Sechelt

This article describes the Canadian First Nations; the place of the same name can be found under Sechelt (British Columbia) .

Traditional territory of the Sechelt and main reserves

Flag of the Sechelt

The Sechelt (English pronunciation: "SEA-shelt") or Shishalh , (in Sechelt: Shishá7lh ) are one of the Canadian First Nations in the province of British Columbia and count culturally and linguistically like the closely related Pentlatch (Puntletch or Puntledge) and the Comox groups ( Comox (K'omoks) , Homalco (Xwemalhkwu) , Klahoose (ƛohos) and Sliammon (ɬəʔamɛn or Tla'amin) ) to the coastal Salish . At the time of first contact with the Europeans, the Shishalh (Sechelt) numbered an estimated 26,000 tribal members.

The Sechelt (Shíshálh) First Nation , officially known as the Sechelt Indian Band , is located opposite the east coast of Vancouver Island on the eastern side of the Strait of Georgia with the town of Sechelt named after them as its administrative seat. Today (September 2013) it has 1,328 registered tribal members, of whom 630 live in its own reservations, 29 in other reservations and the remaining 669 tribal members outside.

language

Their language, the Sháshíshálh / She Sháshíshálhem (šášíšáɬəm) or Sechelt , belongs to the Northern Georgia Strait Coast Salish or Northern (Coast) Salish of the Central Coast Salish of the Salish languages and is closely related to the Comox Sliammon or (Ay-Ay-Ju-Thum / Salhulhtxw) the Comox groups and the Pentlatch or Puntletch / Puntledge (Pənƛ̕áč) the Pentlatch.

However, today only up to 45 Shíshálh - with different levels - are fluent in their mother tongue; 15 of these Shíshálh liquid and the other 10 to 15 can hold an interview and follow it. (Golla 2007).

history

→ Main article : History of the coastal salish

Today's Shishalh (Sechelt) are descendants of four important clans or subgroups, each of whom lived in a main village and a few smaller settlements; the Shishalh also differentiated between winter and summer villages.

• the xénichen (on Queen's Reach, the northernmost arm of Jervis Inlet )
• the ts'únay (in Jervis Inlet on the Deserted Bay, where once the village Shishalh Tsuahdie - "seek space to shelter / protection" was that because Grizzly rely attacks, from saying deserted was)
• the téwánkw (in the Sechelt Inlet, Salmon Inlet and Narrow Inlet) and
• the sxixus (from Pender Harbor, a bay on the Sunshine Coast , to today's Roberts Creek , which was traditionally considered the border between the tribal areas of the Shishalh and the Squamish (Skwxwu7mesh))

In 1925 they officially formed the Sechelt Indian Band .

Catholic Mission and Reservations

The missionary Paul Durieu (1830–1899) was probably the first white man to come to the area. He had already joined the Oblate Order in 1848/49 . In 1854 he finished his training as a priest and brought with him the following principles: instruction in the language of those who were to be missionary, establishment of mission schools and non-interference in the internal affairs of the tribes. At the end of 1854 he worked in Oregon , where he got to know the institution of the "watchmen": men who were supposed to watch and report on the life of the missionaries in the absence of the priest. They had in mind the model of the Jesuits of Paraguay , who adapted their Catholic traditions to the local ones in order to change the way of life over very long periods of time. This in turn meant that traditional culture was able to survive under the Catholic shell.

But the Catholic, French- speaking missionaries were unpopular with the settlers and soon had to be withdrawn. During the uprising of the Yakima ( Washington ) 1855-56 Durieu had to flee and should now proselytize among the Snohomish , a Salish tribe. Their new headquarters were in Esquimalt (British Columbia) on Vancouver Island. In 1859/60 Durieu was sent to the coastal Salish, in 1864 to the Salish in the Fraser Valley . In 1865, in turn, he went to the Kwakwaka'wakw near Beaver Harbor.

The smallpox epidemic of 1862 probably killed almost the entire tribe of the Sechelt. About 200 of them survived. This catastrophe led to a mass conversion to Catholicism. On December 7, 1876, the Sechelt ("Se Shell") was assigned their current reservation.

Already at the end of the 1960s the Temperance Society Courts , the courts of the moderation society , under the chairmanship of the traveling missionaries, dominated the legal life and monitored the morale of the remaining Salish. The missionaries translated the essential texts of the liturgy into the Lingua Franca of the area, the Chinook , and in 1892 the Bible also appeared in this language. Durieu became vicar general of the order in 1870 and bishop in 1875.

Despite the paternalistic care, the few Sechelt, as well as the other Salish tribes, were on their help in the fight for promised rights, e.g. B. Reserves, instructed. At the same time, the Anglican-dominated government was concerned about the success of the missionaries, who gathered up to 3,000 Indians at their church celebrations - known as “potlatches” -. Methodists and Anglicans soon copied their missionary methods. The Oblates looked after around 70 Indian communities with 24 priests. Sechelt received a permanent resident priest for the first time in 1901. Durieu founded music groups and choirs as well as a theater group. He also tried to put the communities on their own economically and encouraged massive logging and industrial fishing.

The Chirouse scandal of 1892 showed early on that the mission schools were ready to use violence. Father Eugène-Casimir Chirouse of the Snohomish Mission had an Indian girl flogged and was taken to court for it. The Durieu system, almost a theocracy , fell into disrepute.

