Reading Assignment

The first file is the assignment. The second file is the source for question1. The third and fourth files are sources for question3.

1

. [Reading]

Read the following paper:

Turner, N. J. & Loewen, D. C. (1998). The Original “Free Trade”: Exchange of Botanical Products and Associated Plant Knowledge in Northwestern North America. Anthropologica, 40(1), 49-70. Retrieved from

https://www-jstor-org.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/stable/25605872

(12 marks) Question 1:
In your own words
, what are the 3 most important concepts, ideas or issues in the reading? Briefly explain why you chose them.

Question 2: What are 2 concepts, ideas or issues in the article that you had difficulty understanding, or that are missing but should have been included?
In your own words
, briefly explain what you did to correct the situation (e.g. looked up an unfamiliar word or a missing fact), and the result. Cite any sites or sources used in APA format.

Question 3:

What is the main economic story of the reading? (Economics studies the allocation of scarce resources.)

Question 4: (3 marks) The Canadian government has often limited Indigenous hunting and fishing to a small, subsistence scale: “that which could be consumed by the fisher [or hunter] and his or her family” (Douglas Harris, quoted in First Nations Studies Program (2009)[footnoteRef:1]). Based on what you learned from reading the article, is small-scale ‘food fishing/hunting’ of this type enough to preserve Indigenous cultures and traditional ways of life? Explain your reasoning. (Hint: the paper talks about more than plants. At various points it mentions fish, and oolichan grease (from a fish) was used in the plant trade, as seen in some rows of Table 1. Try searching for ‘fish’, ‘salmon,’ or ‘oolichan’.) [1: First Nations Studies Program. (2009). Aboriginal Fisheries in British Columbia [Web Page]. Retrieved from http://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/aboriginal_fisheries_in_british_columbia/ ]

2. [Regular]

In December of 1854, several tribes near Nanaimo signed a very unusual treaty with the Hudson’s Bay Company, who at the time had control of Vancouver Island. At least since 1964, this brief agreement has been interpreted by Canadian courts as having the force of a Treaty negotiated directly with the Queen. The Nanaimo treaty signed away tribal rights to land in exchange for a one-time payment of European goods, the preservation of traditional hunting and fishing rights, and the right for them and their descendants to continue to make use of their villages.

In this question, you will try to answer a seemingly simple question: was the treaty fair?

You must base your answer on the sources provided in the Appendix to this assignment (though you are, of course, free to do additional research): oral histories of the Indigenous point of view taken down in 1933, the public treaties as officially recorded in 1854, and letters between the Hudson Bay Company’s James Douglas and the British Colonial Office, which were meant to be kept secret.

The definition of fairness will be based on the four criteria suggested by ‘

The Governor’s Letters Teacher’s Guide

’, a treaty analysis activity recommended for grades 9 – 12.

I. “
Free authorized consent
: Negotiations are fair only if one party is not unduly pressured by the other party to make a deal and that both parties have authority to enter into the agreement.”

II. “
No significant intentional deception
: Negotiations are unfair if one party intentionally tries to deceive or trick the other party about very important matters in the agreement.”

III. “
Fundamental understanding
: Negotiations are unfair if one party suspects that the other party may be grossly confused or ill-informed about the terms of the agreement, and does not make a sincere attempt to clarify the confusion.”

IV. “
Reasonable value under the circumstances
: Although one side may benefit more than another, especially if one party is desperate to sell, the value of the exchange must not be grossly lopsided from the outset in favour of one of the parties.”

When answering the following questions, please rate the fairness on the following scale (taken from a

worksheet

that accompanies the Teacher’s Guide):

4 – Very fair

3 – Mostly fair

2 – Mostly unfair

1 – Very unfair

0 – Can’t tell

Note: When you justify your reasoning, be sure to refer to specific evidence from the sources provided. (e.g. “It is clear that Douglas thought the coal was valuable as early as 1852, because in his letter of 11 November 1852 he wrote that the ‘prosperity of the country’ depended in great measure on it.”)

a. Criteria I & II: Free Authorized Consent & No Significant Intentional Deception

Fairness (0 to 4): ________

Justify your reasoning:

b. Criterion III: Fundamental Understanding

Fairness (0 to 4): ________
Justify your reasoning:

c. Criterion IV: Reasonable Value Under the Circumstances

Fairness (0 to 4): ________
Justify your reasoning:

3. [Challenge]

There’s an old saying that “history is written by the victors”. What survives as history is not always the same as what was experienced by those who lived through the events being chronicled. This is extremely important to keep in mind when reading articles about the history of Canada’s Indigenous people, as these are often written by non-Indigenous settlers with different priorities and points of view than the people they write about.

In this question, I will ask you to read two articles, both of which talk about agriculture on the Blood Indian reserve in Alberta shortly after World War I. One was written by a non-Indigenous American anthropologist who visited the Blood Reserve in 1939, and published her article in a peer-reviewed journal in 1943. A more recent article by Dr. Sarah Carter[footnoteRef:2] says the following about the Blood Reserve in 1943: [2: Carter, S. (1999). “An Infamous Proposal:” Prairie Indian Reserve Land and Soldier Settlement after World War I. Manitoba History, 37, 9-21. Retrieved from http://drc.usask.ca/projects/gladue/view_record.php?table=resource&id=4&from=browse ]

“During and after World War II pressure was renewed to release Indian reserve land for non-Aboriginal Indian soldier settlement. A “reconnaissance inspection” was made of the Blood Reserve in Alberta in 1943 and it was recommended that the band could well afford to sell 22,000 acres leaving “ample room” for future expansion.” (Carter (1999), p. 20).

The second article was published in a newspaper in 1921. It was written by a non-Indigenous man who served as an Indian agent on Alberta’s Peigan and Blood reserves from 1898 to 1911, and who continued to live in the vicinity after retiring from his government post. He considered himself an ally of the Blood Indians and was alarmed at the government’s treatment of their land.

To access the first article, use the link below:

Goldfrank, E. (1943). Administrative Programs and Changes in Blood Society During the Reserve Period. Applied Anthropology, 2(2), 18-23. Retrieved from

https://www-jstor-org.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/stable/44135057

You only need to read about a page of that article, though of course you are free to read the rest if you wish. For this question, please read from the heading ‘1910-1920.’, at the bottom of page 20, to the phrase “farming around 1910.”, near the bottom of page 21.

The second article is found starting on page 27 of

one of the free sourcebooks

created by this course:

Wilson, R.N. (2020). “Persecution, bad faith and chicanery” in Willmore, C. (Ed.). Permission. Retrieved from

https://onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca/willmore/wp-content/uploads/sites/5845/2021/01/permission

(Original work published 1921).

The article you need is on pages 27-35. Please read all of it.

If you are interested in learning more about this subject (or if you feel you need more information to answer the questions below), R.N. Wilson expanded his argument into a book, which is also available for free:

Wilson, R.N. (1921). Our Betrayed Wards [Revised Edition]. Victoria: Skeride Publishing. Retrieved from

https://onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca/willmore/wp-content/uploads/sites/5845/2021/01/ourbetrayedwards

a. (3 marks) According to the Goldfrank paper from 1943, what were the main reasons for the decline in agriculture (wheat farming, horse and cattle raising, and the income from those activities) on the Blood reserve from 1916 to 1921?

b. (4 marks) According to the second article (from 1921), what were the main reasons for the decline in agriculture (wheat farming, horse and cattle raising, and the income from those activities) on the Blood reserve from 1916 to 1921?

c. (3 marks) On page 22 of her paper, Esther Goldfrank writes: “To understand the behavior of an individual and his treatment by others, it is necessary to ascertain not only his present status, but how that status was achieved.” Based on what you have read, and on your knowledge of ECON 321 material, what do you think explains the difference between the views of Esther Goldfrank and R. N. Wilson as to why and how agriculture declined on the Blood reserve from 1917 to 1921? That is, what explains the difference between your answer to part a. and your answer to part b.? (There is no single right answer to this question, but for full marks you must back up your argument with evidence from the readings, other 321 material, or your own appropriately cited research. You may find the quote from Dr. Sarah Carter’s paper, earlier in this question, useful.)

Appendix: Sources for Question 2

Oral history of the Nanaimo Treaty of 1854[footnoteRef:3] (1933) [3: From Cryer, B. M., Quen-Es-Then, J. & Tstass-Aya. (1933, March 5). Hyatz-A-Hn of Sna-Na-Mo Telling How Governor Douglas Renamed Him “Coal Tyee”. The Daily Colonist. Retrieved from http://archive.org/stream/dailycolonist0333uvic_3#page/n25/mode/1up/ ]

“Well, one day a Hudson’s Bay man came to see my father.

“’We want to talk to you and your people about this coal,’ he said. ‘We will have a meeting. You and your people, and you must get another chief and his people, and on a certain day we will all talk this thing over.’

“So my father, Chief Suquen-Es-Then[footnoteRef:4], called all his people, and he told another chief, whose name was Chief Schwun-Schn, to call his tribe, and together they went to the meeting. [4: Referred to as ‘Squoniston’ in the Treaty text.]

…

“Then the Hudson’s Bay men talked to the Indians. ‘This coal that is here,’ they said, ‘is no good to you, and we would like it; but we want to be friends, so, if you will let us come and take as much of this black rock as we want, we will be good to you.’ They told my father, ‘The Good Queen, our great white chief, far over the water, will look after your people for all time, and they will be given much money, so that they will never be poor.’

“Then they gave each chief a bale of Hudson’s Bay blankets and a lot of shirts and tobacco, just like rope! ‘These are presents for you and your people, to show we are your friends,’ they said. The chiefs took the things, and they cut the blankets, which were double ones, in half, to make more, and gave one to every chief man, then the shirts, and to those who were left they gave pieces of the rope tobacco; so that every man in the tribes had a present.

“’Now you know,’ said Tstass-Aya, ‘we think there was some mistake made at that meeting, or, maybe, the people could not understand properly what was said; but later, when our people asked for some of the money for their coal, the Hudson’s Bay men said to them, ‘Oh, we paid you when we gave you those good blankets!’ But those two chiefs knew that the men had said, ‘The Queen will give you money.’

…

“And now white men began to come and fix houses to live in, and they made a sawmill and cut down all our trees. Then boats called ‘schooners’ began to come for the coal. The Indians did a little work then; they used to carry coal out to the schooners in their canoes – not little canoes like the ones we use now, but big, big ones that could hold twelve or more men; and the white men would pay fifty cents for one canoe load of coal.

“At first my people did not understand the money, and used to throw it away into the water – they only wanted blankets or clothes, but they soon found that money was good, and liked it better than the blankets.”

Oral history of the Indigenous discovery of coal[footnoteRef:5] (1933) [5: Ibid. (A common notation meaning ‘same source as above’.)]

An earlier passage in the same newspaper article explains the tribes’ attitude toward coal:

“Well, long ago, before there were any white men in our country, the Indians were all very afraid of that great black fish, the whale, we call it Quan-Ice. There were lots of those big fish here then, but no man touched them. Now all the people living here knew about the black rocks that were about the shores, for they could see them all black and shining beside the water, and, in lots of places down deep in the water …

“They thought that rock, all long and black and shining, must have something to do with the whales, for they were long and black and shining, too! So the head men said, ‘Never touch that black rock no matter where you see it, for it belongs to the great black fish, and if we touch that rock, all the fish will surely come and kill us.

“One day some of the tribe made a fire on the beach, and soon one said, ‘What a bad smell! … There right were the fire had been was a big piece of the black stone, and it was burning just like wood; but oh, how it smelt!

“All the tribe was called to look at it, and there was great talking amongst the head men, for they were afraid the black fish would be angry and come do them harm! So, for a long time after that they had men to watch the waters. … Of course none [of the whales] came very near, and after a time the Indians felt that they were never to touch the black rocks.

[Soon after the arrival of the first Europeans in the area, members of the tribe visit the newcomers and observe a blacksmith at work in a coal-powered forge. They report back:]

“’Well,’ Hyatz-A-Hn told him, ‘I looked at his fire and I saw that he was burning some of that black rock that we say belongs to Quan-Ice! It was just like our black rock, and do you remember, long ago, some men made a fire and burnt some here?’ Then the two young men talked together and made a plan, but told no one else for they were afraid of what the head men would do to them.

[The two young men sneak out and deliver a piece of coal to the newcomers.]

“This man asked them, ‘Where did you get this rock?’ ‘In our country,’ they told him. …

“They took Hyatz-A-Hn and Hay-Wkun carrying their blanket of coal between them, to see Governor Douglas. … Governor Douglas was oh, so pleased! He shook the young men’s hands and … he gave [Hyatz-A-Hn] a long coat and a high hat.

“When Hyatz-A-Hn had put them on, Governor Douglas said to the others – for by now, all the Indians of that place were standing about watching: … ‘Tell your chief that soon I will come with my big ship, and with men to look at this coal that you have.’ Then he gave every man from this place a present of a nice shirt and some tobacco, and they got into their canoes and paddled away.”

Entire Text of the 1854 Nanaimo Treaty[footnoteRef:6] [6: From Verspoor, F. (2012). The Fort Victoria and Other Vancouver Island Treaties, 1850 – 1854. Retrieved from https://royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/assets/FortVictoriaTreaties ]

[first sheet] “Sarlequun Tribe, 23 December 1854

A Similar conveyance of country extending from Commercial Inlet, 12 miles up the Nanaimo River made by the Sarlequiun Tribe signed Squoniston & others [note attached to signature sheets].

[6 signature sheets signed Squoniston and [193] others]

[last sheet] Done at Nanaimo Colvile Town this 23rd day of [the word ‘September’ is truck out, and above written] December in the year of our Lord 18[5]4, in presence of us, who in the presence of each other, have hereunto affixed our names.

Signed Charles Edward Stuart H.B.Co. in charge

Richard Golledge Hudson’s Bay Co. Service

George Robinson Manager of the Nanaimo Colls”

Despite the lack of details, “the Supreme Court of Canada deemed the Nanaimo agreement … to be a treaty ‘as much an act of state as if it had been entered into by the Sovereign herself’”. (Verspoor, 2012). The details of the agreement were presumably to be interpreted as being ‘Similar’ to those of the previous treaty, signed in 1851 with the Quakeolth Tribe at Fort Rupert[footnoteRef:7]: [7: From Treaty Texts – Douglas Treaties [Web Page]. (2013). Retrieved from https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1100100029052/1581515763202#quakeolth ]

“Know all men, that we the chiefs and people of the Tribe called Quakeolths who have signed our names and made our marks to this deed on the eighth day of February, one thousand eight hundred and fifty-one, do consent to surrender, entirely and for ever, to James Douglas, the agent of the Hudson’s Bay Company in Vancouver Island, that is to say, for the Governor, Deputy Governor, and Committee of the same, the whole of the lands situated and lying between McNeill’s Harbour and Hardy Bay, inclusive of these ports, and extending two miles into the interior of the Island.

The conditions of our understanding of this sale is this, that our village sites and enclosed fields are to be kept for our own use, for the use of our children, and for those who may follow after us and the land shall be properly surveyed hereafter. It is understood, however, that the land itself, with these small exceptions, becomes the entire property of the white people for ever; it is also understood that we are at liberty to hunt over the unoccupied lands[footnoteRef:8], and to carry on our fisheries as formerly.” (INAC, 2013) [8: The Supreme Court of Canada upheld the ‘liberty to hunt over the unoccupied lands’ in the lands covered by the Nanaimo agreement, in the famous Regina v. Clifford White and David Bob decision of 1964. ]

Indigenous involvement in the Nanaimo Coal Trade prior to 1854

Despatch to London | James Douglas to John S. Pakington |

27th August 1852

“[M]y attention was particularly attracted, through a report of coal having been seen by the Indians in that vicinity. These people are called ‘Nanymo’ […] They live chiefly by fishing, and also grow large quantities of potatoes, in field which they have brought into cultivation near their villages. […] Food is cheap and abundant. […] The reports concerning the existence of coal in that place, were I rejoice to say, not unfounded; as the Indians pointed out three beds, cropping out in different parts of the Inlet, and they also reported […] several other beds. […] [I]t was impossible to repress a feeling of exultation in beholding, so huge a mass of mineral wealth, so singularly brought to light by the hand of nature, as if for the purpose of inviting human enterprise, at a season when coal is a desideratum in the Pacific, and the discovery can hardly fail to be of signal advantage to the Colony. […] There is every reason to believe [Nanaimo] is one vast coal field, and if that conjecture be correct the progress of the Colony will be rapid and prosperous; notwithstanding the many adverse circumstances, which have hitherto retarded the development of its resources.”

Despatch to London | James Douglas to John S. Pakington |

11th November 1852

“About 1 ½ miles from the great bed mentioned in my last letter the natives, who are now indefatigable in their researches for Coal, lately discovered a magnificent seam […] where several thousand Tons of Coal may be procured without the trouble & expense of Mining. Such places are left entirely to the Indians, who work with a surprising degree of industry, and dispose of the Coal to the agents of the Hudson’s Bay Company, for clothing and other articles of European manufacture. The Miners of the Hudson’s Bay Company have carried down a shaft […] and struck the great seam […] , an event which has diffused a general feeling of satisfaction in the Colony as every inhabitant naturally takes a lively interest in the success of an undertaking on which the prosperity of the country, and in a great measure, his own private interests, so much depends.”

[Notes on the letter by Colonial Office Staff:] “The circumstance of the Indians being active in working the coal … is very important if it prove lasting.”

1

The Original “Free Trade”: Exchange of Botanical Products and Associated Plant
Knowledge in Northwestern North America

Author(s): Nancy J. Turner and Dawn C. Loewen

Source: Anthropologica , 1998, Vol. 40, No. 1, L’Ethnobiologie / Ethnobiology (1998), pp.
49-70

Published by: Canadian Anthropology Society

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25605872

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https://www.jstor.org/stable/25605872

The Original “Free Trade”: Exchange of Botanical
Products and Associated Plant Knowledge in
Northwestern North America

Nancy J. Turner University of Victoria
Dawn C. Loewen University of Victoria

Abstract: Long-standing and far-reaching trade networks for
culturally important plants are documented for British Colum
bia and neighbouring areas from archaeological, historical and
ethnographic records, as well as recollections of contemporary
Aboriginal people. Plant resources and products manufactured
from plants comprised a substantial portion of traditional and
contemporary traded goods. Examples include: dried edible
seaweed, commonly traded from coastal communities inland;
dried soapberries, saskatoon berries and other berries; hazel
nuts; cedar-root and cedar-bark baskets; basket materials; and
Indian-hemp fibre and twine. In addition to the plant materials,
knowledge associated with these resources was exchanged, and
trade has had cultural and ecological implications extending
well beyond simple subsistence.

