Ethnoarchaeomusciology

Wolf Effigy **

Ethnoarchaeomusicology of the Northwest Coast: In Search of the Nuu-chah-nulth and Makah Wolf Ritual

by Justin Ralls

The Northwest Coast has wet winters and verdant conifer forests; cold rivers carve their way to the sea through rugged mountains, colliding with the Pacific along a volcanic rim, in myriad inlets and islands. The Nuu-chah-nulth and Makah are interdependent with these potent natural forces. From this environment arose beautifully complex ceremonial and artistic traditions of religious and social import; the most significant is the Wolf Ritual.

How is the Wolf Ritual represented in anthropological records? How can archaeologists use this information to identify musical and ceremonial artifacts in sites? The Wolf Ritual employs drums, whistles, rattles, vocal sounds and songs, masks, costumes, and dances. While the Wolf Ritual is richly documented ethnographically (Boas 1891:599-604; Curtis 1916:68-98; Drucker 1951:386-443; Jacobson 1884:63-64), it has yet to be identified archaeologically.

The Wolf Ritual was one of the principal winter ceremonials. The wet days and long nights of winter, when hunting and other activities subsided and when people were more concentrated in large villages, was a time when spirits came into closer communion with human beings. One story tells of a young man wrapped in a seal carcass and taken by wolves to the woods, where he is given a whalebone club to defeat the tribe’s enemies. Another story tells of a girl meeting a handsome wolf pup, who comes to her in human form. They marry and go to the house of the Wolves where she learns wolf songs and dances (Sapir et al. 2007).

The wolf ritual incorporates natural sounds, such as “thunder-drums,” the flapping of ducks wings “sounding like a sawbill” (merganser), trumpeting swans, and wolf howls, whistles and calls. The vocal music of the Northwest Coast is among the most complicated in North America, both in rhythm and pitch structure (Halpern 1974; Nettl 1956:107-108).

Bull-roarer, used to imitate flapping wings **

Percussion instruments included wooden rattles carved in the shape of ravens, ducks, and geese, birds associated with shamanic or visionary flight. Rattles were also made of scallop shells, elk antler, mountain sheep horn, deer hooves, and even whale baleen (among the Makah). Hollowed log drums, bentwood box drums, and plank drums were widely used, as were wooden frame drums covered with elk or deer hide. A wood whistle known as pipi:p has a bugle-like call and was made by shaping, splitting in half and hollowing out the wood (Sapier et al. 2007:146). Whistles were ubiquitously regarded as conduits to the spirit world (Smyth 1999:24).

Wood frame drum, thunderbird **

Deer hoof rattles **

Wooden and bone whistles **

Even though the Makah village of Ozette is one of the largest archaeological sites on the coast, none of its artifacts were identified as musical instruments, sound devices, or linked to the Wolf Ritual. Yet the owl baton, bear box, and whale effigy may be remnants of some form of the Wolf Ritual or winter ceremonial. Perhaps wooden whistle fragments may yet be identified.

At Yuquot, a fragment of a one-piece bird bone whistle suggests ceremonialism as old as 2300 B.P. (Dewhirst 1980:333-345). Other such whistles are found later, and valves of small composite whistles appear about 1000 years ago and continue into the historic period, when they can be linked to use in the Wolf Ritual. A carved bone, perhaps representing a wolf head or mask, was dated to ca. 200 B.P., affirming the ancient origins of the Nuu-chah-nulth Wolf Ritual, consistent with Boas’ claim (Ernst 1952:104). A bird bone whistle from Tahkenitch Landing, Oregon, is associated with the Kalawatset or Kuitsch, part of the Lower Umpqua (Minor 1986).

Why haven’t more artifacts of the Wolf Ritual been identified archaeologically? Perhaps they perish in most sites, or perhaps musical and ceremonial artifacts are less numerous than other tools in the daily lives of ancient peoples. Masks, drums, rattles, regalia and ceremonial paraphernalia were highly valued and owned by elites who may have passed them down as heirlooms. Or perhaps such ceremonial artifacts were preferentially taken by collectors and are over-represented in museum collections?  

Wolves symbolize supernatural entities, represent clans, and are perceived as non-human neighbors, akin to humans. The Wolf Ritual severs the boundary between wolf, human, and spirit, through a specific sonic and cultural index; the transformation of wolves into persons and back to wolves.  The Wolf Ritual is probably fluid, evolving through time and clan relations, superseding other forms– and like the wolf– claiming its territory on the Northwest Coast. The varied ethnographies which detail the Wolf Ritual, combined with emergent archaeological findings, show that the close contact and co-habitation of wolves and humans along the Northwest Coast prompted human culture to embed non-humans into unique social, cultural, religious, and political traditions—a natural extension of their close economic and subsistence relationship with the environment. By becoming attuned to the types of artifacts used in music and ritual, we may uncover more evidence of the Wolf Ritual and other winter ceremonials on the Northwest Coast.

References

Arima, E. Y., Robinson, Katherine, Sapir, Edward, Klokeid, Terry J, and Canadian Museum of Civilization. The Origin of the Wolf Ritual: The Whaling Indians West Coast Legends and Stories. Mercury Series. Gatineau, Québec: Published by the Canadian Museum of Civilization, 2007

Drucker, Philip. The Northern and Central Nootkan Tribes. Bulletin (Smithsonian Institution. Bureau of American Ethnology); 144. Washington: U.S. G.P.O., 1951.

Ernst, Alice Henson. The Wolf Ritual of the Northwest Coast. Eugene: University of Oregon, 1952.

Folan, William J., and Dewhirst, John. The Yuquot Project Vol. 1: The Indigenous Archaeology of Yuquot, a Nootkan Outside Village. Ottawa: National Historic Parks and Sites Branch, Parks Canada, Environment Canada, 1980.

Halpern, Ida. Nootka: Indian Music of the Pacific North West Coast. Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Folkways Records, 1974.

de Laguna, Frederica. Archeology of the Yakutat Bay Area, Alaska. Bulletin (Smithsonian Institution. Bureau of American Ethnology); 192. Washington: U.S. G.P.O., 1964.

Minor, Rick, Toepel, Kathryn Anne, Greenspan, Ruth Lisa, Siuslaw National Forest, and Heritage Research Associates. The Archaeology of the Tahkenitch Landing Site: Early Prehistoric Occupation on the Oregon Coast. Heritage Research Associates Report; No. 46. Eugene, OR: Heritage Research Associates, 1986.

Nettl, Bruno. Music in Primitive Culture. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1956.

Smyth, Willie, and Ryan, Esmé. Spirit of the First People: Native American Music Traditions of Washington State. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999.

Suttles, Wayne ed. Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 7. Washington: Smithsonian Institution: U.S. Govt. Print. Off. 1978.

Swan, James Gilchrist. The Indians of Cape Flattery: At the Entrance to the Strait of Fuca, Washington Territory. Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge; 220. Seattle, Wash.: Shorey Publications, 1972.

** See online exhibit of Hall of Northwest Coast Indians, American Museum of Natural History for examples of many artifacts discussed: http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/permanent-exhibitions/human-origins-and-cultural-halls/hall-of-northwest-coast-indians/nuu-chah-nulth/musical-instruments/whistle-of-cedar-wood