There were many Indigenous names for shells of the mollusk, Antalis pretiosa (Sowerby 1860), formally Dentalium pretiosum, but they were usually called Hai-qua in the Chinook trade jargon. I will use mostly the term dentalium here, as it has commonly been used in the literature.
Much has been written about these shells and their use as adornments on the body and clothing, and as trade currency, among Indigenous peoples along the coast from central Alaska to Baja California. None of the writers actually observed the process of capturing the dentalium, but a few received information from Indigenous individuals who did, or remembered stories about how it was done (Clark 1963; Barton 1991, 1994; Galois and Mackie 1990a, 1990b: Andrews 1989; Erlandson et. al. 2013).
Indigenous peoples on the west coast of Vancouver Island acquired these decorative shells by an ingenious method with a specialized dentalium spear.
Figure 1, is a 1993, Illustration showing the method of using one of the styles of a dentalium spear, its construction and the positioning of the Antalis pretiosa in the sand deposits.
The first account of the dentalium spears was written by John Jewitt who was captured by the Mowachaht and lived among them in Nootka Sound from 1803 to 1806. He would have received his information directly from experienced individuals. His account follows:
“The wives of the common people frequently wear for bracelets and ankle rings, strips of the country cloth or skin of the Metamelth [elk] painted in figures, and those of the king or principal chief’s bracelets and necklaces, consisting of a number of strings of Ife-waw, an article much prized by them, and which makes a very handsome appearance.
This Ife-waw, as they term it, is a kind of shell of a dazzling whiteness, and as smooth as ivory, it is of a cylindrical form, in a slight degree curved, about the size of a goose quill, hollow, three inches in length and gradually tapering to a point, which is broken off by the natives as it is taken from the water; this they afterwards string upon threads of bark, and sell it by the fathom; it forms a kind of circulating medium among these nations, five fathoms being considered as the price of a slave their most valuable species of property.
It is principally obtained from the Aitizzarts, [Ehattesaht] a people living about thirty or forty miles to the Northward, who collect it from the reefs and sunken rocks with which their coast abounds, though it is also brought in considerable quantity from the South.
Their mode of taking it has been thus described to me. To one end of a pole is fastened a piece of plank in which a considerable number of pine pegs are inserted, made sharp at the ends; above the plank in order to sink it, a stone or some weight is tied, and the other end of the pole suspended to a long rope; this is let down perpendicularly by the Ife-waw fishers in those places where that substance is found, which are usually from fifty to sixty fathoms
deep; on finding the bottom they raise the pole up a few feet and let it fall, this they repeat a number of times as if sounding, when they draw it up and take off the Ife-waw which is found adhering to the points. This method of procuring it is very laborious and fatiguing, especially as they seldom take more than two or three of these shells at a time, and frequently none” (Jewitt 1807; 1849).
Where the Information Comes From.
Much of the information about Antalis pretiosa (“dentalium”) was acquired by historians, anthropologists and biologists from a select group of educated people who worked for the Hudson’s Bay. These people often had direct experience working with Indigenous people and observing the dentalium trade, but lacked specific experience in observing the use of dentalium spears. One of the repeated myths about how the dentalium were collected was expanded by John Dunn, who wrote about these mollusks being caught by clinging to submerged deer meat (Dunn 1846). Writers, such as James Swan (1857, 1868), acknowledged Jewitt as their source and John Scouler (1848) acknowledged Tolmie as his source. Others are often combining knowledge of Hudson’s Bay Company people they had contact with and sometimes adding their own experiences.
In 1847, the artist, Paul Kane, traveled to southern Vancouver Island and parts of Puget Sound and the Olyimpic Peninsula in the state of Washington. He wrote about a dentalium spear, giving the impression that there were the shells procured by the Makah around Cape Flattery. His commentary appears to be from other sources or was added to or mixed up during the editorship of his publication (see MacLaren 2024).
Figure 3, shows Dentilia trade movements by Driver and Massey (1957).
Writers, such as biologist John Lord, provided useful information on the dentalium trade but provided misinformation about the live positioning of the dentalium that would affect how people would see it being caught. Lord mistakenly wrote: “the small end of the shell being invariably downwards, and the large end close to the surface, thus allowing the fish to protrude its feeding and breathing organs”.