Resume: Dans cet article nous presentons les reseaux
d’echange, de longue date et de grande portee, de plantes cul
turellement importantes de la Colombie britannique et de re
gions adjacentes a partir de sources archeologiques, historiques
et ethnographiques et de souvenirs d’autochtones contempo
rains. Les ressources vegetales et les produits d’origine vege
tale formaient une partie substantielle des produits echanges
traditionnellement et de fagon contemporaine. Les exemples
presentes incluent: les algues marines comestibles sechees,
echangees couramment entre les communautes de la cote et
celles de l’interieur; les pommes de savon, les petites poires et
autres petits fruits seches; les noisettes; les paniers en racine
de cedre et en ecorce de cedre; les materiaux pour fabriquer les
paniers; et la fibre et le fil du chanvre du Canada. En plus des
materiaux d’origine vegetale, des connaissances associees a ces
ressources etaient echangees. Lechange eut de nombreux
effets culturels et ecologiques et n’etait pas restreint a la sim
ple subsistance.

Introduction

Trade between villages was necessary to provide a con
tinuous supply of food and accumulate wealth. Goods
were exchanged by sharing, bartering, or trading a gift
for a gift. Trade included sharing land that had a profu
sion of berries or hunting grounds full of game. As
there was an abundance of seafood on the coast, and
similarly, an excess of meat and berries among the
Gitksans, the exchange offered variety in our diets.
(Watts, 1997:1)

Indigenous peoples around the world have a cultural heritage that includes extensive and intimate familiar
ity with their local environments. Such knowledge is an

essential attribute of societies that not only have sur
vived, but have thrived, in close connection with the nat
ural world (Inglis, 1993; Williams and Baines, 1993).
However, few, if any, natural environments provide a
complete and reliable array of resources to a given group
of people at a given time. Trade has long been recognized
as a means of countering instabilities in resource supply
and abundance, and of introducing variety to those
resources. Indigenous peoples of North America cer
tainly have been well acquainted with the advantages of
trade. Archaeological and historical records show that
they developed extensive and sophisticated trading net

works and institutions dating back thousands of years.
However, the pervasive nature of Indigenous trade, and
its many implications both before and after contact have

rarely been explicitly considered. In particular, the
importance of exchange of various types of plant
resources, technologies and knowledge has received lit
tle direct attention.

In this study, we discuss plant exchange, in a broad
context, among Indigenous peoples of British Columbia
and adjacent areas. General characteristics of this ex
change are delineated, as well as its cultural and ecologi
cal significance both in the past and today. Information is

Anthropologica XL (1998) 49-70 Exchange of Botanical Products and Plant Knowledge / 49

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derived from available archaeological, ethnographic and
historical data, as well as documented consultations with
Aboriginal people in recent decades. Whereas the focus
of the article will be on what appears to be “traditional”
exchange of plant resources among Indigenous peoples,
post-contact and contemporary changes and interactions
with non-Native people will be considered as well. How
ever, it is important to note that, since most of the evi
dence is non-archaeological, it is not always possible to
distinguish “pre-contact” and “post-contact” exchange
phenomena. It must also be emphasized that the consid
eration of “plant exchange,” apart from exchange in
other resources, is an artificial separation for the pur
poses of this work. In reality, all types of trade products
were linked inextricably in transactions.

The Nature of Indigenous Plant Exchange
What Is Exchange?

Earle (1982: 2) defined exchange as “the spatial distribu
tion of materials from hand to hand and from social group

to social group.” Indeed, the reciprocal acquisition of
material goods is a key aspect of exchange, and the role
of plant resources (e.g., food, materials, medicines, man
ufactured goods) in this regard will be discussed in
greater detail in later sections. However, a broader per
spective of exchange will be taken here. In addition to
the physical give and take of material goods, technologi
cal skills were transferred from person to person, and
from group to group, as were names and vocabulary for
items, skills and associated concepts in different lan
guages and cultures. The transfer of plant materials has a
unique facet, because some plant propagules are long
lived and therefore plants, far more than animals, may be

readily established in other areas. Thus, “plant ex
change” extends beyond cultural transfer to biological
transfer or dispersal (as discussed later).

Exchange seldom took the form of a simple gain
maximizing transaction among Indigenous peoples.1
Rather, the broader social context was, and is, of key
importance. For example, a good deal of nonconsensual
transfer of knowledge and goods took place as a result of
war and raiding activities. Not only was booty taken,
which included many plant materials and products, but
slave trade was also common through much of north
western North America (Donald, 1997; Suttles, 1990).
Undoubtedly, slaves had a significant influence on the dif
fusion of language and knowledge to their captors.

On the other extreme much exchange took the form
of gifts, or help to those in need, with the understanding
that one could expect reciprocation at some point in the

future. This type of interaction was encouraged and sus
tained by extensive ties of intermarriage and ceremonial
exchange among many groups (cf. Suttles, 1987a, 1987b).
Oberg (1973) distinguished between gift exchange, which
takes place within a network of social relationships, and
barter or trade, in which individuals seek their owm ad
vantage through bargaining without regard for any sys
tem of relationships that makes them members of a
community. Oberg felt that pure barter did not exist for
the Tlingit2 before the Europeans came, and similar con
clusions have been reached for other groups, such as
Drucker’s (1951) interpretations of

Nuu-Chah-Nulth

practices. However, Mitchell and Donald (1988) feel that
in fact, an early sophisticated trading system among

Northwest Coast peoples may have existed, with “trad
ing” used in the above narrow sense. Some trade trans
actions were disguised by means of elaborate rituals as
gift offerings (see, for example, John Jewitt’s description
of Nuu-Chah-Nulth trade rituals in Stewart [1987: 100]).
Bartering, while perhaps subtle, also clearly existed in
other groups (Decosse, 1980; Sewid-Smith and Dick, in
press; see also the quotation at the beginning of the
introduction to this article).

The relative contribution of social and economic fac

tors in exchange/trade continues to be a topic of theoreti
cal interest. This issue appears to be analogous to the
nature vs. nurture “debate,” in that both factors are
clearly important, and are interrelated in complex ways.
The present discussion of plant exchange correspond
ingly provides numerous examples of the economic sig
nificance of exchange, but the social context can never be
ignored. Trade was influenced by, and in turn influenced,
social relations, for example, intermarriage, political
alliances and peace-keeping. As noted by Decosse (1980:
79), “While the desire for trade goods was responsible
for initiating social interactions, it was the latter which
sustained the material flow.”

Given the interrelatedness of social and economic fac

tors, and the apparent presence of both “gift exchange”
and “barter or trade” in peoples of northwestern North
America, these terms are not used in the sense of Oberg
(1973) in this study. Rather, “exchange” and “trade” are
used essentially interchangeably, with the former being a
more general term to include transfer of non-physical
items. For example, much knowledge and information

would have been transferred from one group to another
during the course of trade or other social intercourse.

Extent of Plant Trade
There is considerable evidence that established that far

reaching Indigenous trade networks existed in northwest

50 / Nancy J. Turner, Dawn C. Loewen Anthropologica XL (1998)

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Figure 1
Map of Northwestern North America Showing Territories
of the Indigenous Groups of the Study Area

Seals: 1:12000000 / \ ^ (

Note: Hesquiaht and Chilkat are subgroups of Nuu-Chah-Nulth and Tlingit, respectively.

ern North America. Archaeological evidence (cited by
Mitchell and Donald, 1988; Stewart, 1987) from obsidian,
dentalia shells and other mineral materials indicates that

these networks are at least 2 000-3 000 years old, and
have extended over distances as great as 1 000 kilometres.

The comments of early explorers and other non-Native
visitors to the Northwest also indicate that Native groups

were well acquainted with the concept of trade and were in

frequent contact with one another. For example, Gilbert
Sproat, who lived on Vancouver Island in the 1860s, noted:

All the natives are acute, and rather too sharp at
bargaining_News about prices, and indeed about
anything in which the natives take an interest, travels

quickly to distant places from one tribe to another. If a
trading schooner appeared at one point on the shore,
and offered higher prices than are usually given, the In
dians would know the fact immediately along the whole
coast. (Sproat, 1987: 58)

Figure 1 shows the locations of Indigenous groups in
the study area, and Figure 2 shows various trade routes
that appear to have been commonly used before contact

with Europeans. Moreover, the geographical ramifica
tions of exchange often extended much further. For
example, many items were successively traded via “mid
dlemen”; dentalia from the coast were transferred to
locations as far inland as the Great Plains (Stewart,

Anthropologica XL (1998) Exchange of Botanical Products and Plant Knowledge / 51

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1987). The arrival of horses brought changes in trading
patterns, frequency and intensity; some ethnographic
sources, such as James Teit’s works, explicitly indicate
these changes. Establishment of trading posts and other
trading facilities by European newcomers also changed
traditional patterns in many cases.3

Figure 2
Some Examples of Aboriginal Trade Routes and
Main Centres of Trade in Northwestern North
America (Compiled from Various Sources)

VAJ BoUnbVdky ^%_ iWLl J/ /k lV ^ *&^.

? 8tlkliit/7faUtai \^#~t!> *i ^ XI ^.1 \ ^ c?iffu?Rct ^ji r^f~ ^nL p^\S9^\m^\^’

(g> K*d?Palli ff” ~* \ I 1
? OkanigMi FUb lHjl ^ ^^~ * \ 0^ * ? ruDtou. r>* ? /

^ ? CahunhUHaMMi* J C

” Scale: 1: 12 000 000 /

Trade of plant resources almost certainly was con
comitantly ancient and widespread, although archaeologi
cal evidence is scanty for these perishable items. John
Jewitt, who was held captive in the early 1800s at Nootka
Sound for several years by Nuu-Chah-Nulth Chief
Maquinna, stated in his July 6, 1805 journal entry that
dried cakes of salal4 berries were an important trading
item among villages, and that three large baskets of “an
excellent fruit… Quawnoose” (actually cooked, dried
bulbs of blue camas) were brought by “Kla-iz-arts”
(Coast Salish) peoples nearly 480 km to the south (Stew
art [1987] notes that the distance was actually about half
that given by Jewitt).

More recent ethnobotanical surveys document simi
larly long-ranging trade routes. For example, some

Kwakwaka’wakw groups once travelled up to 160 km in
order to obtain springbank clover rhizomes, silverweed
roots, high bush cranberries, crabapples, soapberries,
camas bulbs and other items (Turner and Bell, 1973).
Also, Annie York indicated that her people, the
Nlaka’pamux, obtained wild rice from Plains groups such
as the Cree, at least 500 km away (Turner et al., 1990).
This trade was probably through intermediaries, and of
relatively recent origin. Oberg (1943) notes the Tlingit
people travelled south in their large, ocean-going canoes
as far as Puget Sound, some 1 400 km away. Presumably
such voyages would have been for trade purposes.

On a cultural level, exchange of plant materials took
place on widely differing scales: within family and village
groups; between villages in the same language group;
among different language divisions on the coast and in
land; and even between coastal and inland groups
(Tbrner, 1979). “Nodes” of trade are indicated on
Figure 2; these are locations where large numbers of
people, often from a number of different tribes in a gen
eral region, would gather to trade, socialize and harvest
seasonally abundant resources. For example, the annual
spring assembly of Haida, Tsimshian and Nisga’a at the
Nass River oolichan fishery was an important occasion
for trade (Mitchell and Donald, 1988). The Tahltan and
other western Athapaskan groups had a seasonal round
characterized by yearly aggregation at summer salmon
fishing villages; the summer congregations were a time
for ceremonies, feasting and trading (Albright, 1984). An
example of a more plant-orientated node was Botanie
Valley, near present-day Lytton in Nlaka’pamux territory.
Nlaka’pamux people, along with Secwepemc and
Stl’atl’imx people, would gather there in summer largely
due to the great abundance of a number of different
“root” vegetables and berries (Turner et al., 1990).
According to Teit (1900), as many as 1 000 people would
congregate annually at Botanie. Women would gather
plant foods, men would hunt and everyone would trade
and socialize. Louie Phillips recalled that Nlaka’pamux
women in his community would sometimes bet whole
sacks of yellow avalanche lily bulbs on the outcomes of
horse races in the valley?an interesting type of
exchange mechanism (Turner et al., 1990). Botanie Val
ley continued to be an important gathering place well
after contact, as indicated by Mary Williams, also
Nlaka’pamux:

In the month of August, the people gathered up in
Pet?ni. People gathered from all over?Spences

52 / Nancy J. Turner, Dawn C. Loewen Anthropologica XL (1998)

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Bridge, Nicola, and 30 Mile [30 miles north of Lytton
on the Fraser River]_The bishop came up there
too, and joined in the sports with the people-My,
we used to have nice times in those days! Everybody
was happy and no one was afraid of anything. Now we
are scared when we go up there. At times, good White
people would come up and watch the people’s races.
There would be tents everywhere. (Hanna and Henry,
1996:149)

In the case of coastal/inland trade, the groups of peo

ple travelling to trade were generally smaller, but visits
were often temporally extensive. Decosse (1980) dis
cussed Athapaskan-Tlingit trade relations and noted that
trade expeditions were major undertakings requiring
weeks of preparation, including fasting and other rituals.
The trade encounters generally lasted from three to six
weeks, but a coastal trader occasionally stayed with his
inland partner as long as a year; such visits undoubtedly
encouraged a great deal of cultural (knowledge and lan
guage) transfer in addition to exchange of the goods.
During the final festivities of these trade gatherings, the
guests would ask their hosts to teach them new songs,
and a few days would be spent perfecting these before the
guests departed (Decosse, 1980). Similarly, John Jewitt
(Stewart, 1987: 99) noted that the Kwakwaka’wakw
traders who came to Nootka (Yuquot) “were accustomed
to remain a much longer time at Nootka than the other
tribes… and on these occasions taught their songs to
our savages.” Greer (1995) suggested that the stories
and songs shared during the trading sessions of precon
tact times were valued just as much as the goods ex
changed.

Types of Plant Resources Traded

There has been an increasing awareness of the impor
tance of plant resources as food, materials and medi
cines in hunter-gatherer economies (Hunn, Turner and
French, 1998; Lee and Daly, in press). For example,
Mitchell and Donald (1988: 301) note that, given the
widespread importance of cedar as a material resource,
“access to a stand of red or yellow cedar was likely as
important as access to a clam bed or herring spawning
ground.” Therefore, it is not surprising that a wide array
of plant resources would also be a fundamental compo
nent of exchange. Table 1 provides documented exam
ples of plants and plant products known to have been
traded among First Peoples of northwestern North
America. Over 65 plant species are included, most of
which are foodstuffs or materials for use in technology.
Additional items are in the form of manufactured goods.
Most trade was in processed or preserved products, the

difficulties of transporting fresh plants over long dis
tances being obvious. The major types of plant products
traded are discussed in greater detail in the following
sections.

Plant Foods

Exchange of food resources within groups was, more
than with other resources, generally a matter of sharing
rather than a formal transaction. As Elmendorf (1960)
noted for the Twana, it was proper to be generous with
members of one’s own village. An example of this type of
generosity was noted for the Nlaka’pamux by Turner et
al. (1990); people from the Upper territory would bring
“Indian celery,” a favourite green vegetable more com
mon in their area, to their friends in Lower territory
when they came down the Fraser Canyon in spring.

Among groups, there was often more formal trade in

food items. This exchange generally diversified the diet
rather than supplying a vitally needed foodstuff (Elmen
dorf, 1960), although many items were obtained regularly
and in quantity. Sweet foods and novelty foods were par
ticularly popular; commonly traded plant foods included
soapberries, used to make a popular whipped confection
known today as “Indian ice cream” (Figure 3); saskatoon
berries, often eaten with meat; and camas bulbs, a
potato-like food with a sweet flavour when cooked5 (Fig
ure 4). A number of plant foods were valued highly; for
example, bitterroot (Figure 4) was noted as being “ex
pensive stuff” by Annie York, Nlaka’pamux, who said
that a 1.5-m string of dried bitterroot would be worth

about one salmon in the early part of the 20th century
(Turner et al., 1990). In the late 19th century, James Teit
(1900) found that “ten bundles” of bitterroot could be

exchanged for one large, dressed buckskin. Other highly
valued food items were edible seaweed, preserved
crabapples and highbush cranberries, black huckleber
ries, hazelnuts (Figure 5) and green shoots of salmon
berry and thimbleberry (Turner, 1995,1997).

