Emerging from the Mist: Studies in Northwest Coast Culture History (review)

This volume contains thirteen chapters and an epilogue on the culture history of the Native peoples of coastal British Columbia. There is no attempt at complete coverage, and the organization is idiosyncratic. In addition to the introduction by R.G. Matson, a chapter on metallurgy, and the final chapter on the Northwest Coast as a study area, five chapters relate to aspects of Nuu-chah-nulth/Makah culture history, two to Tsimshian, and three to Coast Salish. Substantive data are mostly from the late pre-contact and ethnohistoric periods. The earlier 10,000 years of culture history are unacknowledged. Many of the chapters contain regurgitated ethnohistoric facts combined with new archaeological data reconstituted as new omelettes. Matson introduces the volume with an emphasis on ethnographic socio-political organization and how the other chapters relate to this theme. His statement that our understanding of the Northwest Coast is now 'dramatically different from what it was twenty years ago' is an overstatement, although this volume does document progress gained from the excavation of houses. Northwest Coast archaeologists are the target readership.

Alan McMillan tackles the problem of differentiating migration from other causes of cultural change in the Nuu-chah-nulth region. My own bias is that migration is a useful concept on the Northwest Coast only at the time of initial settlement, and that acculturation and adaptation are better explanatory mechanisms for subsequent change. Part of the problem is that different artifact assemblages found in sites of the same period in the same region result from factors other than ethnic differences. A.P. Mackie and L. Williamson bring together all the available data on Nuu-chah-nulth house sizes and roof styles, a useful reference for future investigators. Greg Monks attempts to discover the meanings of whalebones in sites, and in comparing the archaeology with the ethnography finds both complementarity and contradiction. Dale Croes justifiably extols the benefits of preservation in wet sites at Hoko River and Ozette where sound inferences about everything from storage to social organization can be made. There is no better chapter in this book.

Two chapters focus on the Tsimshian region. Andrew Martindale examines the historic documentation of Legaix and concludes that unlike any other local leader, he was indeed a paramount chief. Gary Coupland, Roger Colten, and Rebecca Case provide a concise, readily understandable summary of both data and issues surrounding determination of socioeconomic organization at the McNichol Creek site. They interpret differences in house size and the intra-house low-to-high gradient in luxury goods from front to back as reflections of socioeconomic status.

Matson's chapter on the excavation of a Coast Salish house emphasizes the problems encountered in comparing the remains with houses described ethnographically. Colin Grier adopts the thesis that the large households in the Gulf Islands such as at Dionisio Point, 1500 years ago, were possible only because of the Fraser River salmon runs, thus implying intra-regional interaction between these villages and the inhabitants of the Fraser River region. Two chapters focus on technology, with Kitty Bernick comparing a thousand-year-old basket with historic examples and drawing inferences on ethnic continuity, and Steve Acheson surveying the growing evidence for incipient metallurgy.

The least comfortable chapter is by Quentin Mackie on location-allocation modelling. Although his intent is legitimate, the result is disappointing. While it is common practice to borrow theory and analytical techniques from other disciplines in the attempt to avoid disciplinary tunnel vision, such borrowings don't always work. The extensive jargon makes this chapter difficult to read, but even when comprehension dawns, the study still comes across as a less than useful exercise.

The final chapter by Leland Donald takes me back to my undergraduate days when those things he covers such as culture areas were the essence of cultural anthropology. This chapter exemplifies the Columbia-Berkeley American historical school approach...