Lord also mistakenly indicates the spears many prongs were made of bone, rather than wood. Long bone prongs would be very difficult to make and have slippery surfaces that would not hold the dentalium well. It is sometimes confusing as to whether Lord is making reference to the genus Antalis and not just the trade shell Antalis pretiosa. He is mistaken in saying that, in addition to “The money-shells” being procured on the north end of Vancouver Island, they were: “also, in the bays and inlets along the mainland coast north of latitude 49 [degrees] to Sitka; and is common likewise round Queen Charotte’s Island”.
See Appendix 1, for a full commentary by Biologists William Baird and John Lord (Baird 1863; Baird and Lord 1864).
Alexander Ross
Ross was one of the earliest fur traders established on the Columbia River, who wrote details in 1811, about the Antalis pretiosa trade but did not mention where they came from. I have included his more extended commentary here, as Appendix 3.
Charles Newcombe
Three of the rare Dentalium Spears exist in museum collections. Two are in the Royal B.C. Museum in Victoria, British Columbia and one in the Thomas Burke Memorial Washington State Museum in Seattle, Washington.
The two in the RBCM were purchased in the early 1900s by Charles Newcombe, the Curator at the (then) Provincial Museum. These were models that he must have commissioned Indigenous individuals to make. The dentalium spear would no longer have been used during Newcombe’s collection times, but he would have been able to describe them based on earlier written accounts and possibly from some information remembered by elders from what they had been told.
Newcombe was appointed as Curator of the Provincial Museum on June 24, 1896, after he had visited Barkley Sound. Newcombe’s extensive notes and diary information, and the fact that he recorded the names of the dentalium spears, demonstrate that he often made a concerted efforts to consult with Indigenous people who had knowledge of the subject matter, to find out information on objects he purchased from them. He was also knowledgeable about Mollusks.
Newcombe’s commentary on the subject, was printed in the Museum Guide to Anthropological Collections in 1909, but he does not provide a catalogue number for any dentalia spears and the numbers assigned to these were from a later time period. This indicates there were no dentalium spears in the Museum collection at this time. See commentary below under Museum spears. Newcombe’s observations were a compilation of earlier sources:
“The Haiaqua, or money-shells (Dentalium pretiosum), were formerly collected in large quantities in the quiet waters of the fiords of the west coast, notably between Nootka and Kyuquot. They were an article of trade, not only on the Pacific Coast from California to Alaska, but also found their way far inland beyond the Rocky Mountains. Only bright shells, collected alive or soon after death of the mollusc, were esteemed, and the larger and more perfect the specimen, the greater its value.
Some good shells are washed ashore after a storm, but by far the greatest number were laboriously fished for by means of a special apparatus.
This consisted of a cylindrical brush-like arrangement of pointed strips of hard-hack (Schizonotus discolor), in the centre of which a stick was secured by a lashing, which also attached two stone sinkers to the “brush,” and a line long enough to reach the hand of the fisherman when at work.
Joining additional sticks to the first, until the weighted “brush” rested on the fine sandy bottom where these shell-fish live, the collector would raise his apparatus up and down for a time. Then, pulling it up, “brush” first, he might find a few shells, not impaled, as some have stated, but between the wooden bristles” (Newcombe 1909).
Figure 4 shows the distal working end of a model dentalium spear, RBCM2231. The black and white photograph was likely taken in 1963, by Anthropology Curator Wilson Duff.
Alexander Cauldfield Anderson
One of the H.B.C. people who was well read, and provided useful information on the dentalium trade, was Alexander Cauldfield Anderson. However, he followed earlier misinformation in his comments about where the dentalium were procured and their method of procurement.
Anderson wrote on November 20, 1868, in response to articles in the European publication Reliqie Aquitanice. Anderson was writing for a European professional audience in making a comparison between the monetary value of dentalium shells on the local coast in comparison to the well-known cowrie shell trade of the Middle East.
“The shell-relics are interesting; and I quite agree with the conclusion that they were used solely as ornaments. Among the natives of North-west America some descriptions of shell, from their rarity, have acquired a certain conventional value, but are never employed for monetary exchange like the Cowries of the East. Along the North-west Coast the shell of the Haliotis, procured from the south, is wrought into pendants for the ear or nose, and used also, like the mother-of-pearl when procurable, for inlaying ivory or wooden ornaments. The Hai-a-quâ, a species of Dentalium, larger than the D. entalis or Sea Teeth’ of Europe, was formerly highly esteemed by the Chinooks, a tribe (now nearly extinct) inhabiting the estuary of the Columbia, and continues to be prized by the inhabitants of the southern coast, and by such of the interior tribes as can procure it by barter.