Plant Materials

Raw or processed plant products used for basketry, canoe
making and other technologies, were also important in
trade. The importance of western red cedar, whose
wood, inner bark, withes and roots were all important
materials, has already been noted, and all these parts in
raw or processed form were traded (Figure 6). Indian
hemp, a fibre plant, was also widely traded; a good twine
made from this fibre is as strong as modern synthetic
cordage with 100 kg (200 pounds) or more test weight
(Turner, 1979). The value of this plant was indicated by
James Teit (1900), who recorded that items for which

Anthropologica XL (1998) Exchange of Botanical Products and Plant Knowledge / 53

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Table 1
Specific Plant Resources (Listed Alphabetically by Common Name) Traded among Indigenous
Peoples in British Columbia and Neighbouring Areas in Northwestern North America2

Material/Item Traded Notes

avalanche lily, glacier lily dried bulbs traded, among Interior Salish, and from Tsilhqot’in to Carrier and Nuxalk
(Erythronium grandiflorum)

balsamroot (Balsamorhiza sagittata) dried roots traded among Nlaka’pamux and probably Sti’atTimx

beargrass (Xerophyllum tenax) bundled leaves and finished baskets, traded from Olympic Peninsula to Vancouver Island
birch, paper (Betula papyrifera) bark, containers, wood traded among Athapaskan and Interior Salish groups and from interior

to coast; birch bark canoes traded among Interior Salish, Ktunaxa and Athapaskan peoples

biscuitroot (Lomatium cous dried roots traded within interior plateau groups, especially from southern to northern plateau
and other spp.)

bitterroot (Lewisia rediviva) dried roots commonly traded within and among Interior Salish groups, BC and Washington
blueberries (Vaccinium spp.) dried berries traded among Coast Salish; from interior to central coast; within various

interior groups

edible camas (Camassia dried bulbs widely traded from Coast Salish of Vancouver Island to west coast, north coast and
leichtlinii, C. quamash) mainland; also among southern Interior Salish, Columbia River and western Washington peoples,

north into Canadian Plateau; bulbs transplanted to some west coast locations

cat-tail (Typha latifolia) mats traded among Interior Salish and southern NW coast peoples and from coast to interior
cedar, western red (Thuja plicata) cedarwood dugouts widely traded on NW coast and into interior; cedarwood boxes traded along

NW coast, in general from north to south and from coast to interior; bark and bark baskets, mats,
robes, ceremonial articles traded widely among NW coast peoples and from coast to interior; roots
and split root baskets traded among Interior Salish and Columbia peoples and from interior to

coast

cedar, yellow (Chamaecyparis bark and bark products widely traded along the NW coast and into interior, especially in
nootkatensis) Chilkat blankets and robes; wood for bows traded from Coast Salish to interior; wood for

ceremonial articles traded from northern NW coast into interior

celery, Indian (Lomatium seeds traded from southeast Vancouver Island to west coast and northeast coast of Vancouver
nudicaule) Island; greens traded among Nlaka’pamux peoples

cherry, bitter (Prunus emarginata) bark traded from groups of southern coast of BC to central coast; bark as basket decoration
exchanged among Interior Salish

chocolate lily, “riceroot” dried bulbs traded from Upper to Lower Nlaka’pamux
{Fritillaria lanceolata)

choke cherries {Prunus virginiana) dried cherries traded among Interior Salish and coastwards to Fraser Valley
cloudberries (Rubus chamaemorus) berries preserved in water traded from Tsimshian to Haida

clover, springbank (Trifolium rhizomes traded from Nuxalk to Oweekeno and Hanaksiala; also within Kwakwaka’wakw
wormskioldii) communities

cottonwood (Populus balsamifera dugout canoes traded among Interior Salish peoples; wood traded from Tsimshian to Haida
ssp. trichocarpa)

crabapples, Pacific (Malus fresh and preserved fruits in water or oolichan grease widely traded along NW coast and from
fusca syn. Pyrus fused) coast to interior

cranberries, bog fresh and preserved fruits in water or oolichan grease widely traded along NW coast and
(Vaccinium oxycoccus) probably among interior peoples

cranberries, highbush fresh and preserved fruits in water or oolichan grease widely traded along NW coast and from
(Viburnum edule) coast to interior

currants, wild (Ribes spp.) traded (dried?) among Interior Salish peoples
desert parsley (Lomatium dried roots traded among Interior Salish peoples
macrocarpum)

fungus, paint (JEchinodontium traded from Tlingit to Athapaskan groups
tinctorium)

grass, reed-canary (Phalaris traded as basket decoration material, and in finished cedar-root baskets among Interior Salish
arundinacea and other spp.) peoples, and from interior to coast in the south

hazelnuts (Corylus cornuta) nuts widely traded among Salishan groups of BC and among Columbia River peoples
hemlock, western (TSuga dried inner bark food traded from Tsimshian to Nisga’a; from Haisla and Hanaksiala to other
heterophylla) coastal groups

huckleberries (esp. Vaccinium berries widely traded among Salishan peoples of BC and among Columbia River peoples
membranaceum)

54 / Nancy J. Turner, Dawn C. Loewen Anthropologica XL (1998)

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Table 1 (continued)

Material/Item Traded_Notes_
Indian-hemp (Apocynum fibre, twine and woven products widely traded among Interior Salish, and from Plateau

cannabinum) to NW coast; from Coeur d’Alene to Plains tribes
kinnikinnick (Arctostaphylos berries traded from Nuxalk to Heiltsuk and Oweekeno, and probably elsewhere in BC;

uva-ursi) dried leaves as tobacco probably also traded

Labrador tea, swamp tea (Ledum spp.) dried leaves traded among various interior peoples

lichen, black tree (Bryoria cooked, dried cakes traded from Interior to Coast Salish
fremontii)

lichen, wolf (Letharia vulpina) traded as dyestuff among interior groups and from interior to NW coast

maple, vine (Acer circinatum) wood for bows traded from NW coast to interior, southern BC

maple, Rocky Mountain (Acerglabrum) wood traded from Tsimshian to Haida

mock-orange (Philadelphus lewisii) wood for arrows, needles traded by Upper StTatrimx to Secwepemc

nettle, stinging (Urtica dioica) fibre, twine traded from Hanaksiala and Haisla to Nuxalk and Coast Tsimshian; living plants
transplanted from one village to another

onions, wild {Allium cernuum bulbs traded among Nlaka’pamux; not generally eaten by coastal groups but traded in
and related species) abundance to Europeans

Oregon ash (Fraxinus latifolia) bowls traded to the Makah from groups to the south and/or east
pine, ponderosa (Pinus ponderosa) dugout canoes traded within Nlaka’pamux
rice, wild (Zizania aquatica) traded from “Indians of the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains,” especially the Cree, to

Nlaka’pamux (and others?)

salal (Gaultheria shallon) large quantites of dried berries and pressed cakes traded among NW coast peoples
salmonberries (Rubus spectabilis) berries traded from Halq’emeylem to Lower Nlaka’pamux; sprouts exchanged locally among

Nuu-Chah-Nulth

saskatoon berries (Amelanchier dried berries and cakes commonly traded among interior peoples, and from interior to coast,
alnifolia) especially central and southern coast

seaweed, edible (Porphyra spp.) important item of trade along entire NW coast (especially central and northern) and from coast
inland; sold by Saanich, Nuu-Chah-Nulth to oriental buyers from Victoria

silverberry (Elaeagnus commutata) bark, mats and bags traded among Interior Salish, and from Interior to Coast Salish

silverweed (Potentilla spp.) E anserina roots traded from Upper to Lower Nlaka’pamu; Ppacifica roots widely traded
among NW coast peoples

soapberries (Shepherdia widely traded as dried cakes, and jarred in water, among many groups in British Columbia,
canadensis) especially from interior to coast, from mainland to Haida Gwaii

spring beauty (Claytonia lanceolata) corms commonly traded within and among interior groups

spruce (Picea spp.) gum (Eglauca) traded from Athapaskan groups to the Tlingit for chewing; root baskets, hats
(P sitchensis) from Tlingit to Athapaskan groups and from Haida to Tsimshian

thimbleberry (Rubus parviflorus) sprouts exchanged locally among Nuu-Chah-Nulth

“three-square,” “sweetgrass” dried leaves traded among Vancouver Island peoples and to Olympic Peninsula
(Scirpus americanus)

tiger lily (Lilium columbianum) dried bulbs traded from Interior Salish to Coast

tobacco, native (Nicotiana N. quadrivalvis traded from Haida, Tlingit to Tsimshian; from Metlakatla Tsimshian to Nisga’a;
attenuata or N. quadrivalvis) N. attenuata among Interior Salish

tule (Scirpus acutus) tule mats widely traded, especially among Interior Salish
wapato (Sagittaria latifolia) tubers widely traded from Lower Fraser Valley and Lower Columbia inland and along the NW

coast

willow-bark twine (Salix spp.) bark twine traded from Lower Stl’atl’imx to Halq’emeylem

yew, western (Taxus brevifolia)_wood and bows commonly traded from NW coast to interior throughout range

a Compiled from the following references and citations within: Albright, 1984; Birchwater et al., 1993; Boas, 1923; Compton, 1993;
Darby, 1996; Decosse, 1980; Edwards, 1979; Elmendorf, 1960; Gunther, 1945; Huelsbeck, 1988; Hunn, 1990; Mitchell and Donald,
1988; Norton, Boyd and Hunn, 1983; Oberg, 1973; Olson, 1935, 1954; Palmer, 1975; Ray, 1938; Smith, 1920-23; Sproat, 1987;
Steedman, 1930; Stewart, 1987; Suttles, 1951a, 1987a; Swan, 1869; Teit, 1900,1906,1909; Teit and Boas, 1973; Turner, 1978,1979,
1992, 1995, 1996, 1997; Turner and Bell, 1973; Turner and Efrat, 1982; Turner and Ignace, 1993-97; Turner and Kuhnlein, 1983;
Turner et al., 1983, 1990; as well as personal communications to NT from Elsie Claxton (1996), Mary Thomas (1993-97); Annie
York (1985-89). References cited are restricted to those in which the species traded were identified and Aboriginal groups were
specified.

Anthropologica XL (1998) Exchange of Botanical Products and Plant Knowledge / 55

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Figure 3

1K1E1 * ^ ^_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_l_H__^Hi@__l

^P^^pF^^jra^^^^^^^^^HP^RH^^^^^r^P^^ ^ ._r. *S11P1111

Soapberries and “Indian ice-cream.” Dried and jarred soap
berries have been widely traded in British Columbia.

Figure 4

Dried biscuitroot (left), bitterroot (top) and camas bulbs
(right) were a common trade item within the Interior Plateau,
traded generally from south to north. Camas was widely
traded along the coast as well.

Figure 5

^^E^^^^KaMi^EL-. . * iA 11 j.-^? ? ?. ..! * . >tJM*+iU3Mmi .mi i-j?M^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^HttijMB

Baskets of hazelnuts and other foods were a common trade
product.

five “packages” of the fibre could be exchanged included
one large cedar-root basket, two salmon-skins full of
salmon-oil, three sticks of salmon, one large dressed
buckskin, one steel trap or one canoe. Basketry
“grasses” were also highly valued. Bear-grass, for exam
ple, was a major item of export from the Makah and
other peoples of the Olympic Peninsula to Vancouver
Island; the Ditidaht and Nuu-Chah-Nulth basketweavers
sometimes called it “American grass,” as contrasted with
the more readily available Carex obnupta. As noted later,
the leaves of bear-grass are still bought and sold today.

Plant Medicines

Unlike food and material plant resources, medicinal
plants and prepared medicines were apparently seldom

Figure 6

Coiled baskets of split red-cedar roots, decorated with bitter
cherry bark, and reed canary grass stalks, were a specialty of
Lower Nlaka’pamux and Lower Stl’atl’imx basketweavers,
and were exchanged with both coastal and interior peoples.

widely traded, although some medicinal plants are widely
known and used similarly by many people of different
groups. Many Indigenous peoples believed that the effec
tiveness of medicines was directly dependent on a high
degree of secrecy surrounding them, not only in terms of
preparation and administration information, but also of
the actual identity of the plant used (Turner and Efrat,
1982; Turner et al., 1983; Turner et al., 1987). In many
groups, sophisticated medicinal knowledge was held by a
few herbal specialists, who did not share their medicinal
recipes with clients, much less with strangers from other

tribes. These recipes also tended to be highly special
ized, with the details of preparation of a given medicinal
plant unique to individuals or perhaps families in a given
cultural setting (Compton, 1993). Such specific knowl

56 / Nancy J. Turner, Dawn C. Loewen Anthropologica XL (1998)

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edge probably meant that any exchange of medicinal
plants would have been equally focussed, occurring
among certain individuals and not often characteristic of
whole groups. This type of exchange was well remem
bered by Mrs. Winnie Atlin for Tagish people:

My mom and Maggie Coudenehha, she used to live in
Skagway. She used to know lots, and my mom got a lot
of stuff from her…. Like they used to trade, they
would talk and stuff about medicines and all that
They used to call each other sister. (Greer, 1995:106)

However, properties of numerous medicinal plants used
with good results for common maladies became common
knowledge within and sometimes across groups. For
example, it was widely known to coastal groups that
licorice fern rhizome (Polypodium glycyrrhiza) was good
to chew for colds and sore throats, and it was known over

most of the Northwest region that cascara bark (Rham
nus purshiana) was an effective laxative. Such medicinal
plants have differing distributions, and, one would ex
pect, chemical and ecological variations that would influ
ence their quality, and thus would have been likely
candidates for exchange.

An example of a medicinal plant that was probably
traded is Indian celery (or Indian consumption plant),
which is called by variants of the name q’eXmin by both
Salishan and Kwakwaka’wakw peoples along the east
coast of Vancouver Island. It is known everywhere for its
healing properties for coughs, colds and tuberculosis, and
is also used ceremonially as a cleansing fumigant and for
purification (cf. Turner and Bell, 1971, 1973). Use of this
name in languages of two different families suggests that

the plant itself or knowledge about it was exchanged,
quite possibly through trade (but see later section for
problems with linguistic evidence).

Other examples of trade of ceremonial and healing
plants include the exchange of Canby’s lovage (Ligus
ticum canbyi),6 an important medicine for Interior Salish

groups and Ktunaxa of British Columbia and Washington,
and the occasional exchange of sweet grass (Hierochloe
odorata) for ceremonial smudging, although the latter
example may be relatively recent (Turner, Bouchard and
Kennedy, 1980; Turner et al., 1990). Often, too, medici
nal healers would bring their own medicines with them
when travelling to a patient some distance away. For
example, when Annie York (Nlaka’pamux) was injured
near Spuzzum in the Fraser Canyon, her great-aunt, a
well-known “Indian doctor,” gathered bags of the roots of

poisonous water-hemlock (Cicuta douglasii), and brought
them from Spences Bridge by bus to treat her. There are
undoubtedly many other examples of this type of

exchange in medicinal practices, but these are seldom
recorded. A medical practitioner was often rewarded
with gifts of foods or manufactured items that included
plant products (cf. Turner et al., 1983).

Plant Exchange as an Integrated Component
of Trade in General

Even where plant products were not the primary item of
interest in a trade transaction, they were often still an im

portant component. For example, plant materials were
used as packaging and containers for a variety of items
(Turner, 1996). Red paint brought by the Kwakwaka’

wakw to trade with the Nuu-Chah-Nulth was “carefully
kept in close mat bags” (Jewitt in Stewart, 1987: 99), and
the Lower Chinook traded dried shellfish strung on two
foot sticks of salmonberry wood (Ray, 1938). Also, some
trade products were both of plant and animal origin, such
as snowshoes and highbush cranberries and Pacific
crabapples in oolichan grease (Compton, 1993; Mitchell
and Donald, 1988) and herring roe on giant kelp (Macro
cystis integrifolia) fronds or western hemlock branches
(Compton, 1993). Finally, as noted previously, plant prod
ucts were inextricably linked with other types of prod
ucts in trade transactions. For example, baskets were
traded by Nlaka’pamux people for dried herring eggs,
clams and other coastal products (Turner et al., 1990),
and ten cakes of saskatoons could be exchanged for one
large buckskin (Teit, 1900).

Cultural Aspects of Indigenous
Plant Exchange
Socio-economic Implications

Perhaps the most obvious and important effect of ex
change is that it promotes a more even distribution of the

land’s and the peoples’ resources, making a greater vari
ety of foods, materials and skills available to people than
would otherwise be possible (Turner, 1996, 1997; Watts,
1997). The following sections describe several ways in

which this effect can be manifested, with particular atten
tion being given to plant resources.

Obtaining Items Not Locally Available

This motivation for trade is familiar to anyone who has
ever bought an imported banana or other tropical fruit at

a local supermarket in North America. For Indigenous
peoples, its significance was no less obvious. Different
ecosystems support different species, many of which are
highly desirable and even irreplaceable for human uses.
Perhaps the most striking example of trade for this pur
pose was the coastal/inland trade in the Northwest.

Anthropologica XL (1998) Exchange of Botanical Products and Plant Knowledge / 57

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Figure 2 shows that there were many such routes, often
extending along major river systems (e.g., Fraser, Lil
looet, Bella Coola, Skeena, Nass and Stikine) to allow
passage through the Coast and Cascade mountain ranges
(Turner, 1996). Interior peoples, including the Lower
Stl’atrimx, Lower Nlaka’pamux, Ulkatcho Carrier and
Tsilhqot’in, traded such items as soapberries, saskatoon
berries, avalanche lily bulbs, Indian-hemp, wolf lichen
and tanned moose hides. In return, coastal peoples
including the Halq’emeylem, Sechelt, Nuxalk and Coast
Tsimshian peoples gave such items as fish oil, dentalia
shells, edible seaweed, Pacific crabapples and cedar prod
ucts. These items were in turn traded by the immediate
interior and coastal neighbours to other groups farther
inland (e.g., Secwepemc) and farther westward (e.g.,
Haida). The Nuxalk-Carrier Grease trails are a particu
larly well-known example of an ancient coast/inland trade

network, and many of the old trails are still in use today
for recreation, hunting and trapping (Birchwater et al.,
1993).7 The trails were named for the oolichan grease
from the coast that was transported across them in large
quantities; however, many other products such as dried
meat, soapberries and the cedar boxes containing the
grease were also involved in the exchange (ibid.).

Innumerable other trade networks, on various geo
graphical scales, operated on the same principle of ex
changing surplus local goods for another group’s different

surplus products. For the Nlaka’pamux people, for exam
ple, there were two major territorial divisions, “Lower”
and “Upper,” respectively reflecting the different vegeta
tional characteristics of the Fraser Canyon area and the
Plateau region to the north (Turner et al., 1990). As a
result of these ecological differences, an active trade
existed between peoples of the two divisions. The Upper
people traded such goods as bitterroot, saskatoon
berries, soapberries and whitebark pine seeds to the
Lower people in exchange for items including hazelnuts,
salmon oil, cedar bark and vine maple wood for making
bows (Teit, 1900). On the coast, the unusual Mediter
ranean-type climate of the southeastern tip of Vancouver
Island and the Gulf Islands resulted in the existence of

resources unique to that ecosystem, such as camas
bulbs. As noted by Sproat (1987: 58):

An active trade existed formerly among the tribes of
this nation [Nuu-Chah-Nulth], as also between them
and the tribes at the south of the island and on the
American shore. The root called camas, for instance,

and swamp rushes for making mats, neither of which
could be plentifully produced on the west coast, were
sent from the south of the island in exchange for cedar
bark baskets, dried halibut, and herring.

