LAND OF PLENTY ~ LAND OF ISOLATION

 The northern northwest coast is a land where rugged mountains meet the water in a complex pattern of ridges that march off into the sea to create fjords and hundreds of islands, large and small. Forest comes down to the water's edge. The magnitude of the tides is great, but tidal zones are small because the land drops rapidly into the sea. This also means that, even though rivers and streams are many, their deltas and estuaries are usually relatively small.
   These features combine to produce a very productive intertidal zone, limited but rich shallow water fisheries, extensive deep-water marine resources including whales, and abundant riverine resources, especially salmon. Settlements, however, must be dispersed and isolated.

TOP    Home

  The North Pacific region showing the terrain and coastal waters over which successive migrations of people entered the North America and repeatedly populated the Northwest Coast. Archaeologists, biologists and linguists are still sorting out the details of this process.

  To the right is what Carl Borden made of this process back in 1978. We've learned quite a lot since and the story is, of course, a bit more complex.

DOWNLOAD BORDEN'S PAPER

CURRENT COASTAL PERSPECTIVE BY WADE

COHEN'S KILGII GWAAY THESIS

SETTLEMENT PATTERNS BY TOBIASZ

TOP    Home

  These are the language families found along the Northwest Coast. The main thing to take away from this image is the incredible diversity of unrelated languages that you find here. Every one of the dark gray, numbered places is a language that is not related to any other known language.     VIEW THE WHOLE OF NORTH AMERICA.

TOP    Home

  To the left are the principle groups the Northwest Coast societies. The Kwakiutl are situated in two places - in northern and southern territories separated by the Bella Coola, as shown on the map below. On the map just above, the brick red area marks the southern Kwakiutl, of Kwakwakawakw. This is the area in which the Cannibal Woman Society and its ceremonies are most elaborated. The material used in this presentation is drawn mainly from the Kwakiutl and adjacent societies.

TOP

  This illustration shows the Boreal Forest stretching across Canada in a broad green ribbon along with other forest types along the Northwest Coast. What do forests have to do with Cannibal Woman. Well, in different cultures, people go insane in predictable, culturally correct ways. Indians in the Boreal Zone go insane by becoming cannibals, or by fearing they are becoming cannibals, or by being possessed by cannibal spirits. The folk tales and myths surrounding the Wendigo are all about this avenue to insanity, and the Cannibal Woman Society is one way of addressing this problem and harnessing its social and economic potential.

Read about the Wendigo psychosis.   

TOP