These shells, of dazzling whiteness, are used for personal ornaments. Among the Chinooks forty shells, strung lengthwise through their natural perforations, composed the conventional fathom;’ and by so much as their united length exceeded the standard, so, in a rapidly increasing ratio, was their value enhanced.
Among the Tâh-cully of the Upper Fraser, by whom the shells are highly prized, this method of estimation is not observed. They plait them together in broad bandelets, and wear them as ornaments for the head or neck. The demand for these shells extends over a very large tract of country; for some years ago, I noticed that my brother, the late Chief-Factor James Anderson, of the Hudson’s-Bay Company, when in charge of Mackenzie’s River, wrote to the Columbia for a supply for the purposes of that remote district, the natives not being able to procure a sufficiency for their wants by intermediate barter.
They are procured chiefly, if not entirely, from the strait between Vancouver Island and the mainland, the natives fishing for them in deep water with baits to which the inmates of the shells adhere”.
The Changing Trade
An important factor to be aware of is the changing nature, especially the expansion, of the dentalium trade and how much that may have changed after European contact. The manifest of many ships had large numbers of dentalium acquired for trading: “the Hudson’s Bay Company entered the haiqua trade on a large scale after 1821 along much of the Northwest Coast, on interior river systems and into the Mackenzie and Yukon watersheds” (Galois and Mackie 1990a and 1990b; Barton 1991).
Figure 7, shows the flat woven cedar cord that holds the rocks tight and the more rounded twisted cedar lanyard that would have reached the surface.
Where were Antalis Shells (“Dentalium”) procured?
Andrew Barton produced the most comprehensive listings of locations dentalium were, or may have been, procured. Some of these are in need of further research or confirmation.
One of the earliest accounts of a H.B.C. official is that of William Fraser Tolmie. On December 1835, Tolmie wrote in his journal, the location of six villages on the northern end of Vancouver Island where the Indigenous people were procuring dentalium shells. It is not known if Tolmie saw the procuring of dentalium, but may have observed the spear.
Tolmie describe the dentalium spear used at the time as: “a flat piece of wood having its inferior surface stuck full of slender wooden pins & properly fitted with sinkers and a line is let down to the Hayaqua bed and gently moved up and down as in handline fishing until it is supposed that a sufficient number of the shells are fixed between the pins– the board is then pulled up …the paya picked out (1963)”.
Mid-19th century accounts by knowledgeable people, such as those of James Swan (1857) and John Tolmie (1963) indicate the dentalium use in trade, only came from the west coast of Vancouver Island. This was noted by George Simpson in 1841-2, when he visited the Hudson Bay Company western districts (Simpson 1847) and by Surveyor, farmer and writer, Walter Grant in 1857:
“A certain currency of their own, which currency still exists, and among the remote tribes forms the prevalent mode of exchange… the little oblong shells, about an inch long and two lines thick, found in the harbour of Clayoquot, and also in other bays along the north-west coast of the island; …made into belts, sometimes into broad necklaces for the women.” (Grant 1857:307).
Edward Curtis Observations
One of the later accounts of interest is that of Edward Curtis who describes the dentalium spear when at Winter Harbour in Quadsino Sound. I have included his comments here as Appendix 4. As Barton (1991) indicates, Curtis is in error about the bottom substrate that the animal inhabits. See Barton’s comparison of Curtis with descriptions of Philip Drucker.
Philip Drucker’s Observations
One of the important, later sources of information was provided by anthropologist Philip Drucker, who undertook extensive work on the west coast of Vancouver Island. His Indigenous consultants, Jackson Dan (1865-Dec. 26, 1944) and Sam Mamookwalis (March 1, 1884 – April 17, 1941), had never participated in the original acquiring of dentalium, and did not speak English, but were able to provide details on the procedure through interpreters Alexander “Alex” Thomas (Dec. 21, 1891 -July 28, 1971), and Walter Nelson. See Appendix 2 for the more extensive full quotes from two of Drucker’s publications.