An interesting variation on this theme was a special
type of exchange in which access to a resource (often a
food resource) was shared. It was surprisingly common
for one group to allow another access to its resources at
a time of abundance, even if these resources were also
items of trade. For example, Turner and Kuhnlein (1983)
noted that the Ditidaht not only traded for camas, but
also dug their own bulbs in Salish territory with permis
sion of the Straits and Halq’emeylem people. Similarly,
the Katzie (Halq’emeylem) of the Fraser Valley granted
permission to people from up and down the Fraser to
harvest wapato or gather cranberries on the bogs (Sut
tles, 1951a). According to Teit (1906: 232), the Lower
Stl’atl’imx, when trading with the Sechelt, Squamish and
Comox Coast Salish at Jervis Inlet or Howe Sound,
“were allowed to pick berries, and to hunt and fish, as
much as they liked.” Finally, Compton (1993) stated that
the Hanaksiala did not always have to obtain edible sea
weed by trade. They had long-standing ties with the
Southern and Coastal Tsimshian people, with whom they
shared the use of an edible seaweed and halibut camp.
Conversely, these Tsimshian people made oolichan
grease with the Hanaksiala at another camp.

This “access sharing” took place within communi
ties as well as among more extensive cultural groups. On
the coast and in the interior, resource areas such as
prime berry patches, “root” vegetable patches or stands
of western red cedar could be owned by certain high
class individuals or families (Turner, 1996, 1997; Turner
and Efrat, 1982). In some cases bountiful areas were
apparently readily shared (Watts, 1997); in other cases,
respect for private property meant that people did not
even think about using others’ land for harvesting, even
with permission (Chief Adam Dick, Kwakwaka’wakw,
personal communication to NT, 1996). Ownership prac
tices varied considerably, and still need further investiga
tion to determine how they were applied within groups,
at particular localities and for specific resources.

In some instances, the form of compensation for
harvesting in others’ territories is obvious, such as
the reciprocal access to resources in the Hanaksiala/
Tsimshian case. In others, the benefits are not as clear.
This situation supports Decosse’s (1980) contention that
it is necessary to take a broad perspective of potential
benefits in an exchange situation (see also Mauss, 1990).
Perhaps hosting other groups encouraged those groups
to take the time and effort to travel to one’s door, so to

speak, with desired trade goods. Also, as noted by Sut
tles (1951a: 27) for the Katzie, even though no immedi
ate compensation was exacted, “A host at one time and
place is potentially a guest at another.” As mentioned,

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the social context is of the utmost importance. Generos
ity helped maintain strong social alliances, which had
benefits not only in a political sense, but also for immedi
ate survival. Albright (1984) pointed out for the Tahltan
that if resource populations suffered a decline in one
area, strong social alliances allowed families to hunt, and
probably gather, with groups in other areas for a while.
Generosity was like an insurance policy and could have
not only beneficial, but even life-saving, consequences at
a later date.

After European contact, some new plant resources
were incorporated into Indigenous trading schemes. Per
haps the most notable example is the potato, which, after
its initial introduction, was distributed by Indigenous
peoples among themselves and was cultivated in many
localities before Europeans appeared (Mackie, 1984; Sut
tles, 1951b). Mackie (1984: 102) cites an independent
trader on the west coast in the 1850s, William Eddy Ban
field, who recorded that, “An Indian trail connects one
with the other [Cowichan with Ditidaht], and consider
able intertraffic exists. The Cowichan bring potatoes
across, to exchange for halibut and whale oil”8 (Mackie’s
bracketed note). Similarly, Compton (1993) reports that
the Nuxalk brought carrots, turnips and other introduced

cultivated vegetables and dried salmon to Kitlope and
Kemano in exchange for dried oolichans and oolichan
grease.

Obtaining Items That Were Difficult to Access
or of Inferior Quality Locally

In some cases, a plant species exists within a group’s ter
ritory, but may be difficult to access. For example, the
plant may be distributed sporadically and/or exist in
inconvenient locations. Annie York (Nlaka’pamux) said of
silverweed roots, “That’s kind of hard to get here. You’ve
got to go way up where these ponds [are] or go up to the
Hudson Bay trail to get it. But it’s… not much here”
(Turner et al., 1990: 263). Thus, the Lower Nlaka’pamux
generally acquired their silverweed roots via trade from
Upper peoples. Alternatively, access to a resource might
be difficult only for certain individuals in a group.
Another Nlaka’pamux woman, Bernadette Antoine, re
called that her granny valued two different kinds of
saskatoons, and used them in different ways. One was
more difficult for her to gather herself, presumably due
to the sort of habitat it favoured, and she would therefore

often trade for berries of that variety (ibid.).

Alternatively, a species may be found within a
group’s territory, but the plants are of inferior quality (in
terms of human use) than those in another territory.
For example, the Makah of north coastal Washington

traded for cedar products such as canoes and house
planks with their Vancouver Island Nuu-Chah-Nulth
relatives, and in turn traded these products farther
south to other groups of coastal Washington. James
Swan (1869: 4, 35), who lived with the Makah during
the mid-1800s, stated:

The houses of the Makahs are built of boards and

planks, split from the cedar. These are principally
made by the Indians of Vancouver Island, and procured
by barter with them. There is very little cedar about
Cape Flattery, and such as is found is small and of infe
rior quality…. The largest and best canoes are made
by the Clyoquots and Nitinats [Clayoquots and Diti
dahts] on Vancouver Island; the cedar trees being of a
quality greatly superior to that found on or near Cape
Flattery. Canoes of the medium and small sizes are
made by the Makahs from cedar procured a short dis
tance up the Strait or on the Tsuess River.

Similarly, in the interior Plateau region, the critically
important fibre plant Indian-hemp was widely traded in
spite of its wide (though scattered) distribution in that
region. It was known that there were great local varia
tions in quality and abundance of Indian-hemp. According
to Turner et al. (1990; Turner and Ignace, 1993-97), the
best Indian-hemp was traded to areas where it either did
not grow, or was of too low quality to be used.9 Annie
York (Nlaka’pamux) noted:

Oh, you get them from upcountry. You trade. We have
the milkweed [Indian-hemp] here [at Spuzzum], but
not many…. Ours are short_You get it from up
country, some of them are as tall as that [about 1.5 m]
and some of them are as thick as my thumb_The
people there, they gather them, bulk like this, and then
they bring that down here_(Turner et al., 1990:
161)

After European contact, many native plant resources
also became significant items of trade to Europeans,
who did not have the knowledge of the local environ
ment and/or the time to collect locally available subsis
tence items. For example, early explorers in what is
now Washington relied heavily on supplies of wapato
acquired from local peoples (see accounts cited in
Darby, 1996). Some of these native plant resources
were new items of trade for the local peoples. For
example, Captain Cook and his men required “grass”
(species unknown) to feed the goats and sheep on their
ships. Grass was not traditionally traded, but when the
local people noticed the men’s interest in it they began
to charge for it (Turner, 1978). Similarly, it appears that

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wild onions were not much used by Nuu-Chah-Nulth
people, but they were harvested and sold to non
Natives on visiting ships when the demand for them
was discovered (ibid.). More recently, some Ditidaht,
and probably other people, harvested cascara bark
(Rhamnus purshiana) to sell to drug companies; in the
1930s and 1940s it sold for about 20 cents per pound
(Turner et al., 1983). Elsie Claxton (Straits Salish, per
sonal communication to NT, January 1997) recalled that
edible seaweed was routinely gathered by her family and
other Saanich families and sold to Chinese buyers around
the Gulf Islands (see also Williams, 1979).

Access to Products of Specialized Skills

Another advantage of trade was that it extended the ben
efits of some groups’ expertise with certain technologies.
That is, a finished product could be a highly valued trade
item, even if the raw material for making it were common
among groups. Examples of such products include red
cedar root baskets from Spuzzum (Lower Nlaka’pamux)
and Pemberton (Lower Stl’atl’imx); yellow-cedar/moun
tain-goat wool Chilkat blankets; Haida red-cedar kerfed
boxes and canoes; Nuu-Chah-Nulth canoes; and Nuu
Chah-Nulth and Kwakwaka’wakw yellow-cedar bark
robes. Such products were widely renowned for their
quality and/or artistic merit, and often found their way
far from their origins.

In addition, such skills could be important within a
group. Teit (1900) noted that not all Upper Nlaka’pamux
peoples made dugout canoes from ponderosa pine or Cot
tonwood, and those specialists who did traded them to
others in the group. This type of skill specialization could
operate on an even more individualistic level. For exam
ple, according to Annie York (Turner et al., 1990), some
women at Spuzzum traded baskets and mats for buck
skins, salmon and other products of hunting and fishing,
especially if a woman were a widow with no husband to
provide these things for her.

After European contact, finished products such as
baskets and carvings were frequently sold to non-Native
immigrants, traders or tourists, providing a source of
income for some of the many people whose traditional

means of subsistence had been disrupted. Margaret
Lester (Stl’atl’imx) remembered that her grandmother
used to take her baskets to farms in the Pemberton Val

ley to exchange for clothing, potatoes, fat, beef or “any
thing we could get” (Turner et al., 1987).10 Within the
last century many Indigenous women have supported
their families almost entirely by selling baskets to non

Natives, often for very little remuneration (ibid.; Turner,

1996).

Overcoming “Scheduling Conflicts”

A final benefit of trade was one that operated within
groups. There were inevitable trade-offs in terms of time

spent on various harvesting and processing activities and
trade allowed people to specialize temporally and share
the fruits of their labours. For example, Turner (1992)
notes, for the Stl’atl’imx, that those families who spent
more time fishing could exchange extra fish for berries
from those who spent extra time berry picking on the
mountain slopes. Of course, for some activities there
would be advantages to having as many people as possi
ble accumulating a given resource, but it seems likely
that in at least some situations a division of labour was

advantageous. Indeed, the traditional division of labour
into male hunters and female gatherers is one manifesta
tion of this principle.

Exchange of Technologies and Knowledge

In addition to trade of physical goods, there was signifi
cant interchange of intangible plant-related resources,
such as a specific basketry technique, knowledge of how
to use a certain plant medicinally or a story regarding a
plant’s place in traditional history.11 Unfortunately, deter
mining with certainty whether such similarities among
cultures originated through exchange is problematic,
because there are at least three distinct ways in which
commonalities among groups can develop:

(1) Transfer of information from one group to another,

through connections of trade, intermarriage, slaves or
other relationships. This possibility is, of course, the phe
nomenon of interest for the present study.

(2) Common origins of the knowledge from a common
ancestral group. Thus, for example, desert parsley (Jj)ma
tium macrocarpum) was important to the Nlaka’pamux,
Stl’atl’imx and Secwepemc, and has similar names and sim
ilar presence in the traditional narratives of these closely
related Interior Salish groups (Turner et al., 1990). It is
difficult, or perhaps impossible, to determine whether
these similarities reflect the common proto-Interior
Salishan origins of these groups, or whether knowledge
of the plant was transferred from one to the others at
some point after the groups diverged. Turner, Ignace and
Compton (1997) note that interaction through trade or
marriage among the Interior Salish groups was frequent,
and thus the general similarity of these cultures is likely
the result of both common origins and subsequent inter
action.

(3) Convergence due to similarities in the environ
ment or in plant characteristics. For example, a semi
subterranean winter dwelling is common to many groups

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who live under continental climate regimes, because, as
may have been independently discovered many times,
such a dwelling is an effective way to provide shelter
from severe winter temperatures and winds. Similarly,
summer shelters with wood frames and rush matting are
also common to many of the world’s peoples. Alterna
tively, many different groups may use a particular wood,
such as vine maple or western yew, for carved items and
implements because the properties of the wood that

make it favourable for this purpose become evident to
many groups independently. Properties of medicinal
plants may also be independently empirically deter
mined; possible examples are scouring rush (Equisetum
hiemale) and pipsissewa (Chimaphila umbellata), which
were used as gynecological aids in childbirth by groups
as disparate as the Menominee of the Great Lakes area
and the Nlaka’pamux of present-day British Columbia
(ibid.). Even stories may evolve convergently; for exam
ple, intelligent and scavanging animals such as a coyotes
or ravens would be likely candidates for a “Trickster”
type of character in any culture.

One illustration of some of the difficulties in distin

guishing between these possibilities is found in the work
of Teit. He lists numerous examples of similarities in
technology among various interior groups: “nearly all the

kinds of fish-traps used by the Carrier and Shuswap
[Secwepemc] were also utilized by the Chilcotin [Tsil
hqot’in]. Fish-spears… had two or three prongs, like
those commonly used by the Shuswap …” (Teit, 1909:
779); “Roots are dug and cooked [by the Tsilhqot’in] in
the same manner as among the Shuswap_The princi
pal fruits gathered were service-berries [saskatoons] and
soap-berries, both of which were cured in the same man
ner as among the Shuswap” (ibid.: 780). The “common
origins” explanation is possible, but perhaps unlikely in
these examples, because the Carrier and Tsilhqot’in are
Athapaskan peoples while the Secwepemc are Salishan.
Independent convergence is also possible, but unlikely
since the groups are physically close together and proba
bly communicated frequently, and the techniques noted
are relatively specialized. However, even if exchange is
established as the definite reason for these similarities,
the direction of exchange is not clear,12 without additional
evidence suggesting that one group borrowed the tech
nology from another.

One type of such additional evidence (i.e., linguistic
evidence) is discussed in the next section. There are also

other lines of evidence to suggest transfer and direction
ality. In some cases, oral traditions have preserved this
information. For example, according to Decosse (1980),
oral traditions of the Tlingit and Athapaskan peoples

state that the latter obtained from the former technologi
cal knowledge for construction of fish weirs and other
tools, which greatly improved the latter’s living stan
dards.

In other cases, directionality can be inferred from
the refinement of the technology itself. A technology

may have been highly developed by one group, and im
perfectly imitated by others. For example, the Nuxalk
learned from the Carrier and Tsilhqot’in how to make
birch-bark baskets and canoes, but they never became as
skilled as their teachers (Turner, 1979; Compton, 1993).
Some ethnologists suggest that the technique of making
twined baskets was learned by the Coast Salish from the
Kwakwaka’wakw and Nuu-Chah-Nulth; originally the
Salish on the Coast were thought to have made only
coiled baskets like their Interior Salish relatives (Turner,
1979).

Perhaps the most easily interpreted situations are
those that have occurred relatively recently, so that the
information is clearly in a state of early diffusion. For
example, Annie York (Turner et al., 1990) had a tremen
dous understanding of Halq’emeylem botany, perhaps
almost as much as she had about her own people’s
(Nlaka’pamux) plant uses. Her knowledge included de
tailed information about Halq’emeylem foods and medi
cines, as well as some information regarding medicines
of the Okanagan and even “Alberta Indians.” Perhaps
current similarities in some technologies among groups
began in a similar fashion, with certain individuals of

Group A becoming well acquainted with Group B’s
knowledge (perhaps as a result of living near them) and
that knowledge would then gradually diffuse throughout
Group A.

Undoubtedly, as with direct trading of goods, the
amount of such interchange rose substantially after con
tact, due first to the influence of the fur trade. The effect

was sometimes dramatic. Albright (1984: 16) noted,
“Intensified trading activities between the Tlingit and
Tahltan brought about increased intermarriage between
the two groups, the use of Tlingit as the language of
trade and the adoption of many aspects of Tlingit social
customs and organization including displays of wealth
and status.” More recently, the greater mobility of
Indigenous peoples for work and other reasons13 also led

to increased exchange. Many Indigenous people in
British Columbia, particularly those living in the vicinity
of the lower mainland, worked as crop harvesters in the
Fraser Valley and in the Tacoma and Yakima areas of
Washington. People from various cultural groups met in
this way and exchanged botanical and other types of
information, about basketry (Turner and Efrat, 1982),

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new foods like soapberry “lemonade,” and even new
medicines, such as the use of oceanspray fruits for diar
rhoea (Elsie Claxton, Straits Salish and Violet Williams,
Halq’emeylem, personal communication to NT, 1991).
This situation is certainly continuing today among con
temporary basketweavers, such as members of the Cali
fornia Indian Basketweavers’ Association, who routinely
share specialized knowledge about materials and tech
niques.

Much exchange of plant knowledge also took place
between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. In the
case of Indigenous peoples learning from newcomers,
the information concerned either introduced species or
native species. For example, the Nlaka’pamux, and no
doubt other peoples, learned to cook the introduced dan
delion (Taraxacum officinale) as greens, to make wine
from dandelion flower heads and to use the cooked tap
roots medicinally for jaundice and liver problems and the
latex to eliminate warts (Turner et al., 1990). Also, after
Japanese people living on the coast began to salt and
pickle stipes of the native bull kelp (Nereocystis luet
keana), this practice became common among some
coastal Indigenous peoples (Compton, 1993). For new
comers learning from Indigenous peoples, the transfer of
knowledge about native plant resources was at times
critically important. For example, David Douglas (1914:
63,171) recorded during his travels in present-day Wash
ington that a man named Jacques Finlay and his family

were subsisting on “… a sort of cake made of Lichen
jubatum, Linn. [Bryoria fremontii, black tree lichen], and
a few roots of Scilla esculenta [Camassia quamash,
camas] and of Lewisia rediviva [bitterroot].” Douglas also
described the special preparation techniques used for the
camas and lichen, including pit-cooking. These prac
tices, undoubtedly learned from the local Indigenous peo
ple, were critical in releasing the nutrients of these foods
(Kuhnlein and Turner, 1991).

