illustrated, were borrowed from the tribes east of the Rocky mountains
The original of this portrait is a son Owhi (Ohai), who as chief of the Salishan band inhabiting Kittitas valley, Washington, at first appeared to favor the Stevens treaty of 1855, but a few months later was drawn into the Indian uprising by the act of another son, Qahlchun, in killing some prospectors. At the termination of hostilities Luqaiot made his permanent home among the Spokan, taking for his wife the daughter of a Spokan chief and widow of his executed brother Qahlchun. Luqaiot's recollections of the events of these times will be found scattered through the account of the Yakima war in Volume VII.