“The Nootkan [Nuu-chah-nulth] were the only people that got them from the beds. Even in the Nootkan territory dentalium grounds were limited. The only known bed available to the Northern tribes was that at Cahqos, northwest of Tatchu Point, in Ehetisat territory. As mentioned in the discussion of territorial rights, a number of individual chiefs of adjacent groups, Nuchatlet and Kyuquot as well as Ehetisat, owned rights to utilize those grounds. There seems to have been another important bed in Barkley Sound, and shells are said to wash ashore frequently on Long Beach, near Ucluelet. These are the only places of which I heard, although it is possible there were a few other minor ones, where dentalia were obtained.
The method of bringing up the shells is well known, even though none of my informants had ever actually seen it performed: it was abandoned before their time.” (Drucker 1951).
The Museum Dentalium Spears
RBCM 2231a, b, and c.
RBCM2231a, b, and c., was accessioned as coming from Kyuqout. Based on its condition it was never used, and represents a model that Charles Newcombe had commissioned to be made, possibly from a person living in Kyuqout. There are many items in the ethnology collection that Newcombe commissioned Indigenous individuals to make for the Museum collection. These could be reconstructed based on earlier drawings or descriptions.
This was sometimes the case where there were no examples of the items to purchase, but where there were elders alive who remembered years earlier how they looked or how they were made.
The prongs placed in a bundle at the distal end are of cedar, which is easy to split into long thin pieces. The other wood components have not been professionally identified. There are six tapered flat wooden slat pieces with pointed ends that hold the prongs together. This bundle at the tip of the spears is attached to the spear handle with cedar bark cordage. A stone weight is tied on each side with bark cordage. A cordage of bark also forms a lanyard tied to the same region. The total length of this spear is about 173cm. In a spear being used there would be several more shaft components depending on the depth of the water where the shell were collected. Component “c” is a twisted cedar bark string grommet for holding the prongs together.
The two stone weights are oblong cobbles that have been heavily pecked over much of their surfaces. A ruff pecked surface would be important in helping to hold cedar cord ties in place.
Clark’s (1963) drawing on his page 15 was: “Based on drawings supplied by the Provincial Museum”. These drawings would have been done by Frank Beebe, who was the Illustrator and Museum technician at the time. Clark’s Plate 2 photograph, showing dentalia, on a tray and a few placed into the pointed stick ends, was taken at the Museum, probably by Wilson Duff, the curator of Anthropology at the time and with whom Clark communicated.
There is some discussion in Barton (1991), as to when this artifact was acquired. He suggests that the accession date of 1911, is wrong, based on Newcome’s writing in the 1909 Museum Guide and was most likely collected in 1903. As I explained above there was no reference to a Museum dentalium spear number in the 1909 Museum Guide, as there was with all the other discriptions. This suggests the spear was not in the collection in 1909. The information on the spear was likely added as addition information to go with the dentalia shells that were in the collection. Newcombe would have read earlier sources from which he made the description in the catalogue.
Figure 9, is from drawings in Clark (1963), which were provided to him by the Provincial Museum. These show his “two types” of dentalium spears, based on the two RBCM models.
Obtaining “models of implements”.
I would suggest that the 1911 collection date for RBCM2231, is likely the correct one. Newcombe, who was appointed curator of the Provincial Museum, June 24, 1896, visited the region of the west coast of Vancouver Island on a number of occasions, based on his diaries, ethnographic notes and collection lists.
On one of these lists is a dentalia spear, number 65, with a payment of a dollar and fifty cents, but without a place or date (RBCM Archives Add. Mss. 1077). We know that Charles Newcombe and his son William, who later worked for the Museum, were in Quatsino Aug 31, 1893 and at Kyuqout, collecting various shell specimens. On June 22, 1897 he visited Kyuqout, Muchalat and Clayoqout.
On October 12-15, 1903, Newcombe visited the village of Opitsit on Meares Island. In 1904, his visits to the west coast of the Island did not take him north of Nootka Sound. None of the collection lists from this time show a dentalium spear.
On May 25, 1911 Newcombe is in Alberni. On June 8, 1911, it is reported that Newcombe “returned from the west coast”. On October 17 he was in Ucluelet and on October 22 at Nootka. When he came back to Victoria on the 25th, his son William reported that Charles went up the west coast “collecting curios”, but there is no reference as to where he collected.