Linguistic Implications
Clearly, trade necessitated and resulted from communi
cation among groups, and at least partial multilingualism
was probably common. However, people not only learned
other languages, but also adopted elements of those lan
guages, both words and translations, into their native
tongue (e.g., Gunther, 1945).14 Plant-related elements
were part of the interchange, which could be extensive.
For example, Nuxalk, a Salishan language, has more bo
tanical terms in common with its neighbouring North

Wakashan languages than with other Salishan languages,
and at least some of these borrowings may be attributed
to trade or some other type of cultural relations (Turner,

1973). Similarly, Gottesfeld (1994) lists eight plants or
plant parts (fireweed [Epilobium angustifolium], spread
ing dogbane [Apocynum androsaefolium], cedar, cedar
bark, pine cambium, yellow pond lily [Nuphar polysepa
lum], bog cranberry and wild pin cherry [Prunus pensyl
vanica]) whose names are shared between the Gitksan
(Tsimshian language family) and Wet’suwet’en (Atha
paskan) languages, and suggests that several of these
(the first four or five in the list) are Gitksan in origin.

In some cases, deciphering the origins of similarities
among languages is problematic for the same reasons
described in the previous section. For example, some
words may reflect ancient roots in the ancestral language
of closely related groups. Silverweed may be a case in
point; its name is a variant of xilxel in a number of Inte
rior Salish languages. Alternatively, different words may
have the same meaning in different languages not be
cause of a translation borrowing, but because there is a
convergence, or some inherent similarity that suggests
the meaning. For example, the name for Empetrum
nigrum translates as “crowberry” in a number of lan
guages, probably because the berries are black and crows
eat them, and various names for puffball mushrooms
(Lycoperdon, Calvatia and Bovista spp.) relate to ghosts,
corpses or other supernatural phenomena (Burk and
Fitzgerald, 1981), perhaps because of the fungus’ ethe
real appearance.

The complexities in linguistic analysis are well illus
trated by an example discussed by Compton (1993). The
(Wakashan) Hanaksiala and Haisla have a Salishan name
for kinnikinnick berries, which may have been obtained
through trade with the (Salishan) Nuxalk. However,
Compton feels it is more likely that the name reflects the
cultural origins of the Hanaksiala/Haisla among the
Oweekeno, who were known to obtain the plant through
trade with the Nuxalk, and who have a Nuxalk name for
it.

In spite of the complexities, however, linguistic anal
ysis of plant terms can often give interesting and impor
tant insights into the existence and directionality of
exchange. To illustrate, the Nuxalk use Wakashan names
for edible seaweed and giant kelp, species which do not
occur in Nuxalk territory and thus were probably
acquired by trade (Compton, 1993). Also, it is known that
the Nlaka’pamux obtained camas by trade, but such trade
could have taken place with peoples from the British
Columbia coast, or from the interior of Washington, or
both. Trade with Washington peoples is more likely, at
least as the original and/or more important source, since
at least one of the names for camas is linguistically re
lated to those in other Interior Salish languages (Turner

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and Kuhnlein, 1983; Tbrner et al., 1990). Similarly,
the Oweekeno probably obtained camas through a
Kwakwaka’wakw intermediary rather than directly from
the Coast Salish, since the Oowekyala name is cognate
with the Kwak’wala name but not with the Salishan name

(Compton 1993).
Linguistic patterns also help elucidate transfers of

knowledge. The name used by Ditidaht people for
Cottonwood is not analyzable in the Ditidaht language,
but is analyzable in Hesquiaht. Like the Hesquiaht, the
Ditidaht make a salve of cottonwood buds in deer fat, and
it is likely that if the name was transferred from the
Hesquiaht to the Ditidaht, the use was as well (Turner et
al., 1983). Another interesting situation involves the
Hanaksiala/Haisla use of edible seaweed (Compton
1993). Not only is the name for this species said to come
from the Coast Tsimshian, but a Tsimshian story con
cerning knowledge of its use was given to one consultant
by his grandfather, who translated the story from
Tsimshian into Hanaksiala. Compton believes that this
information suggests a Tsimshianic origin of edible sea

weed use among the Hanaksiala. Compton (1993) pro
vides a number of important insights into the transference
of plant names between various North Wakashan and
neighbouring groups.

A variation on this theme was described by Hess
(n.d.). Sometimes, if the speakers of one language excel
in a particular technique or craft, their neighbours may
borrow their words relating to that activity or artifact.
For example, the Straits Salish are exceptional reef
netters, and their name for that activity is derived from the
name for willow, because these branches are used to an
chor the nets. The Northern Lushootseed, whose territory
is adjacent to the Straits’, have a name for willow which is
very similar to the Straits name. However, the Southern
Lushootseed name for willow is completely different. This
example also illustrates the importance of borders in
demonstrating clear instances of diffusion. Turner et al.
(1987) note that there are communities on the Stl’atl’imx/

Secwepemc, Stl’atrimx/Nlaka’pamux, Nlaka’pamux/Oka
nagan and Stl’atrimx/Halq’emeylem borders that are func
tionally bilingual, and plant names and ethnobotanical tra
ditions in the communities reflect these mixtures.

Finally, linguistic analysis of plant names can suggest

broad patterns of past movement and interchange among
different cultural groups. In a preliminary analysis of one
Wakashan language (Ditidaht) and two Salishan lan
guages (Straits and Lushootseed), Hess (n.d.) found that
a number of plant names were borrowed by the Ditidaht
from the Salish peoples.15 Hess suggests that if this pat
tern is found to hold for the majority of borrowed plant

names, it may indicate the possibility of Ditidaht expan
sion at the expense of Salish territory, assuming a rela
tively stable distribution of the plants in question.

A complex situation was also identified in a compara
tive study of Interior Salishan tree names (Turner, Ig
nace and Compton, 1997). Even though the Secwepemc
language is most closely related linguistically to the
Stl’atl’imx and Nlaka’pamux languages, fewer tree names
are cognate among these three languages than among
Secwepemc, Okanagan, Flathead, Moses-Columbian and
Coeur d’Alene. This fact may give insight into the pat
tern of movements of these groups away from the proto

Salishan homeland, as the Secwepemc and the four
southeastern Salish groups all, over hundreds or thou
sands of years, had to traverse the Interior Dry Belt,
where certain tree species such as western red cedar
were absent. However, some trees have names shared
among Secwepemc, Nlaka’pamux and Stl’atl’imx, while
those of other trees with similar distributions are not.

Turner, Ignace and Compton (1997) conclude that trade
networks were probably involved in the development of
these linguistic anomalies.

Ecological Implications of Plant Exchange
Clearly the presence and abundance of plant resources
available in each Indigenous group’s territory affected
which resources were used or exchanged and in what
quantities. However, the converse of this statement?to
what extent did Indigenous peoples influence the distri
bution and abundance of native plant species??has too
infrequently been considered in the anthropological and
biological literature. Likely, people did accidentally and/
or intentionally disperse plants to new locations and con
sequently increased their range, or increased the number

of locations occupied by a plant species in a given area
(i.e., increases in frequency/abundance). There are vol
umes of evidence regarding such impacts, both deliberate
and accidental, by Europeans (e.g., Crosby, 1986) and the
effects of non-human animal dispersers are similarly well
considered. However, there has been a tendency to view
pre-contact worlds as “pristine wilderness” untouched
by human hands (Blackburn and Anderson, 1993; Dene
van, 1992), which may help explain the limited attention
paid to Indigenous peoples’ impacts on plant populations.

While a few studies have suggested instances of pre
contact human plant dispersal in eastern North America
(cf. Black, 1994; Day, 1953; Gilmore, 1931), few compara
ble reports have been made in the northwest. A notable

exception is a work by Wilson et al. (1988) regarding bit
terroot. This important root vegetable and item of ex
change was until recently thought to be restricted in its

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Canadian distribution to British Columbia. However, dis

junct populations were discovered in western Alberta in
1985, and were initially attributed to wind dispersal
(Kuijt and Michener, 1985, cited by Wilson et al., 1988).

Wilson et al. suggest three other reasonable hypotheses:
relictual distribution, which developed as a result of cli
mate change; intentional cultural dispersal by transplant
ing, since Indigenous groups in the area showed a
familiarity with cultivation of other species such as to
bacco; and accidental dispersal of the seeds or roots of
bitterroot by groups (such as the Ktunaxa) who regularly
crossed the continental divide. The authors suggest
other species with disjunct distributions that could be
similarly explained, including blue camas, yellow angelica
(Angelica dawsonii), Oregon-grape (Berberis aquifolium
ssp. repens) and western sweet cicely (Osmorhiza occi
dentalis). White the authors do not support conclusively
any of the three hypotheses, their conclusions in terms
of the potential importance of cultural dispersal are sig
nificant:

Localized, disjunct occurrences of plants that were eco
nomically important [for] native groups therefore can
not be assessed fully without consideration of the pos
sibility of cultural dispersal. Adventitious plantings of
such species beyond their normal range would make
economic sense in providing local supplies to supple
ment or even supplant long-distance trade, and to pro
vide “wayside stops” along seasonal migration routes.
Native use and trade would also have resulted in occa

sional accidental plantings. Such considerations are of
extreme importance to archaeologists and phytogeog
raphers because of the low level of visibility of plant
gathering cultural systems in the archaeological record.
(Wilson et al., 1988: 518)

The disjunctions noted in Wilson et al.’s work, along with
those described from the east, are generally small popu
lations, which may imply that the ecological impacts of
such dispersal are generally minor. However, the fact
that such disjunctions are isolated, and located near areas
of human habitation or migration, is what makes human
influence a recognizable possibility (Black, 1994). Other,

more extensive, populations may have begun initially as
similar small disjunctions. This is speculation, but the
potential exists for significant impacts on the ranges of
species. Also, if a subpopulation becomes well estab
lished, with the disjunction maintained, the possibility of

genetic differentiation is high.
In some cases the effect may not be so obvious. As

noted by Black (ibid.), people can increase the abundance
of a species within or adjacent to its natural distribution.

Also, people may encourage the growth of plants that
have been dispersed by more usual means. Black gives
the example of a wild strawberry patch tended by a Cree

man in an otherwise unfavourable boreal habitat. The

plant could have been established originally by means of
a bird, but the man provided it with a favourable place to
grow and thrive. The existence of an unusual low-eleva
tion population of yellow avalanche lily near Neskonlith
Lake in southcentral British Columbia may be another
example. This species is more commonly found at sub
alpine elevations in BC. It is possible that bulbs or seeds
were accidentally brought by animals or humans or pur
posefully brought by people to the more easily accessible
Neskonlith meadows long ago, and that the practices of
regular digging, burning and cultivation16 in the area over

time encouraged the remarkable abundant growth evi
dent there today.

The ethnographic and ethnobotanical literature pro
vide examples of species that were said to have been
transplanted, and particular locations where this oc
curred. Some transplantations involved traded species,
which were thus brought in from another group’s terri
tory, whereas others involved economically important
local species that were simply transplanted closer to vil
lages. In both cases, the desire for a convenient source of
an important resource was probably a prime motivation.
A possible example is camas, a bulb generally acquired
by the Nuu-Chah-Nulth through trade from the Salishan
peoples of southern Vancouver Island, but which accord
ing to Hesquiaht people was introduced and planted
around Hesquiaht village about 100 years ago. Cat-tails,
too, were said to have been transplanted into Hesquiaht
territory (Turner and Efrat, 1982). Springbank clover
was reportedly established at a site in the Kitlope Valley
(Hanaksiala territory) by a Nuxalk woman, Margaret
Siwallace (Chief Ken Hall, Haisla relative of Margaret
Siwallace, personal communication to NT, 1994). Also,
one ethnographic account suggests that peoples of the
Puget Sound region transplanted wapato, an important
root vegetable, from one area to another (Haeberlin and
Gunther, 1930). Meilleur (1979) speculated on a means
by which a species of tobacco (Nicotiana quadrivalvis, a
different species from that grown and used in southern
British Columbia, N. attenuata) came to be cultivated by
Haida and Tlingit peoples some 1 600 km north of the
species’ normal range. He suggests that the plant was
initially cultivated and traded along an east-west corridor
in the vicinity of The Dalles on the Columbia River, then

was carried up along the eastern border of the Rockies
and over to Athapaskan or Gitksan territories, which
were served by Tlingit trading parties.

64 / Nancy J. Turner, Dawn C. Loewen Anthropologica XL (1998)

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Transplantations of stinging nettle, an important
fibre plant commonly found associated with areas of
human habitation (Turner, 1978),17 provide examples of
both intra- and intergroup exchange. Compton’s (1993)
consultant Gordon Robertson stated that the Hanaksiala

and Haisla people planted stinging nettle around their vil
lages so that it would always be at hand for making
twine. Compton (1993: 295) notes further that people
visiting from the central coast communities of Kimsquit,
Bella Coola and Metlakatla “when they came to trade for
food items with the Hanaksiala, took stinging nettles
back with them.”

These types of transplants may have become much
more common following the influence of European horti
cultural techniques.18 It may be possible, with long-lived
species, to date individual plants or populations thought
to have been deliberately transplanted. However, in gen
eral it is difficult to determine with any certainty the
extent of pre-contact human impacts on the distribution
and abundance of plant species. Oral traditions may not
retain such incidents over countless generations. Also,
because the most basic biology of many plant species is
still poorly understood, there is often no basis for pursu
ing such higher-level questions as how a species got to
be where it is (Dr. Geraldine Allen, plant taxonomist,
University of Victoria, personal communication to DL,
1996). Nevertheless, the examples of possible types of
translocations discussed should be sufficient to encour

age greater consideration of potential past human im
pacts on plant ecology. This is particularly true in cases
where the species’ range appears anomalous in some way,
as in cases of disjunctions. As Gordon Day (1953: 343)
commented, “a knowledge of local archaeology and his
tory should be a part of the ecologist’s equipment.” The
reverse is, of course, true for anthropologists.

Recent Indigenous Plant Exchange
Contact with Europeans and other non-Natives brought
an increased frequency and intensity of exchange, includ
ing traditional plant resources and knowledge. This in
crease probably reached its peak around the beginning of
the 20th century (Turner and Efrat, 1982). With an ever

greater reliance by Indigenous peoples on introduced
foods, materials and medicines, and an increasing domi
nance of European language, currency and other aspects
of culture, many types of traditional plant-related ex
change dwindled.

However, a number of traditional plant resources
continued to be valued exchange items despite the gen
eral decline in native plant use and trade. For example,
Ida Jones recalled that when she was young, Ditidaht

people used to trade dried fish and other items for camas
from the Salish people in Victoria (Turner et al, 1983).
Many traditionally valued resources were also bought
with money rather than other subsistence items. Elsie
Claxton, Straits Salish from Tsawout, noted that West
Coast (Nuu-Chah-Nulth) peoples really liked camas
bulbs, and that, “a long time ago,” they would pay five to
ten dollars for a 50-pound potato sack of the cooked bulbs
(personal communication to NT, October 1996). The
same quantity of potatoes would have cost perhaps two
dollars at that time. Also, Annie York and Alice Paul
remembered that, in the early 1900s, Nlaka’pamux
women used to sell soapberries and other traditional
foods at the camps of Native hop pickers in the Fraser
Valley (Turner and Efrat, 1982; Turner et al., 1990).

More recently, Compton (1993) noted that along the
coast in 1989, a pint jar of soapberries was worth $25
CDN and a quart jar $50 CDN. Also, according to Turner
and Efrat (1982), bear-grass leaves were still being pur
chased by Hesquiaht basketmakers from people in Wash
ington, for about $1.00 per 2.5 cm (1 inch) bundle.19

Many goods are now exchanged privately among friends
and relatives from different areas; for example, Mary
Thomas, who is Secwepemc, obtains bitterroot from
friends in Okanagan territory (personal communication
to NT, 1995, 1996). She also described an example of
“sharing of access” to resources that has occurred in her
lifetime. Her uncle was married to a Ktunaxa woman,
and they and some other Ktunaxa people would travel to
Salmon Arm, in Secwepemc territory, by train during the
summer. They would stay about a month and harvest

“everything that the Secwepemc people used,” including
berries, root vegetables and salmon. In return, they
brought dried elk meat, which their Secwepemc friends
were not able to acquire locally.

Transplanting and transporting of plants and plant
propagules from one place to another is also a common
practice today. For example, Kwakwaka’wakw Heredi
tary Chief Adam Dick (personal communication to NT,
1996) recalled transplanting rooted stems of highbush
cranberry from the bog meadows at Kingcome Inlet to
his own backyard, to provide a good source of berries for

his family’s use. Secwepemc plant specialist Mary
Thomas has transplanted a number of important wild
root vegetables, including the living bitterroot brought by
friends, into her own garden. Recently, at a Nuxalk pot
latch in Bella Coola, visiting Heiltsuk chiefs were pre
sented with live Cottonwood trees as gifts. These were
planted in Bella Bella, and are growing vigourously there
today (Evelyn Windsor, Heiltsuk, personal communica
tion to NT, 1996).

Anthropologica XL (1998) Exchange of Botanical Products and Plant Knowledge / 65

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As these last examples imply, social aspects of
Indigenous exchange have remained strong. For exam
ple, a recent report focussing on the Carrier people
noted that, despite considerable post-contact cultural
change, many fundamental patterns of traditional culture

persist, such as traditional methods of redistribution by
reciprocal giving, and sharing to ensure that everyone
has food to eat. The report concluded that participation in

this exchange system, in which kinship ties were still the

basis of association, confirmed a person’s rightful place in
the community (Archeo Tech Associates, 1993).

Plant-related exchange with non-Natives also contin
ues today. Indigenous artisans continue to sell their bas
kets, carvings (especially masks and totem poles) and
other crafts as artwork, and prices now more accurately
reflect the skill and effort involved. Exchange of knowl
edge takes place as well. Ethnobotanists continue to
learn about traditional uses of plants, and are also paying
greater attention to traditional methods of landscape and
resource management. There are also non-Native indi
viduals who seek traditional knowledge as a means of ex
ploiting potential profits generated, for example, by
medicinal plants. Fortunately, there is an increasing
awareness that the intellectual property rights of Indige
nous peoples need to be respected, and acceptable forms
of compensation developed. More realistic arrangements
for reimbursing people for their knowledge, as well as for

their time and the botanical goods they produce are
essential.