Nevertheless, the first residential school was built at Chateleech . In Sechelt, St. Augustine's Residential School opened on June 29, 1904, where the House of Chiefs now stands. The school burned down in 1917, but was re-established in 1922 and existed until the 1960s. The Sechelt had to burn down their totem poles and other “paraphernalia of the medicine men” by hand.

In 1881 167 of the once 5,000 Sechelts were still alive. The "one great fire" that once stretched from Gower Point to Saltery Bay, its culture, songs, chants, dances, stories, and skills seemed lost.

Culture

As everywhere on the Pacific coast, salmon was the main food of the coastal salish and thus also the shishalh. It also plays an important role in their culture, similar to the eagle, raven, bear, wolf and whale. The thunderbird is considered to be the lord of the sky, the snake as the mistress of the sea. A third animal, vaguely similar to a frog, represented happiness. These motifs appear very often in totem poles, along with the symbols of the clans. The carving work is not allowed to be done by everyone, the position as “carver” is hereditary and to a large extent spiritual.

In the House of hewhiwas , the house of the chiefs, on Highway 101, there is the museum tems swiya (Our Work), which is only open in summer. In addition to carvings, there are canoes, basket work, tools, ceremonial objects, but also photographs of rock paintings (pictographs).

According to legend, Mount Daniel (419 m) was used by the Shishalh as a lookout in order not to be surprised by enemies. But it had another function: the summit of the mountain - Kwiss Cham - was the place where the girls of the tribe celebrated their transition to women. Stones representing the moon were placed in a large circle in which the girls prayed and meditated for several days. These moon rings are now under protection and are among the archaeological sites of the province. Before visiting, you should contact the Shishalh and take their guidance.

European settlers

In 1869 John Scales, a British engineer, took possession of land on Trail Bay, and later on Porpoise Bay. But he never moved into the area. He sold his property to Thomas John and Sarah Cook, who are considered the first white settlers. In 1904 the Whitaker family built a pier in Porpoise and Trail Bay for steam boats, the Union Steamships. However, the main industries soon became logging, fishing, and especially tourism.

Restoration

In 1986, the Sechelt became the first First Nation in Canada to achieve self-government. Faceless totem poles in front of the Shishalh museum are said to symbolize the time before 1986, when the Indians believed they had lost their identity. Since then, the posts have had faces again.

On the Hidden Grove Trail, around 4 km behind Porpoise Bay Park, there is a small, now protected primeval forest with one of the once numerous giants, the "Lonely Giant".

A fierce dispute has broken out since 2005 about the Caren Range, where there is a primeval forest that would have almost been cut down in the 1970s. It is 800 hectares within the Spipiyus Provincial Park established in 2000 , which comprises around 3,000 hectares. The Pan Pacific Aggregates was the beginning of the delivery rights for raw materials on the entire Sechelt Peninsula , this includes the Caren Range. Pan Pacific plans to build a mine in Spipiyus Provincial Park. This happened without the Shishalh's consultation with the responsible Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources .

The Friends of Sechelt Peninsula asked the Shishalh for support against the company, which had already declared their rejection in a referendum on August 19, 2006. You wrote an open letter to PPA on November 14, 2006. At the beginning of March 2007 it was decided that the project would be subjected to an environmental impact assessment.

At the same time, since June 7, 2006, the Shishalh have been attempting to compile an archaeological inventory of the area endangered by the resource company. Several sites could be identified, but without meeting the criteria of the BC Heritage Conservation Act .

Today's reservations

Today, the total of 33 reservations or Sechelt Band Lands (SBL) of the Sechelt Indian Band form the Sechelt Indian Government District , which has the status of a Regional Municipality - 32 SBLs are in the Sunshine Coast Regional District and one SBLs in the district qathet regional district .

The largest reserves or SBLs are Sechelt Band Lands 2 (241.2 ha), where most of the Sechelt live, Sechelt Band Lands 15 (293.2 ha), also called Tsouahdie (coast of Deserted Bay on the right bank of the Stakawus Creek to the mouth of the Deserted River, Jervis Inlet) and Sechelt Band Lands 27 ( Skookumchuck ) (103.2 ha) and Band Lands 11 ( Hunaechin ). There are also numerous, sometimes very small, reserves at the mouth of Wilson Creek, around Porpoise Bay, Narrows Inlet, Jervis Inlet, Princess Louisa Inlet, Pender Harbor , on the Francis Peninsula, between Sakinaw Lake and Agamemnon Channel, as well on the Malaspina Strait .

Chief Stan Dixon's successor is Garry Peschuk, who is surrounded by four advisors.

See also

• History of the Coastal Salish
• History of British Columbia
• First Nations history
• List of Indian tribes recognized in Canada

literature

• Wayne Suttles (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians . Volume 7: Northwest Coast. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC 1990, ISBN 0-87474-187-4 .

Web links

• Map of the Tribal Areas of the Sechelt, Comox and Pentlatch
• Paul Durieu . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).
• Outline the history of the Shishalh and the city of Sechelt

Remarks

1. ^ Homepage of the Sechelt (Shíshálh) First Nation
2. ↑ According to the information from the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development , First Nation Profiles: Sechelt ( Memento of the original from May 14, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ To the Mount Daniel Hiking Trail: sunshinecoasteh.com .
4. ↑ The two proposed mine locations can be found here: the caren range .
5. ↑ The open letter online: carenrange.com .
6. ↑ The Declaration of the Shishalh: carenrange.com .