In May 30, 1912, he was again in Bamfield collecting for the Museum and from June 3 to 23 he had visited Alberni, Nootka and Quatsino. On July 30, 1912, he was in Ehetasaht in Esperanza Inlet and again on July 31, in Quatsino. A letter from Horticulturist, George Fraser, refers to Newcombe being on the West Coast in Ucluelet before January 12, 1914 and that he was at Alberni with anthropologist Edward Sapir in November, 1913, obtaining “models of implements”. Newcombe was again in Barkley Sound in early 1914, with a “Mr. Potts”, who was visiting from England. It was likely during one of the latter times that the model spear, RBCM2232, was acquired as a consignment. It is not until September 13-16, 1915, that we see Charles Newcombe again of the West Coast of the Island visiting Quatsino, Nootka, Ahousaht and Uchicklesit (RBCM Archives Add. Mss. 1077).
Figure 10 shows RBCM2231a. This is the wooden shaft that would attach to RBCM2231b. There would be more shafts depending on the depth of the water. Figure 11, shows the gromet from RBCM2231b.
RBCM 2232
RBCM2232, was accessioned in 1914, as being from “Nootka” and later added to the database as “Northern Moachaht”. Based on its condition, which includes nicks and scratches from it being moved around in museum facilities over the last 115 years, it is, like RBCM2231, not an implement that was used, but, a model that Charles Newcombe must have commissioned an Indigenous person to make.
The distal end has a bundle of about 70 cedar prongs and four flat cedar slats that hold the prongs together. This is tied to the shaft with cedar bark cordage. The artifact is 182cm long.
There is a woven cedar-bark grommet around and above the distal end that is wide enough to slide toward the end of the encased prong section. Charles Newcombe wrote in the catalogue that: “the rope grommet slipped down over the prongs as the spear was withdrawn after striking the bottom, so compressing the prongs”. In response to the latter, Clark corresponded with Wilson Duff, who “suggests, the grommet was to keep the prongs compressed when the spear was not in use.”
I would suggest that both of these functions would be correct. The grommet would slip down enough to hold the prongs together when pulled up, and when taken out of the water, would be pulled down, more firmly, by hand to hold the prongs together and prevent them from drying out too fast.
Thomas Burke Memorial Washington State Museum. Dentalium Spear # 6931.
The Thomas Burke Memorial Washington State Museum # 6931 spear was reported as being from Nootka Sound, and donated to the Museum in January, 1920 by Frederick Landsberg. There is no collection date. I have not observed this spear myself, but from photographs it looks like it is in disrepair and possibly missing parts. The prongs are tied together by braided bark cords. This artifact needs to be re-examined as a possible sea urchin spear. The latter are usually reported as having 2 or 3 prongs, but there may have been some with more, as information about these is sparce.
Frederick Landsberg (c.1868-June 6,1935) had a “curio shop” on Johnston Street in Victoria, from the late 1890s until 1911. He bought and sold numerous Indigenous artifacts to the public. Many were purchased by visiting dealers or anthropologists acquiring them for American Museums. We can only guess that it must have been collected during the time Landsberg’s store was operating.
Experimentation on Using a model of the Dentalium Spear
In 1991, there was a expedition to Kyuquot Sound on Vancouver Island by a professional diver, Phillip Nuytte, where he stood on the sea bottom observing how a modern replica of a dentalia spear worked (Nuytten 1993).
Nuytten enlisted the help of, non-indigenous, master carver, John Livingston of Victoria to make a replica of a Museum Dentalium spear. Livingston had a long relationship with the RBCM in providing evaluations of ethnographic artifacts. I assisted the National Geographic staff in providing information for and vetting the article of this project that was published by them in 1993.
Livingston made the “broom” from a hundred sharpened yew splints, scorched to increase their hardness. He then sheathed the bundle in thin slats of yellow cedar. See figure 1.
This was attached to a 70-foot-long handle made in sections, the head would be lowered from the surface and jabbed into the sea bottom. A board, weighted down by rocks and operated by a separate line, would then be eased over the outer slats, thus trapping whatever had been pinched between the inner splints. John Livingston participated in lowering the “broom” over the shell beds and pushed it about 10 centimeters down into the bottom (Nuytten, 1993).