Conclusions
The exchange of plant materials, including foodstuffs,
materials and manufactured products, was an important
facet of complex exchange networks encompassing many
northwestern Indigenous peoples. Trade was important
in increasing the diversity of foods and materials avail
able to people, in obtaining products of higher quality
than would be available locally, in exchanging items of
specialized crafting, or in overcoming scheduling con
flicts. Furthermore, plant exchange was not only influ
enced by the broader cultural context, but in turn
affected that context through impacts on a group’s lan
guage and collective knowledge. These economic and
other cultural implications of plant exchange continued to
exist after contact, and are still apparent to some extent
today. Finally, plant exchange may have had significant
extra-cultural consequences, in terms of effects on the
ecology of the plants themselves, including both abun
dance and distribution.

Analysis of the development of various botanical
technologies and linguistic anomalies can reveal much

about the origins and interrelationships of the peoples
themselves. Yet many questions remain, such as: “Why
were some resources/technologies/names exchanged,
but not others?”; “What influences did traditional pat
terns of use and ownership play in plant abundance and
distribution?”; and “To what extent was trading a social
or an economic phenomenon, and was it desired, or
required, for peoples’ survival and well-being?” While
many mysteries will undoubtedly persist, rewards for
investigating such questions are equally certain.

Appendix 1: Current and Previously Used
Names for Aboriginal Groups Discussed
in Text (Not a Complete Listing)

Contemporary Name Previously Used or Alternate Name/s
Ditidaht Nitinaht
Gitksan Gitxsan, Gitk’san
Halq’emeylem Halkomelem, Cowichan, Sto:lo, or

Stalo (includes Katzie)
Heiltsuk Bella Bella, Northern Kwakiutl
Kitasoo Southern Tsimshian
Ktunaxa Kootenay (or Kootenai or Kutenai)
Kwakwaka’wakw Kwakiutl, Southern Kwakiutl, Kwagiulth
Lushootseed Puget Sound Salish, including Duwamish,

Green River, Lower Skagit (Swinomish),
Nisqually (Skokomish), Puyallup,
Skykomish, Snohomish, Snuqualmie,
Squaxin, Suquamish, Upper Skagit

Nisga’a Nishga, Niska, Nisga
Nlaka’pamux Thompson
Nuu-Chah-Nulth Nootka, Westcoast (sometimes

includes Ditidaht)
Nuxalk (-mc) Bella Coola
Secwepemc Shuswap
Stl’atl’imx Lillooet
Straits Salish includes Lummi, Samish, Clallam or

Klallam, Saanich, Songish
Taidnapam (Sahaptin) Upper Cowlitz
Tsilhqot’in Chilcotin
Tvana Skokomish

Acknowledgments
We are grateful for the valuable contributions of Aborigi
nal elders and other cultural specialists cited or quoted in
this study: Dolly Watts (Gitksan); Dora Wedge, Winnie
Atlin (Tagish); Bernadette Antoine, Louie Phillips, Mary
Williams, Annie York (Nlaka’pamux); Margaret Lester
(StTati’imx); Mary Thomas (Secwepemc); Alice Paul
(Hesquiaht); Elsie Claxton (Straits Salish); Violet
Williams (Halq’emeylem); Chief Ken Hall, Gordon
Robertson (Haisla, Hanaksiala); Evelyn Windsor (Heilt
suk); Dr. Margaret Siwallace (Nuxalk); Chief Adam Dick
(Kwakwaka’wakw). A number of individuals contributed

66 / Nancy J. Turner, Dawn C. Loewen Anthropologica XL (1998)

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useful information by means of an ethnobiology list
server: David Bainbridge, Lyn Dearborn, Maria Emery,
Sybille Haeussler, Anna Hopkins, Sarah Mason, Dave
Ruppert and Janna Weiss.

We also acknowledge the contributions of ethnobiol
ogist Dr. Brian Compton, and plant taxonomist Dr. Geral
dine Allen. The editorial advice and criticism of Dr.
Daniel Clement and three anonymous reviewers is grate
fully acknowledged. Technical assistance was kindly pro
vided by Colin Laroque. Research for this project was
funded in part by Social Sciences and Humanities Re
search Council grants to N. Turner.

Address information for Nancy J. Turner. School
of Environmental Studies, University of Victoria, BC
V8W 2Y2. Phone: (250) 721-6124; Fax: (250) 721-8985;
E-mail: NTurner@UVic.ca

Address information for Dawn C. Loewen: School
of Environmental Studies, University of Victoria, BC
V8W 2Y2. Phone: (250) 721-6124; Fax: (250) 721-8985.

Notes
1 Malinowski (1922) described this effectively for Melanesian

peoples. In the Pacific Northwest, the practice of potlatch
ing provides an example of equally complex exchange.

2 Names used in the text are those thought to be currently pre
ferred by the various Indigenous groups themselves. A list of
commonly used synonyms is found in Appendix 1, and a map
of the groups in the region of interest is shown in Figure 1.

3 For example, Teit (1909) stated that the Tsilhqot’in tradi
tionally traded little with the Carrier, but that this changed
after the establishment of trading-posts in Carrier country
in the early 19th century.

4 Scientific names for plant species are given in Table 1,
unless otherwise noted.

5 Gunther (1945) stated that except for choice varieties of
dried salmon, there was no food item more widely traded by

Washington peoples than camas. The importance of camas
was also noted by Ronan (1932: 301), who noted “that when
the Flatheads went to trade with the Blackfeet they could
get more in exchange for a few bags of camas than for any
thing else: [and] that they often got a buffalo robe for a few
handsful of it.”

6 Ligusticum canbyi has a scattered and infrequent distribu
tion in relatively inaccessible habitats, therefore it is per
haps not surprising that it could have been an item of trade.

7 Part of this trail system was travelled by Alexander
Mackenzie, which resulted in its being designated the
“Alexander Mackenzie Heritage Trail.” While this designa
tion in some sense recognizes the importance of the trail, or
one part of it, Birch water et al. (1993) point out that it does
not acknowledge the venerable history and significance of
the trail system for the Nuxalk-Carrier peoples.

8 The potato trade was highly significant to the Europeans as
well. Mackie (1984) notes that colonists in the Victoria area

in the mid-1800s acquired most of their two staples, pota
toes and salmon, from Indigenous peoples such as the
Cowichan.

9 It is also possible that Indian hemp was a common item of
trade simply because it was constantly in demand. Teit and
Boas (1973: 255) stated: “Indian hemp, Indian-hemp twine,
and dressed skins, chiefly deerskins, were staples, and
although almost equally common to all the tribes of the
interior, were in demand almost constantly because they

were so much required for manufactures and clothing. All
commodities could be bought with them.”

10 Teit (1906: 207) similarly noted of the Stl’atl’imx that “At
the present day coiled [cedar-root] baskets are manufac
tured in great numbers by the Lillooet River and Pemberton
bands, who sell them to the whites and to the Indian tribes
of the coast-”

11 The work of Claude Levi-Strauss (1966, 1969) is notable in
demonstrating the complex linkages, borrowings and con
versions that occur among the stories and traditions of dif
ferent peoples.

12 Teit appears to imply that, for example, fish prongs were
modeled by the Tsilhqot’in after Secwepemc design. How
ever, in most instances Teit probably means his compar
isons simply as a shorthand, to avoid reiterating de
scriptions he has already made in detail for other groups,
and directionality of transfer, or transfer per se, is not
implied.

13 These “other reasons” included, ironically, participating in
non-Native cultural activities. For example, Sliammon
(Comox Salish) women from around Powell River credit
Secwepemc women of Kamloops for teaching them the art
of making coiled cedar-root baskets, as a result of interac
tions at prayer meetings in Kamloops around the turn of the
century (Kennedy and Bouchard, 1983).

14 In the period of intensified trade after contact, the necessity
for communication among many different groups including
non-Natives led to the development of Chinook jargon. A
number of Chinook jargon terms became so widely used
that the original names in many languages were forgotten
(Turner and Kuhnlein, 1983).

15 It is interesting that the opposite pattern was noted previ
ously for groups of these language families further north;
i.e., the Salishan Nuxalk language borrowed extensively

from the North Wakashan languages. For example, the
name for licorice fern in various Coast Salish languages,
variants on the Halq’emeylem name tl’esiip, is apparently
derived from the Ditidaht, tl’aa7asiip, since it is analyzable
in the latter language, as “tendency to grow on the ground”
(Turner et al., 1983).

16 See Turner (1992) for a discussion of potential positive
impacts of Indigenous harvesting and management prac
tices on plant populations.

17 Stinging nettle also simply could have been encouraged
where it grew, as it has a weedy tendency which would
make it likely to thrive in disturbed areas.

18 The phenomenally rapid and widespread acceptance of the
potato suggests that Indigenous peoples mastered gardening
techniques with impressive alacrity, and/or they were previ
ously familiar with analogous techniques. Thus, “gardening”
types of activities may have been more common in pre-con
tact times than is generally assumed (Suttles, 1951b).

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19 However, it is felt that this “grass” is not as long or as good
quality as formerly (1\irner and Efrat, 1982).

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70 / Nancy J. Turner, Dawn C. Loewen Anthropologica XL (1998)

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• Contents

p. 49
p. 50
p. 51
p. 52
p. 53
p. 54
p. 55
p. 56
p. 57
p. 58
p. 59
p. 60
p. 61
p. 62
p. 63
p. 64
p. 65
p. 66
p. 67
p. 68
p. 69
p. 70

• Issue Table of Contents

Anthropologica, Vol. 40, No. 1 (1998) pp. 1-148
Front Matter
Foreword [pp. 3-5]
L’Ethnobiologie / Ethnobiology [pp. 7-34]
Mixtepec Zapotec Ethnobiological Classification: A Preliminary Sketch and Theoretical Commentary [pp. 35-48]
The Original “Free Trade”: Exchange of Botanical Products and Associated Plant Knowledge in Northwestern North America [pp. 49-70]
Clones within Clones: Cosmology and Esthetics and Polynesian Crop Selection [pp. 71-82]
“Si l’arbre ne respirait pas, comment grandirait-il?” La conception du vivant pour les Gouro de Côte-d’Ivoire, exemple de l’arbre [pp. 83-98]
Alfred F. Whiting: textes choisis/Selected Essays [pp. 99-108]
Les fondements historiques de l’ethnobiologie (1860-1899) [pp. 109-128]
Book Reviews / Comptes rendus
Review: untitled [pp. 129-131]
Review: untitled [pp. 131-133]
Review: untitled [pp. 133-134]
Review: untitled [pp. 134-135]
Review: untitled [pp. 135-137]
Review: untitled [pp. 137-139]
Review: untitled [pp. 140-140]
Review: untitled [pp. 141-143]
Review: untitled [pp. 143-144]
Review: untitled [pp. 144-146]
Review: untitled [pp. 146-146]
Review: untitled [pp. 146-147]
Review: untitled [pp. 148-148]
Back Matter

ADMINISTRATIVE PROGRAMS AND CHANGES IN BLOOD SOCIETY DURING THE RESERVE
PERIOD
Author(s):

Esther S. Goldfrank

Source: Applied Anthropology, Vol. 2, No. 2 (JANUARY—MARCH 1943), pp. 18-23
Published by: Society for Applied Anthropology
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18 APPLIED ANTHROPOLOGY

ADMINISTRATIVE PROGRAMS AND CHANGES IN BLOOD SOCIETY

DURING THE RESERVE PERIOD

by

Esther S. Goldfrank

Post-war reconstruction poses innumer-
able problems – and past experience gives no com-
plete answer to any of them. Yet an examination oí
evena limited field of administration may high-light
some of the many difficulties that must be faced
when a comprehensive economic and educational
program is being considered for a small group, a
tribe, or a nation.

The Blood Indians,1 aBlackfoot tribe, who
in historic time frequented the western plains of the
United States and Canada, were particularly favored
by circumstance. Their country was well-stocked
with the buffalo upon which they depended for food,
shelter, and clothing; their early possession of the
horse and comparative freedom from white pressure
gave ample opportunity for profit from an expand-
ing fur trade. 2 Technical skill and individual brav-
ery were duly recognized, but the accumulation of
wealth was necessarily limited by the exigencies of
their nomadic life. Wealth remained fluid, but it was
not equally distributed; the many tales of intra-tribal
violence in the pre-reserve period are evidence that,
in spite of cooperative mechanisms, competitive
trends were increasingly asserted. Horse wealth,
whether actual or translated into privilege by pur-
chase became the major determinant of status. 3

Contrary to the experience of certain oth-
er Plains tribes, who once established on a reserve
settled down to more or less stable economy,4 the
recent history of the Blood is marked by rapid

change. This situation aids in evaluating traditional
attitudes in terms of social programming; it re-
veals what kind of rewards bring favorable responses
and why.
1877-1894.

In 1877, the Blood were placed upon their
reserve in Alberta, Canada. In 1878 a winter count
reads, “this year the buffalo went out of sight.” The
warriors settled peacably on government land. They
were encouraged to farm or herd,^ if the two cows
that were allotted to a family of five can be so-
called, but neither program met with success. By
1884, 1500 Blood were farming only 275 acres, and
most of the labor wąs still supplied by the whites;**
and that same year, the agency sold off the few re-
maining cattle, glad enough to remove another “source
of expense and anxiety.” ‘

The tribe was on relief. They gratefully
accepted the meager government rations that in-
sured- equality ona minimum subsistence level. But
the disparity in wealth due to the unequal ownership
of horses remained the dominant factor in their

economic life. The outlawing of raiding had cut the
supply line and access to any new wealth was diffi-
cult. The horse wealth was frozen in the hands of

those who had horses in 1877, and it was they who
benefited from any natural increase. With their
horses they could still purchase ceremonial privilege
and social advantage upon which personal prestige
depended. Their children were beautifully clothed;

Case material included in this paper was collected in the summer of 1939 on the Blood Reserve in conjunc-
tion with the Anthropological Field Laboratory of Columbia University which was directed by Dr. Ruth Bene-
dict. I wish to thank Mr. Harry Biele and Miss Marjorie Lismer, who generously permitted me to consult
their field notes, and Mr. Pugh, agent on the reserve for ten years, who assisted us in many ways. Except
where otherwise noted, the references below areto the Annual Reports on Indian affairs contained in the Ses-
sional Papers of the Dominion of Canada.

2′ Oscar Lewis: The Effects of White Contact upon Blackfoot Culture , Monographs of the American Ethnological
Society, N. Y. 1942.

3* Clark Wissler: Ceremonial Bundles of the Blackfoot Indians, Anthropological Papers of the American Museum
of Natural History, N. Y. 1912, ‘Vol. VII, Pt. 2, p. 276//.

Esther S. Goldfrank, Historic Change and Social Character: A Study of the Teton Dakota, American Anthro-
pologist, Menasha, Wis., 1943, Vol. 45, #1, pp. 67-84.

18 78, Vol. 8, #10, p. XV// and p. XLVI; see also appendix CXXXIV .

6* 1884, Vol. 3, #*, p. IV.
7 • Op . cit. , p. 83.

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JANUARY-MARCH 1943 19

their ‘ïavorites” or “children of plenty” as Uhlen-
beck translates minipoka, were honored with
charms, forelocks, and pipes. They became the
partners of older men in military societies such as
the Horn; they formed small cliques within their
age-grades which set them off as a snobbish elite,
and at the same time, served to protect them from
the envious assaults of their less fortunate com-

rades. Their rich fathers tried to cement their po-
sition by marrying them to children equally favored.

The poor had great difficulty in getting a
wife at all. Polygamy, though illegal, still existed.
A report of 1882 states, “most of the young men who
have no horses cannot get married, and therefore
steal from someone rich in women.”®

A few ways remained for making a living.
Shamanism was still a popular means of support, but
practice did not always follow immediately upon a
successful vision quest. A man could also work for
whites or become a scout or farmer in the govern-
ment service; and if he hoped for quick rewards, he
could improve his position by marrying a rich woman
often some ten or fifteen years his senior. A very
ambitious man might combine all of them. But op-
portunities for remunerative work were still scarce;
farming and what little herding there was may have
raised the subsistence level, but they brought no
substantial increase in income. In general, a young
man’s position was increasingly insecure. To find
a place in the new society he had to revert to pat-
terns of the past even when they were forbidden. The
1887 – 1888 report reads, “war parties (were) com-
posed mostly of young men from 16-25 years of
age.” 9 Actually these were raids upon neighboring
herds, and usually the government cut short a brave
career with a jail sentence.

Although both rich and poor were on ra-
tions, the horse wealth of a rich man made it possi-
ble for his son to find a place in the society. The
horse owner could still put up a bride price; he
could still honor his son with gifts and ceremonial
purchases. The social stratifications incipient in
the buffalo days became more marked during these
years.

It has frequently been said that these In-
dians of the Plains did not accept the government
program because they were so wedded to their no-
madic life that they could not be persuaded to settle
down and farm or look after their cows. A review of

the official reports makes their lack of cooperation
patent; but it also lends reason to their attitude.
Cultivation of recommended but climatically unsuit-
able plants was one long headache: the growing
season was short; early frosts were frequent; sum-
mer hail and grasshopper blights destroyed the
crops while they stood in the fields. The milk from
two cows could hardly be expected to induce a fam-
ily that had depended upon the hunt to give up the
few pleasures of their former nomadism that still
remained to them, – visits to friends, rodeos, and
the social compensations of the sun-dance.
1894 – 1910.

The new economy continued to be a desul-
tory affair. The tribes annual income in 1895 was ap-
proximately $7500.10 But another program was al-
ready being inaugurated. In 1894, another effort was
made to encourage herding. Three of the most influen-
tial men and owners of large horse herds, were per-
suaded to exchange their ponies for ‘Trulls, cows, heif-
ers, and calves.” Twenty-three head apiece were is-
sued to two of them; the other received eighteen. ^
Time and the inevitability of a settled life upon the re-
serve may have made the Blood more ready to accept
the responsibility of herding now than in the past, but
the main reasons for the success of this program must
be looked for elsewhere. Onlyafew of their hundreds
of animals were of real use for farming, transporta-
tion, and riding. On the other hand, the Blood had seen
the success of a similar program of cattle herding
among the neighboring Piegan. The rich herders knew
that an exchange of twenty for twenty would bring quick
benefits and would not radically reduce their manip-
ulative horse wealth. There was a great clamor for
cattle; but the man without horses remained the man
without cows.

