Where the Water Meets the Land: Between Culture and History in Upper Skagit Aboriginal Territory by Molly Sue Malone B.A., Dartmouth College, 2005 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in The Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (Anthropology) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) December 2013 © Molly Sue Malone, 2013 Abstract Upper Skagit Indian Tribe are a Coast Salish fishing community in western Washington, USA, who face the challenge of remaining culturally distinct while fitting into the socioeconomic expectations of American society, all while asserting their rights to access their aboriginal territory. This dissertation asks a twofold research question: How do Upper Skagit people interact with and experience the aquatic environment of their aboriginal territory, and how do their experiences with colonization and their cultural practices weave together to form a historical consciousness that orients them to their lands and waters and the wider world? Based on data from three methods of inquiry—interviews, participant observation, and archival research—collected over sixteen months of fieldwork on the Upper Skagit reservation in Sedro-Woolley, WA, I answer this question with an ethnography of the interplay between culture, history, and the land and waterscape that comprise Upper Skagit aboriginal territory. This interplay is the process of historical consciousness, which is neither singular nor sedentary, but rather an understanding of a world in flux made up of both conscious and unconscious thoughts that shape behavior. I conclude that the ways in which Upper Skagit people interact with what I call the waterscape of their aboriginal territory is one of their major distinctive features as a group. Their approach to the world is framed by their experience of this space and the divide between land and water within it, which is permeable and constantly shifting. Community members understand the cultural salience of places within the waterscape, including places that are now submerged beneath lakes created by ii hydroelectric dams. Oral narratives remain important in Upper Skagit culture today even though the narratives are accessed in changing ways, such as reading and listening to recordings or invoking parts of stories at carefully chosen times. The regulatory and legal regimes of the colonial process—examined as both broad strokes and fine grains—shape people’s consciousness and behavior in the waterscape. This case study both builds on and contributes to the literatures of Coast Salish ethnography, cultural constructions of place, cultural distinctiveness of indigenous groups, and the anthropology of water. iii Preface This research was approved by the UBC Behavioural Research Ethics Board: Certificate Number H09-02869; Principal Investigator: Dr. Bruce Granville Miller. iv Table of Contents Table of Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................... ii Preface ........................................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents .......................................................................................................... v List of Figures .............................................................................................................. vii Acknowledgements ................................................................................................... viii Dedication ...................................................................................................................... x Chapter 1: Introduction and Methods ........................................................................ 1 1.1 Situating Myself in the Work ........................................................................... 12 1.2 Methods .............................................................................................................. 18 Chapter 2: Ethnographic Background ..................................................................... 29 2.1 Upper Skagit: An Introduction ....................................................................... 29 2.2 Who Belongs? Blood Quantum ....................................................................... 36 2.3 Family Organization and Communities of Practice ...................................... 41 Chapter 3: Waterscape ............................................................................................... 51 3.1 Waterscape: Origins of the Term .................................................................... 51 3.2 The Fishery ........................................................................................................ 59 3.3 The Colonial Encounter Inscribed: Dikes, Dams, and Logjams .................. 76 Chapter 4: Historical Consciousness and Local Knowledge .................................. 94 4.1 Historical Consciousness .................................................................................. 95 4.1.1 Individual Historical Consciousness ............................................................ 97 4.1.2 Family Historical Consciousness ............................................................... 103 4.1.3 Tribal Historical Consciousness ................................................................ 107 4.2 Historical Periodization .................................................................................. 112 4.3 Local Knowledge ............................................................................................. 117 4.4 Implications for Tribal Understandings ....................................................... 133 Chapter 5: Traditional Oral Narratives ................................................................. 136 5.1 Approach to Oral Narratives ......................................................................... 136 5.2 Stories from Specific Predecessor Villages ................................................... 141 5.3 Transformer Stories and Waterscape Features ........................................... 149 5.4 Water Features and Behavior ........................................................................ 157 5.5 Oral Tradition in Contemporary Upper Skagit Culture ............................ 166 Chapter 6: Family Narratives .................................................................................. 170 6.1 Marlowe Family .............................................................................................. 171 6.1.1 Waterscape Awareness: Ancestral Travel Routes and Beyond ................. 177 6.1.2 Working Life .............................................................................................. 182 v 6.1.3 Sites of Spirituality .................................................................................... 184 6.2 Walters Family ................................................................................................ 187 6.2.1 Places and Movements in the Waterscape ................................................. 189 6.2.2 Spirit Questing and Contemporary Smokehouse Practices ....................... 196 6.3 Discussion ........................................................................................................ 200 Chapter 7 Conclusion ............................................................................................... 201 7.1 The Preceding Chapters ................................................................................. 202 7.2 Elders, Events, and the Continued Importance of Narrative ..................... 205 7.3 Tribal Cohesion and the Regulatory and Legal Regimes ........................... 208 7.4 Deep History: Waterscape Connections ....................................................... 211 7.5 Coast Salish Literature and Implications for Future Research ................. 215 Bibliography .............................................................................................................. 221 Appendix A: Point Elliott Treaty, 1855 .................................................................. 234 Appendix B: Sally Snyder Stories ........................................................................... 243 vi List of Figures Figure 1.1 Skagit River Watershed (map by Bill Angelbeck) ............................................. 2 Figure 1.2 The ongoing process of historical consciousness .............................................. 4 Figure 2.1 Map of Upper Skagit predecessor villages and other key places (map by Bill Angelbeck) ................................................................................................................ 31 Figure 3.1 Upper Skagit fishers on an aluminum river skiff (photo by M. Malone) ........ 70 Figure 3.2 Skagit River Log Jam (map by Bill Angelbeck) .............................................. 83 Figure 4.1 Vehicles parked on a sand bar at Lyman Ferry (photo by M. Malone) ......... 122 vii Acknowledgements First and foremost I would like to thank the people of Upper Skagit Indian Tribe, who so generously gave their time and supported this project. In particular I want to thank Scott Schuyler and Doreen Maloney, without whose help this research never would have happened. I also want to thank my research supervisor, Bruce Granville Miller, who introduced me to Upper Skagit and guided me throughout this process. I am extremely lucky to share a fieldsite with him, as his familiarity with the