Discussion
Showing the dating of the distribution of Antalis pretiosa shells is still in its infancy. More detailed regional analysis is needed to see the bigger picture of the trade history. The evidence for dentalium shell trade first occurs in a few sites in the period around 6000 to 4000 years BP. There is a record two “D. pretiosum” beads in the 6600-year-old Stratum C at Daisy Cave (SMI-261), in a stratified context roughly the same age as the artifacts from Otter Cave on Santo Miguel Island off southern California and a single “D. neohexagonum” bead recovered from shell midden deposits at SMI-163 dated to ca. AD 1700 (Erlandson et. al. (2013).
Trade Antalis shells are found in many archaeological sites on the southern coast of British Columbia and Interior plateau beginning by around 2400 years ago. A source for Antalis shells in Barkley Sound has not been found. Alan McMillan wrote that the shells are rare in sites at Barkley Sound. One came from over a 1000-year level and a decorated one from a 2000-year level (McMillan 1999). A small number of the shells with incised designs and one item, like the dentalium purses of Oregon used by the Shasta, Hupa and Yoruk, have been found on the southern coast of B.C. How these fit into the story of the Antilis shells remains to be told.
I would agree with Andrew Barton’s statement about the Haida’s significant contribution of shells into the trade networks, being as distributors rather than as collectors. The early Russian sources on trade are an indication of the direction of the Alaska trade and not the source of trade items. One early Russian source had stated that marmot skins came from Haida gwaii, where there are no marmots.
As Barton notes: “In the absence of any method of physically testing the shell to determine source locations … the precise source for a given species of marine shell with an extensive range, such as Dentalium, will remain somewhat speculative” (Barton 1991).
What is needed in future research, to expand our knowledge of this subject, is a composition of Photoelectron Spectroscopy, X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy and stable isotope analysis, of dentalium from different regions of the coast and archaeological shells from different ages.
Figure 15, is a modern map of the west coast of Vancouver to assist in following the locations in the literature.
Appendix 1.
John Lord and William Baird.
REMARKS ON A SPECIES OF SHELL BELONGING TO THE FAMILY DENTALIIDE. BY W. BAIRD, M.D., F.L.S.; WITH NOTES ON THEIR USE BY THE NATIVES OF VANCOUVER’S ISLAND AND BRITISH COLUMBIA, BY J. K. LORD, F.Z.S. Proceedings of the Scientific Meetings of the Zoological Society of London for the Year 1864. Vol. 32:136-138.
“Amongst the objects of natural history and ethnology brought from Vancouver’s Island and British Columbia by Mr. Lord is a belt composed of numerous specimens of a species of Dentalium strung together. The species bears an exceedingly close resemblance to that described by Linnaeus as Dentalium entalis (Entalis vulgaris of Risso and of Dr. Gray’s Guide to Mollusca’), and appears to me, notwithstanding the difference of habitat, to be undistinguishable from that European species. It has, however, been described by the late Mr. Nuttall as Dentalium pretiosum; and a figure has been given of it by Mr. Sowerby in one of his late Numbers of the Thesaurus Conchyliorum.
From a careful comparison of the typical specimens of D. pretioum in Mr. Cuming’s collection, there can be no doubt of the identity of that species with the specimens brought by Mr. Lord from Vancouver’s Island; those in Mr. Cuming’s collection are said to be from California. In examining the old graves on the banks of the Columbia River, along with numerous other articles, such as human bones, flint instruments, &c., Mr. Lord found a number of specimens of a species of Dentalium considerably eroded and worn, which I have compared with some in Mr. Cuming’s collection, and find identical with the Dentalium striolatum of Stimpson, from Newfoundland. I strongly suspect that both this species (D. striolatum) and. D. pretiosum are only very slight varieties of the old Linnæan species Dentalium entalis (Entalis vulgaris). The habitats of all three. (species?) are very different from each other; but, notwithstanding this, in the absence of distinct specific characters, I should hesitate very much making distinct species of them. However, that may be, the history of the specimens brought by Mr. Lord is very interesting; and these few observations must be considered only as introductory to the very instructive notes drawn up by that gentleman, a perusal of which will prove the best apology for these brief preliminary remarks.
Notes on the above, by Mr. J. K. Lord.
It is somewhat curious that these shells (Entalis pretiosus, Nuttall, sp.; Entalis vulgaris?) should have been employed as money by the Indians of North-West America, that is, by the native tribes, inhabiting Vancouver’s Island, Queen Charlotte’s Island, and the mainland coast from the Straits of Fuca to Sitka.