The new program stimulated a general in-
terest in herding; nine hundred head of cattle still
due under the old treaty of 1877 were claimed;^ a

8# 1883, Vol. 4, #5, p. 176.
1888, Vol. 13, #15, p. 80.

10 • 1896, Vol. 10, #14, p. 296.
Op cit., p. 272//.

12# 1905, Vol. 11, #27, p. 202.

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20 APPLIED ANTHROPOLOGY

loan system was introduced, but the good start that
the owners of large horse herds had could not be
overcome by lending a man one or two cows for a
couple of years. ^ Haying became a necessary and
lucrative occupation, and the haying camps pleas-
antly recalled the hunting days of the past. So suc-
cessful was this herding program that by 1902 only
51-1/2 acres were still being cultivated, 14 and in
1906, the Blood had more than 7500 cattle ^ and a
cash income of about $40,000 annually. *6

Interest in Shamanism waned. There were

now more satisfactory ways of earning a living.
Many of the younger men were drawn into the indus-
try as helpers, and to some degree their position in
the society was reestablished in terms of the old
buffalo days. Again their services were in demand
and they were assured board and lodging, some cloth-
ing, and if an employer was generous, a horse as an
annual bonus. These helpers were often the younger
or poorer relatives of rich herders and for this
reason expected preferential treatment. In spite of
the unattractiveness of the wage and the small hope
of riches, some of the more ambitious also sought
these jobs; the hope always remained that loyal serv-
ice would be rewarded by a convenient marriage.

But although the poor son-in-law might
raise his status by marrying the daughter of a rich
man, there were many times when he complained of
continued exploitation after such a marriage. “Re-
spect” did not always follow. Certain brave souls
might break from the situation, but during this peri-
od the ways and means of getting ahead, if you were
born poor, were still few. Frustrations were many.
One husband in his unsuccessful effort to combat his

rich brother-in-law’s influence went so far as to

fake a love affair, don women’s clothes, and simulate
suicide.

Old ways of spending were exaggerated.
Favorites were showered with expensive gifts and
raiment. A saddle costing $80 to $100, silver spurs,
special boots, finely beaded blankets, all might be
lavished on a small and favored son. He was initi-

ated to many ceremonial objects for which large pay-
ments were made not only in horses, but in fine
goods. As the herds grew, the payments became
more ostentatious; the Long Time Pipe, alone, sold
several times for 100 horses.

Nor was it enough for a prosperous Blood
to have one favorite. Many had two or more.
Pointed Plume said he wanted “to treat his two boys
alike.” Others frankly stated they wanted to show
how rich they were. To all it gave great satisfaction
to add to prestige by conspicuous spending.

The less successful families aped their
wealthier neighbors. They too had give-aways, but
these were on a lesser scale; they too had their
favorites, but these children had to be content with
small honorings. They might receive an otter skin,
even a weasel tail suit, or they might wear their
umbilical cord in a little beaded bag as the “real”
favorites did, but the meager efforts of their parents
to “keep up with the Jones'” never received recogni-
tion. Only when the spending was great and continu-
al, only when many pipes and bundles had been
bought, was a child considered a “real” favorite by
the Blood.

Gifts flowed freely, but the circle within
which they flowed remained, as before narrow and
selected. The rich gave to the rich, to their close
relatives, or to those to whom they were under ob-
ligation for some favor. Shaming remained a con-
venient mechanism for discouraging the demands of
the less fortunate and for limiting the much- vaunted
generous giving.

In this period of 1894 – 1910, the bulk of
the wealth still rested in the hands of the horse

owners who in the first seventeen years of the re-
serve succeeded in freezing the only valuable form
of property that remained to the Blood after the
treaty of 1877. However, with the increased oppor-
tunities for making a living, social differences be-
came less conspicuous. But the dominance of the
large horse and cattle owners was never threatened.
As the economy expanded, the rich spent more
lavishly, and those who shared in the new wealth im-
itated as successfully as they could the behavior of
the wealthy tribesmen. The new herding economy
functioned within the framework of pre- reserve val-
ues.

1910-1920.

After the turn of the century, it was def-
initely established that the soil and climate of the
Blood reserve were well adapted to the cultivation of
fall wheat. Shortly before 1910, the land was thrown

13# 1902, Vol. 11, #27, p. 132.
14, Op cit. , p. 220.
15 * 1907-8, Vol. 14, #27, p. 162.
16′ Op cit p. 161.

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JANUARY-MARCH 1943 21

open for farming. The cattle herders objected vi-
olently to the reduction of their grazing fields, ^ but
the agency, interested primarily in obtaining the
largest income possible, was not deterred. The
younger men, ,łthe working element” as the report
calls them, backed the new plan and rushed in their
applications. *8 This “working element” saw its first
big chance to make good since the buffalo days. It
was a composite of half-breeds, who had shared in
a small way, if at all, in the property distributions
of their Blood relatives, a number of full-bloods,
whose families could offer them little, and a few
ambitious and farsighted cattle owners, mostly from
those very chiefly families who at first had fought
the new program most bitterly. The bulk of the
herders, however, were content with their lucrative
herds and their share in the income from hay. Their
poorer but not too distant relatives preferred helping
them to embarking upon a new and untried ca-
reer.

Rewards, however, were even more im-
mediate than in the second herding program. The
first year, three farmers averaged over $1000 on
farms of about 40 acres.*** But prices of all prod-
ucts advanced in the rising market; by 1920, the to-
tal income was over $250,000,20 and almost one-half
came from farm products. The decade of 1910 – 1920
was the era of greatest participation and income
spread that the Blood enjoyed during the reserve
period.

Those who had herds continued to honor

their sons and daughters with lavish payments in
both horses and goods for ceremonial bundles and
privileges. The new rich had favorites “the American
way.” They were content to honor their children with
extravagant outfits, a fine saddle horse, a fine saddle.
The few horses they had were used in farming or
transportation; they bought none to validate their new
position by ceremonial purchase. A money economy
completely divorced from the former horse economy
now flourished on the reserve.

1920 –

At the end of the decade two catastrophes
affected the Blood. The post-war depression caused
a sudden drop in commodity prices. Both farmers

and herders suffered equally. But the harsh winters
of 1919 and 1920 created a much more fundamental

change in the fabric of tribal life. The cold prac-
tically annihilated the cattle herds. At one stroke,
the accumulated capital of the herders was wiped
out. For the farmers the blow was temporary; they
still had their land, and after the difficult years, a
good income although a smaller one could be derived
from wheat. But a herd could not be replaced in a
day, nor in a year. Some few herders had partici-
pated in the new agricultural program,. but the ma-
jority had only their horse wealth to fall back on.
They gave up in despair. The wheat farmers bought
up the cattle that survived.^*

The loss of cattle in the cold winters of
1919 and 1920 meant the loss of all cash income to

the herders; but enough horses remained to carry on
the traditional exchange and purchase. Again on re-
lief, the erstwhile herders could still achieve pres-
tige in the old way, but with this difference: the
horse was no longer a symbol of real wealth. The
agency was quick to recognize this. Horse ex-
changes and payments are not entered in the official
books, but transactions in wheat and cattle are duly
recorded. For the first time in the history of the
Blood, the man with horses was not necessarily the
rich man. Yet he continued to buy eagerly, even
compulsively, into societies although he could not
always complete the purchase. Today in spite of
constant validation, his position is less secure. He
still gets “respect”, but “respect” wears thin when it
is not bolstered by wealth. Real wealth, then as now,
was in the hands of those men who had gone into
farming around 1910.

The history of wheat farming has been none
too rosy either. After a continued rise during the
twenties, the value of farm products on the Blood
reserve tumbled from $100,000 in 1930 to $24,000
in 1932.23 The drought that followed continued to
discourage the farmers, although prices recovered
somewhat. In 1939, many farmers as well as herd-
ers, were on relief. Not unlike the situation in our
own West, land was being concentrated in the hands
of a few. One farmer cultivated 600 acres, net in-
come $9000; another sharing with his son farmed

17 • 0p. cit . , p. 162.
18 • 1919, Vol. 15, #27, p. 169.
19, 1910, Vol. 17, #27, p. 174.
20 • 1920 , Vol. 8, #27, p. 76.
21 * 1922, Vol. 8, #27, p. 50.
22′ 1931, p. 72.
23 • 1933.

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22 APPLIED ANTHROPOLOGY

400 acres, net income $3000. From the first fig-
ure there was still deductible support for a sick
brother’s family and compensation for a helper, but
the latter may be accepted as final.

The situation is beginning to tell. The best
land has been allotted. A young and ambitious
Blood must either turn again to wages, as indeed
even the sons of rich farmers have done, or if he is
not satisfied with the marginal land still available,
he must wheedle an idle farm from a more fortunate,
if less ambitious tribesman. He may get it as a
loan, or on a rental basis, but he is never certain
how long he will be permitted to crop it. The more
successful the young farmer is, the more eager the
renter will be to reclaim his land and try his hand
at it again.

To understand the behavior of an individu-

al and his treatment by others, it is necessary to
ascertain not only his present status, but how that
status was achieved. Among the Blood, more and
more, wealth has become the determining factor, but
increasingly it is wealth divorced from the old horse
economy. The man with many initiations to his credit
is still honored by a privileged seat at the left of his
host, but it is with the successful man, be he herder
or farmer, full-blood or half-breed, that the young
men wish to identify.

All the old distinctions between rich and

poor are still drawn. The rich daughter-in-law is
served; the poor one does the work. The poor son-
in-law is disparaged. Even the impoverished herd-
er or unsuccessful farmer, in memory of a better
day, will storm when his daughter marries a poor
orphan. A poor sister-in-law said of her rich one,
“She always makes me work for her at her house,
but she never does anything when she visits me. ” A
poor young wife who may make a simple and justi-
fied request will be sarcastically told, “Go home,
you minipoka. 1|M The real “favorite” may exploit his
childhood privilege in the face of little criticism,
even after he has reached adulthood.

The beautiful and discontented wife of a

poor man may brazenly flaunt her affair with her
rich lover, but the unhappy wife of a rich man will
find some more dignified way of showing her dissat-
isfaction. When her husband philanders, she may
refuse to cook his food; she may roll up in her own
blanket and deny him his conjugal rights; she may
leave him, or she may entertain his mistress, ply

her with fine gifts, and receive the approbation of
society “because she shows no jealousy.”

Ideally a man who can control his jealous
impulses is also admired. A chief or member of
the Horn Society is roundly applauded if he conforms
to this difficult social expectation; but the poor hus-
band who sits by and silently witnesses the drunken
love-making of his wife and her rich lover receives
no respect for his restraint.

Even the attitude of a mother toward her

“favorite son” may be influenced by her own wealth
and position. A spoiled and wealthy woman may for-
bid her favorite the house; she may take his horses
and disinherit him if she disapproves of his mar- •
riage; but a less financially secure woman, even if
she is known as “manly- hearted”, may uphold the
authority of her favorite at all cost, as the one sure
means of maintaining family prestige.

The changing status of the various groups
within the society is revealed by an analysis of
marriage trends. Thirty years ago marriages still
followed the earlier pattern. The wealthy cattle men
continued to select mates from their own circle.

The poor married each other; half-breed married
half-breed, or an orphaned member of the tribe.
Sometimes, it is true, an ambitious but poor young
man would succeed in marrying a wealthy but con-
siderably older woman; sometimes a father of a
poor but beautiful daughter would succeed in mar-
rying her off to a wealthy husband; sometimes a
rich herder would prefer a poor son-in-law whose
labor he could exploit. But the lines remained
clearly drawn. Not even the !lnewly rich” were able
to crash the “old society.”

Today another trend is visible. Numerous
marriages have taken place between the children of
the ,łnewly rich” and the children of those cattle-
breeding families who went into farming around
1910. These are the families that have cash in-

comes, good houses, good clothes, good automobiles.
It is now the impoverished horse owner who is the
undesirable. His children are marrying the poor
and the orphaned.

The rapid changes in Blood economy
during the reserve period make the tribe a fruitful
field for investigating administrative policy. With-
in an unchanging competitive framework, program
and accident at different periods of time affected
various groups in the society differently.^^ The re-

^ ‘ Ralph Linton, Acculturation and Processes of Culture Change in Acculturation in Seven American Indian
Tribes, ed. by Ralph Linton, N. Y. 1940, p. 468.

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JANUARY-MARCH 1943 23

sponse oí these groups to government policy was
dictated primarily by two factors, tradition and re-
ward, The first did not necessarily obstruct ac-
ceptance; in many instances it strongly recommended
it. Reward, if great enough, needed no apologist, but
it was weighed in relation to advantages already of-
fered by the society. These advantages were real,
not sentimental. The antagonism of the cattle herd-
ers to the agricultural experiment in 1910 was due
to their desire to preserve their considerable success
in stock-breeding, not to any bond with their more
remote hunting past. And again, the quick divorce of
a money economy from a horse economy by those
who began to farm in 1910 must be laid, not to any
innate intellectual superiority, but to the fact that
they had had the smallest stake in the benefits of-
fered by their society.

In essence, the Canadian Government was
interested in establishing an adequate subsistence
level and improving the general tribal income. In
practice, such an over-all policy, at times, perpetu-
ated an inequitable situation. Amore intimate knowl-
edge of the early economy of the Blood might have
caused some hesitancy in exchanging twenty cows
for twenty horses.

The special conditions of the reserve did
not protect the Blood, any more than they have other
similar groups, from the disasters of a falling
market. In 1939, when field material was collected,
amelioration still depended primarily on rations.
Extraordinary abuse of land, however, has required
more specific measures; one man who had succeed-

ed in accumulating 700 horses, almost one-fifth of
the entire horse strength of the tribe, was persuaded
to remove his herds from the farm lands in the

south, and “purchase” grazing fields in the north.
Throughout the reserve period, Blood so-

ciety maintained its former individualistic charac-
ter. For this reason, the implementation of a gov-
ernment program did not depend entirely on the as-
sistance of a tribal intermediary, such as the com-
munity leader of the Navajo, 25 the pueblo priests, or
their secular surrogates. Among the Blood, when
chiefly authority failed to win cooperation, the ad-
ministration could still hope for success by appeal-
ing directly to interested members of the tribe.

Psychological generalizations based on
one period of time and on the study of one group
within a society inevitably obscure the real reasons
for change and development. However, if such gen-
eralizations grow out of a careful historical analy-
sis which exposes the inner dynamics of a changing
social configuration, they can be of inestimable help
in formulating future administrative policies. Such
communities as the Blood Reserve, comparatively
simple in structure yet responsive to change, offer
an unusual opportunity for combining all these ap-
proaches. Sufficient historical material is available
and enough anthropological field work has been done
in the past and in the present to give validity to per-
sonality studies referred in time. Careful inter-
pretation should add greatly to our understanding of
those factors that determine successful programing
or retard it.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL ENGINEERING: ITS USE TO ADMINISTRATORS1

by Eliot D. Chappie

INTRODUCTION

Those of us who work as anthropologists
on problems of present-day society are often asked
two questions: first, What is anthropology? and,
second, What good is it? The confusion in the mind
of the layman implied by his need to ask these ques-
tions is, of course, due to the fact that he associates
anthropology with such apparently useless occupa-
tions as measuring skulls or studying the unwashed
cannibals, and the anthropologist has done little to
disabuse him of these notions. We get a certain de-
light out of shocking people by the esoteric nature of

our activities, and the wide diversity of subjects with
which we deal makes it difficult to see how we can

hope to dispel the confusion and yet continue our tra-
ditional activities. Nevertheless, we all believe that
anthropology does constitute a single subject.

When our interrogators press us to differ-
entiate anthropology from social and psychological
studies, we usually reply that anthropologists view
man as a whole, a phrase which is rarely more than
a way of rationalizing our assorted subjects under a
single head. Nevertheless, I believe that this phrase
can be given a precise definition and that satisfactory
answers can be given to both the questions posed

25. Solon T. Kimball and John H. Provinse, Navajo Social Organization in Land Use Planning, Applied Anthro-
pology, Boston, pp. 18-25.

Address delivered before The American Anthropological Association, December 28, 1940.

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• Contents

p. 18
p. 19
p. 20
p. 21
p. 22
p. 23

• Issue Table of Contents

Applied Anthropology, Vol. 2, No. 2 (JANUARY—MARCH 1943) pp. 1-42
Front Matter
WARTIME EMPLOYMENT AND CULTURAL ADJUSTMENTS OF THE ROSEBUD SIOUX [pp. 1-9]
WHO IS FIT FOR COOPERATIVE FARMING? Notes on Selection for Cooperative Rural Settlements [pp. 10-17]
ADMINISTRATIVE PROGRAMS AND CHANGES IN BLOOD SOCIETY DURING THE RESERVE PERIOD [pp. 18-23]
ANTHROPOLOGICAL ENGINEERING: ITS USE TO ADMINISTRATORS [pp. 23-32]
APPLIED ANTHROPOLOGY IN LATIN AMERICA [pp. 33-35]
NEWS OF DEVELOPING RESEARCH METHODS [pp. 35-37]
SECTION ON REPORTS AND MEMORANDA: DEALING WITH JAPANESE-AMERICANS [pp. 37-41]
EDITORIAL STATEMENT [pp. 41-42]
Back Matter

“Persecution, bad faith and chicanery”35 (May, 1921)

A remarkable story, containing allegations of persecution, bad faith and chicanery by the government of Canada, in regard to the relations of this country with the Indians of the Blood Reserve, is told by Mr. R. N. Wilson, of Standoff, Alberta, who is in Ottawa on behalf of the Indians in an effort to get some of their numerous wrongs redressed. Mr. Wilson describes himself as an Indian trader who has known these Indians intimately for the past forty years. He was originally a member of the R.N.W.M.P.36 when in 1881 he met his first Blood Indian. He was sent in 1882 on duty to the Blood Reserve, where he learned to speak the language of those Indians, and after securing his discharge from the force in 1884 opened up a general trading store at Standoff, adjoining the reserve in southern Alberta, in which district he has resided practically ever since, and always in business associations with the Indians, more than thirteen years being spent in the Indian service of the government, from which he resigned in 1911.