Since the introduction of blankets by the Hudson’s Bay Company, the use of these shells as a medium of purchase has to a great extent died out, the blankets having become the money, as it were, or the means by which everything is now reckoned and paid for by the savage. A slave, a canoe, or a squaw is worth in these days so many blankets; but it used to be so many strings of Dentalia. In the interior, east of the Cascade Mountains, the Beaver-skin is the article by which everything is reckoned-in fact, the money of the inland Indian.
The value of the Dentalium depends upon its length: those representing the greater value are called, when strung together end to end, a “Ili qua;” but the standard by which the Dentalium is calculated to be fit for a “Hi-qua” is, that twenty-five shells placed end to end must make a fathom, or six feet, in length. At one time a “Hi-qua” would purchase a male slave, equal in value to fifty blankets, or about £50 sterling. The shorter and defective shells are strung together in various lengths, and are called ” Kop-kops.” About forty “Kop-kops” equal a “Hi-qua” in value. These strings of Dentalia are usually the stakes gambled for.
The shells are generally procured from the west side of Vancouver’s Island, and towards its northern end; they live in the soft sand, in the snug bays and harbours that abound along the west coast of the island, in water from three to five fathoms in depth.
The habit of the Dentalium is to bury itself in the sand, the small end of the shell being invariably downwards, and the large end close to the surface, thus allowing the fish to protrude its feeding and breathing organs. This position the wily savage has turned to good account, and has adopted a most ingenious mode of capturing the much-prized shell. He arms himself with long spear, the haft made of light deal, to the end of which is fastened a strip of wood placed transversely, but driven full of teeth made of bone, resembling exactly a long comb with the teeth very wide apart. A squaw sits in the stern of the canoe and paddles it slowly along, whilst the Indian with the spear stands in the bow. He now stabs this comb-like affair into the sand at the bottom of the water, and after giving two or three stabs draws it up to look at it; if he has been successful, perhaps four or five Dentalia have been impaled on the teeth of the spear. It is a very ingenious mode of procuring them, for it would be quite impractical either to dredge or net them, and they are never, as far as I know, found between tide-marks”.
Appendix 2.
Observations of Anthropologist Philip Drucker (1951 & 1965).
Philip Drucker. 1951. The northern and central Nootkan tribes.
Philip Druckers Indigenous consultants were Koskimo, Jackson Dan (1865-Dec. 26, 1944), born in Quatsino. His interpreter was Alex Thomas (Dec. 21, 1891-July 28, 1971) of Port Alberni. The other consultant was Tseshaht Sam Mamookwalis (March 1, 1884-April 17, 1941) His interpreter was Walter Nelson.
“The method of bringing up the shells is well known, even though none of my informants had never actually seen it performed; it was abandoned before their time. A bunch of fine cedar splints was lashed to one end of a long fir pole in a round bundle flaring toward the unlashed end in a form resembling somewhat that of a home-made broom. The bundle was 8 or 9 inches across at the open splints in the center were quite fine, those near the edge, coarser, and around the outside was a row of flat rather wide splints. A hole was cut in a narrow piece of board so it would slip over the end of the bundle where it was lashed to the pole, but would not slip off the flaring end of the “broom.” .
Two stones of about the same size, weighing, informants estimated, about 10 pounds each, were lashed in withes and secured to the ends of the perforated board. The dentalia fisherman provided himself with enough additional poles in 15- to 20-foot lengths, to reach bottom at the grounds when joined end to end, and a quantity of good heavy cordage of nettle fiber. He went out to the grounds with the poles and the broomlike affair in his canoe. There he laid the “broom” in the water, with the perforated board in place.
The weight of the stones pulled the “broom” end down, and the fisherman lashed another of his poles to the upper end, continuing to join the poles till he could sound the bottom. For greatest efficiency of the rather clumsy implement, of course, the stone weights should have almost counterbalanced the effective buoyancy of the poles and board; it may be that the estimates of weights given are a little low.
In any case, when he had enough poles lashed together, he jabbed downward sharply a few times, then pulled up the pole, letting the top lean over till the whole length was afloat in the water.