“I am merely a friend and neighbor of the Indians,” said Mr. Wilson when he showed a Citizen representative a power of attorney from the head chief of the Blood tribe and credential signed by two hundred Blood Indians, including all of the chiefs and comprising two-thirds of the adult male residents of the reservation, authorizing him to act for and represent them in urging their complaints upon the attention of the government. […]

ADVENT OF HON. MR. MEIGHEN

In the course of the interview, sometimes quoting from a memorandum which he has prepared in an effort to ventilate this subject, Wilson contended that the [Treaty] made by the Dominion government with the Blood Indians explicitly gives the Indians the personal and exclusive use of their lands until and unless they voluntarily surrender it, and that this was not questioned by any government of Canada until Hon. Mr. Meighen became superintendent-general of Indian affairs in 1917. That year marked the abandonment by the Indian Department, at least as [far as] the Blood reserve was concerned, of the traditional Canadian policy of Indian administration, and it marked the end of the prosperity of the Blood Indians, who from that time forward were not permitted to enjoy the peaceful possession of their reserve as guaranteed to them by treaty.

The Bloods, who are one of the most important Indian tribes in Canada, were the principal [stock] raising Indians of the Dominion, as well as being the second [most notable] farming tribe in the country when in 1918 the department abandoned its policy of advancing Indians on their reserve in favor of a policy of Indian reserve excision in the interests of covetous white men. In February, 1918, during an official campaign of pressure, the Blood Indians asked to vote on the proposed [sale of] about 30,000 acres of their reserve, a question which they had voted down in the preceding [year]. By enrolling as voters a [group] of boys under age, by purchasing votes with tribal funds and favors, and by intimidating Indians, a small majority in [favor] of the land sale was shown, which was immediately protested by the head chief on the grounds of bribery, intimidation and fraud.

COERCIVE MEASURES

“A few illustrations will show the dangers to which Indians are exposed when a government official considers that it is ‘up to him’ to secure land from them by hook or crook. The first measure taken to force the Indians to sell land was to stop the development of their farming enterprise, to appropriate and use for other agency purposes the funds upon which the farming extension was dependent, and to inform the Indians that no more land would be broken up for new farms until they sold part of the reserve. Thus in 1916 and 1917, when Western Canada was being ‘stumped’ by public speakers urging greater production37 of grain, the Blood Indians, while they had a good crop from their old land, were not permitted to respond to the greater production appeal, though they had the land, machinery, horses, plenty of willing men and the necessary capital to operate their traction breaking plow outfits. The irony of the predicament of the Blood Indians in 1917 will be appreciated upon reading the closing paragraph38 on page 1049 Hansard of April 23rd, 1918, in which Mr. Meighen says: ‘We would be only too glad to have the Indian use this land if he would; production by him would be just as valuable as production by anybody else. But he will not cultivate this land, and we want to cultivate it; that is all. We shall not use it any longer than he shows a disinclination to cultivate the land himself.’

“The land surrender matter was constantly mixed up with other agency business, Indian after Indian being made to understand that fair and ordinary treatment at the hands of the department was dependent upon signing a pledge to vote ‘Yea.’ For instance, one of the opposing faction, an honest, hardworking Indian, was told: ‘If you come down here (to the agency) and vote against the surrender, your family will starve next winter,’ while another opponent of the land sale was offered an appointment of minor chief if he would change his vote from ‘Nay’ to ‘Yea,’ a minor chief’s medal being held up before his eyes during the conversation.

“The ration house maintained on the reserve by the department for the double purpose of assisting the destitute and providing a medium for the distribution of the beef and flour of the self-supporting Indians, was during this period turned into a vote-getting machine. Aged and infirm Indians who had for years been on the department’s ‘permanently destitute’ list had their rations shut off entirely and were forced to become beggars in order to live, while able-bodied Indians prominent among the ‘land seller’ faction were to be seen carrying out of the ration house sacks of beef heavier than they could handle without assistance.”

Mr. Wilson says that in this campaign of official duress, the charge was made that trust monies belonging to non-assenting Indians were by the manipulation of official agency records transferred to the credit of “land sale” supporters, thus administering a punishment and a reward with the same pen stroke. “Implements purchased with tribal funds and the property of the whole tribe were used to buy surrender votes, and the agent’s power to assist his Indians with credit orders upon merchants and dealers for vehicles, tents, machinery and the like, was used to a remarkable extent in vote getting. Indians who would not consent to the land sale were black-listed and systematically persecuted. Some of these with money on deposit at the agency, derived from their personal earnings, were not permitted to withdraw their money while they remained on the ‘wrong’ side of the controversy and, contrariwise, other Indians who had no deposits whatever but were ‘right’ in the official estimation were permitted to draw money at the agency as cash advances against future earnings that were not even in sight. As agency cash on hand or in the bank is almost entirely made up of balances from earnings held in trust for individual Indians, the effect of the above discrimination was to give the ‘Yeas’ the use of the ‘Nays’’ money.

LANDS LEASED TO GOVERNMENT’S FRIENDS

“The immense power of the government, which on an Indian reservation is so far-reaching, was during this period exercised to make miserable the lives of the ‘Nays’ and their families while the ‘Yeas’ basked in the sunshine of official favor. The head chief, representing the true majority of the tribe, at once filed at Ottawa charges of fraud, bribery and intimidation and requested the department not to accept the surrender without an investigation of his charges, following which protest no further action was taken by the department with the document, and it was not sent up to the council for acceptance. While the Indians were awaiting a reply from the department to the protest of their chief, they were astonished to see white men appearing on their reserve with many thousands of sheep and claiming the right to do so under leases. Then it developed that the government had peremptorily expropriated and leased out the 90,000 acres which the Indians had so recently declined to sell, and in order to give this arbitrary action a color of reasonableness the executive officers of the department trumped up the utterly false charge that the Blood reserve was empty and unutilized, in face of the fact, well known to them, that there were at that time grazing on the reserve close on to 17,000 head of cattle and horses, belonging to the Indians and an old leasing company that was paying them $10,000 per annum for grazing rights.”

“The Blood reserve was already stocked to its average safe capacity for all the year around grazing in that climate,” says Mr. Wilson, “and the issuing by the department in 1918 of 38 additional grazing leases was an act either of wanton recklessness of Indian rights or of deliberate intention to punish the Indians. If the latter, it was certainly successful.”

Serious reflections are made by him upon the manner in which these leased lands went into the hands of friends of the present government. “Contrary to Mr. Meighen’s assurance to parliament,” he states, “that tenders would be called for ‘in every case where there is time and circumstances permit,’ these leases were let privately, though there was no reason for haste, unless it was a desire to get the land into the hands of certain parties before the public generally knew anything about it. Mr. Martin Woolf, the Liberal M.P.P. for Cardston, in an address in the Alberta legislature that year, charged that the Blood reserve leases were made a political matter of by the Dominion government, and [were] granted to his present and past political opponents. The area covered by these grazing leases included the homes of many Indians who were ordered to vacate in favor of the lessees, while others were dispossessed of their fenced pasture fields. Hay lands used by many Indians, some for 20 and 25 years, and upon which they depended for cattle feed and their own living, were also handed over to the white lessees to be used by them as hay lands.”

“GREATER PRODUCTION”

Mr. Wilson describes vividly how the white lessees were allowed to impose upon the Indians. “While the Indian cattle were kept off the white man’s land, the white man’s cattle and sheep were allowed to graze on the Indian lands. The Indians made strong protests in this connection to the Indian agent of the reserve, but could get no satisfaction. On 16th February, 1918, an order-in-council was passed stating that a special officer would take charge of greater production on Indian lands and would make ‘proper arrangements with the Indians for the leasing of reserve land which may be needed for grazing, for cultivation or for other purposes, and for the 31 compensation to be paid therefor.’ These duties were not performed with regard to the 90,000 acres of leases, as no arrangement of any sort was proposed to or discussed with the Blood Indians, who knew nothing of any intention to place sheep on their reserve until the sheep were actually there in thousands, and those Indians who resided within the area were ordered to vacate their homes in favor of government lessees. As for compensation to the tribe for the lands so leased or to individual Indians for losses sustained by the confiscation of their personal holdings, nothing of the sort was proposed then, or has been during the three years that have since elapsed with the confiscations in full force. When some of the Indians were expressing in appropriate language their opinions of the lack of wisdom in crowding their cattle range with sheep, and their indignation at the rough dispossession to which they were being subjected, the agent sent an exaggerated report to Ottawa, causing the government to fear that the Indians contemplated taking the law into their own hands and expelling the invaders from the reserve, a measure which the Bloods, who are a tractable people, had not even considered. In consequence of the report of the agent, however, a higher officer of the department appeared upon the reserve with three armed policemen and the belated information that the leases had been granted as a war measure and would be maintained by force if necessary, to accentuate which the head chief of the Bloods was told that ‘anyone who even objects to what is being done on the Blood reserve or anyone who advises anyone else to object will be arrested and persecuted,’ which was a considerable threat to make in support of a bunch of predatory leases that were absolutely devoid of moral sanction and of doubtful legality when written. CALAMITOUS LOSSES

“Eighteen months of wholesale overstocking of the reserve had the inevitable result of ruining the grass and hay. The local agent warned his superiors of this condition in his May report and again in his report for June, but though there was a six weeks’ cancellation clause in the leases, the lessees had too much pull and were not to be molested. All warnings having failed to induce the government to cancel its ‘greater production’ leases and restore the reserve to the use of its Indian owners, at the beginning of the winter of 1919-20 the sacrifice of the Indian cattle herd began. Six hundred were sold for less than half their normal value, and practically lost to their Indian owners owing to the failure of the officials who shipped them to take the trouble to properly identify the brands on the animals. The individual cattle brands of the Blood Indians are numerals, and at the time that these cattle were shipped the brands were indistinguishable owing to the growth of winter hair, and could not be accurately read by anyone without clipping on each animal the area of the brand, which clipping was not done. The I.D. report for 1919-20 shows the sum of $20,463 from this sale as being held in a tribal account at Ottawa, where it apparently rests yet owing to the fact that the real owners of the money are unknown. Another 400 head of Indian cattle crowded off their reserve by the ‘greater production’ leases were, to save them from starvation, shipped by rail to the Stony reserve west of Calgary, fed there until the following summer, when they were returned by rail, minus a shortage of 150 head, to the Blood reserve, all this cost and loss being imposed upon 32 the unfortunate Bloods rather than disturb the ‘greater production’ lessees who had within twelve months been permitted by the authorities to remove from the Blood reserve thousands of tons of cattle feed, which under any system of fair dealing would have been retained for the use and profit of the Indians.

“In 1919 the Blood Indians had 3,472 cattle; in the following spring the survivors were counted and found to number about 1,200 which, after allowing for the 1,000 sent away, left a heavy shortage that had starved to death on their reserve from which the government had within the year allowed strangers, backed by the police, to remove thousands of tons of fodder. Moreover, the Indians were forbidden to skin animals that had died of starvation, though the hides were worth several dollars each. The Indians believe that the government gave this order to conceal the great losses suffered by Indian cattle through their feed being taken from them by the white lessees.

“The losses were not confined to cattle. Throughout the forty years of their occupation of the reserve, the Blood Indians wintered their horses of all classes by grazing out on the open range, none being stabled except when in use. During this winter of 1919-20, their horses died of starvation in such numbers that by spring no less than 538 fatalities had been reported for record. A deplorable feature of this phase of the calamity was the fact that the work horses were the heaviest sufferers, a total of 454 work horses being reported dead of starvation. Some of the Indians who were farmers lost all of their teams, while many had nothing left with which to either ride, drive or work.

THE “FORTUNATE INDIAN”

“’The Indian is very fortunate,’ said Hon. Mr. Meighen in the house; ‘he has all he had before and now, in addition, he has the rental for this land,’ to which the Indian replies, ‘You have killed my cattle and my horses, by taking from me the grass that I had before, and though three years have passed I have yet to see the first dollar of the promised grazing rental.’

“A large sum of money was received by the department from the grazing lessees, but it has been of no benefit to the Indians as it was kept in a general fund and was mostly wasted by the government in fruitless efforts to repair the damage caused by the ill-advised leases. A reading of the somewhat elaborately camouflaged 33 account in the auditor general’s report for 1919-20, pp. I-13739 and I-18340, will show that $58,807 was expended for cattle management, mainly on imported baled hay, when $15,000 would have been ample had there been no G. P. leases.

“Of their 66 pure-bred bulls, 35 were sacrificed in a sale at 5c or 5 1-4 cents per pound, and 22 of the high-priced animals were allowed to starve to death. One valuable bull was sold for $50 to someone under a fictitious name and reported as ‘old,’ while he in reality was a young animal quite recently purchased for $300.

THE CARDSTON LEASE AFFAIR

“The only ‘greater production’ leasing scheme submitted to the Blood Indians for their consent was a proposition that the government be permitted to lease to white men for farming purposes, for a period of five years, a block of about 10 sections of land (about 6,000 acres) close to the town of Cardston. As this 10-section farming lease was presented to the Indians as a patriotic measure, it was assented to by a large majority led by the head chief, who had opposed the out and out sale of reserve lands. The two conditions then voted upon of particular interest to the Indians were: (1) That all rental proceeds of the lease should be paid to the Indians in per capita distribution of cash; and (2) that all straw grown the leased land should become the property of the Indians for the feeding of their own cattle. After the said 10 sections had been leased by the department to white farmers, and the agent had advised the Indians that the rentals therefrom would bring them during the term of the lease annual per capita payments of about $24, it was arranged that the department should distribute $6 per capita on account. This payments was made on the 30th May, 1918, but before receiving the money the Indians were unexpectedly required to sign a paper which was not explained to them. Some thought that it was a receipt for the $6, but all signed because they were informed by the agent that unless they did so the money would be sent back to Ottawa and no payment made until another year. At the conclusion of the payment, the head chief, who does not speak or read English, was handed a copy of the paper which they had signed, and upon taking this away for translation it then became known for the first time that they had signed another farming lease of a quite different character, cancelling the first one, taking from the Indians the straw and changing the $6 payment on account into a payment in full.

An important point is that this loss of straw produced on several thousand acres of the lessees’ crop was a contributing cause of the disaster which overtook the Blood Indian cattle.

“After being deprived of 75 per cent. or 80 per cent. of their benefits from this 10-section farming lease by the substitution of one legal document for another, the victims expected prompt and full payment of that little which was left to them, the annual $6 per capita, promised in the name of the King to be paid on or about the first of April, but the western officials of the department held back the payment for five weeks in each of the years 1919 and 1920 to enable a government employee armed with a rifle to traverse the reserve and observe the consent of each dog owner, under a threat of shooting his or her dog, to the deduction of dog taxes from the said $6.

“The Indians requested the government to discard the document that was substituted and to settle with them according to the original and only legal one, but the government made no response to their appeal.

SEIZURE OF MONEYS

“The Indians complain that in September, 1918, the year before the principal calamity, the executive officers of the department gathered up on the Blood reserve and sold a mixed lot of Indian cattle, including three-year-old steers, two-year-old steers and young breeding cows, the orders being to ‘take everything that is fat.’ For these cattle the authorities received more than $40,000, the steers in the shipment being sold for $168 each, at the then price of about 14c per pound live weight. Blood Indians, whose private property these cattle were, have not been able to secure an accounting of the $40,000. The owners were bluntly informed that the ‘Indian share’ would be $50 a head, and after a delay of about six months, credits on that basis were carried to some of their accounts. They subsequently learned that about $20,000 of these personal Indian funds had been taken and reinvested in other cattle which were, after long being fed with hay, in turn sold for about $20 a head less than they had cost in the first place, the loss from this absolutely unwarranted speculation with trust monies falling upon the Blood Indians. Another lot of Blood Indians’ cattle were sold for about $15,000 by the executive officers of the department, and of this sum but $2,000 or 43,000 was credited to the accounts of the Indians who owned the money, and no explanation given of the balance, though the Indians learned indirectly that the greater part of the funds had been used to buy cattle, concerning the branding or disposal of which no information was available.

“Thousands of dollars of personal Indian income derived from beef and grain sales and on deposit at the agency in trust for them individually were peremptorily seized for the ostensible purpose of reinvestment in breeding cattle. Protests of the Indians against this unjustifiable use of their private moneys were repeatedly made, but were met with the statement that it was the order of the government and must be obeyed. Some Indians objected that they already had enough cattle, others that they wanted to handle their own money, but protests availed nothing and the cash was arbitrarily deducted from their accounts in single amounts of $300 and more, the total running into thousands of dollars which, after repeated appeals to the 35 government for adjustment, are still outstanding. The laws of Canada seem to provide no method by which Indians can, as a matter of right, secure a hearing of such claims.

SURRENDER AGAIN DEMANDED

“While continuing to avoid discussion of the memorial with the Indians, the government informed them last fall that the only way by which they could free themselves of their misfortunes would be to surrender part of their reserve, from which it was inferred that the 90,000 acres would be kept from them until they did so, and that reparation, if made, would be from the proceeds of their own land. This announcement was followed during the recent winter by the usual preparatory campaign, in which the Indians were made to feel the pangs of hunger, while the many thousands of dollars of their confiscated and misappropriated funds were still withheld from them. At the end of last month, the finances of the Indians being at about the lowest point in the year, it was considered that the propitious moment had arrived for another attack on their land holdings, so the Indian commissioner appeared, accompanied, it is reported, by a force of twenty Mounted Policemen, to record the vote, but the Indians, to their credit, refused to be intimidated by the great display of armed force and voted down the proposition, according to the report, by 144 votes to 99, a majority against the land sale, which would seem to be an appropriate response to the ‘strong-arm’ business methods of a misguided Indian administration.”