One informant specified a line was made fast to the lower end, just above the bundle of splints, to pull it up by; this sounds like the most practical method. As the gear was raised the weights drew the perforated board down snug over the splints, compressing them slightly. If he had been lucky the fisherman found a dentalia shell or two pinched firmly between the splints (not, informants insisted, skewered on them); if not, there was nothing but mud and trash from the sea floor. Then he had to unlash his poles, paddle back to the place he had been sounding, for the water was too deep to anchor in, and rig his gear for another sounding. It was a slow laborious task, by all accounts. One hardly wonders that it has been a long time since anyone has gone to all that trouble.”
The fact that the apparatus is an invention of no mean order is worth stressing. The part that made the gear function the weighted perforated board that made the splints grip any small object inserted between them-is mechanically quite neat. One is impressed by the abstract reasoning involved. A primitive inventor conceivably could work out a new device for, let us say, hurling a spear, in great part by trial and error, for he could actually see what his experimental model was doing. Whoever invented the dentalia gear had to be able to visualize what his equipment was doing out of sight in deep water. He had to be sure enough of it to know that when it brought up no shells on several tries the reason was no shells grew where he made the sounding, until he eventually found the beds (unless he was such a fortunate individual that he achieved success on the first few tries).
The day’s catch of shells were boiled in a small cooking box to re- move their unfortunate occupants, and then put into a box of fine sand to polish them up a bit. Informants said rather vaguely the shells were “stirred around” in the sand-one might guess they were shaken gently back and forth to remove mosslike marine growth that the boiling had not detached. Not a great deal of such polishing was necessary.
After some quantity of dentalia had been collected, they were sorted into lots of large (a’eh), medium (o’o’umh), and small (åtcaqinhais) shells and stored in small finely woven cedar-bark baskets. The sizes were not measured, but roughly estimated by eye. There is said to have been no particular difference in value of the three sizes, but ‘it looked better to have all about the same size on a necklace.’. The shells were also sometimes strung on fathom-long strings for storage“.
Philip Drucker. Quotes. Excerpts from Cultures of the North Pacific Coast. 1965.
“Dentalia Fishing”
“Nootkan groups were the source of nearly all dentalia shells in the North Pacific area and beyond. The only non-Nootkan group known to take the shells were the neighboring Klaskino of lower Quatsino Sound, who were Southern Kwakiutl in speech but had intermarried so frequently with nearby Nootkans that many informants regarded them as much Nootkan as Kwakiutl.
The species of dentalium so valued by the Indians has a wide distribution along the North Pacific littoral. However, it is usually a relatively deepwater form which, perhaps because of special effects of ocean currents, grows in beds of moderate depth at only a few places on the seaward side of Vancouver Island. Shells of dead dentalia are reported to wash up on outside beaches in many parts of the Coast. any shell collector knows, however, “dead shells” of any molluscs always lack the luster of those taken alive, and so the dull-surfaced drift shells never formed an important part of native commerce in dentalia.
The Nootkan fishing was the property of certain family lines, as were the grounds themselves, and certain parts of the procedure were carefully guarded family secrets. For example, as recently as a few years ago most well-informed elderly Nootkans knew the general locations of the dentalia beds, but not the exact locations. They knew also that the owners found the beds by doing what a mariner would call crossing two ranges, each range consisting of a distant and a nearer mountain peak or other prominent natural feature which were lined up by the observer offshore. When the bearings of the two ranges were separated by a moderately large angle, their point of crossing gave a very precise location. (This was the standard Nootkan technique for locating offshore points.) What informants did not know, unless they were of the proper family groups and sufficiently high in rank to have been entrusted with the secret, was just which natural features formed the ranges.
The ingenious dentalia-collecting gear consisted of a bunch of hardwood splints, elongated ovates in shape, tightly lashed at one end around the tip of a long slim pole so that their points diverged, thus suggesting in form our traditional Halloween witches’ broom. Over the “broom” was fitted a board with a hole at the center of such a size that it passed freely over the bundle of splints at the point of attachment but was too small to be forced over the diverging points. Heavy stone sinkers were lashed one to each end of the board. A set of additional poles, or rods, with tough nettle-fiber cordage for lashing them end to end to the business end completed the device. Their exact lengths and number was another of the family-owned professional secrets.
The dentalia fisherman determined his position by using his ranges to place himself over the beds. There he might anchor, lowering away a conveniently shaped stone lashed to a long line of giant kelp stems, or he might drift for a time with the inshore current. He joined the rods, one by one, allowing the end piece with its broomlike attachment of splints and stone weights to sink the gear to a vertical position; the weights had to be nicely calibrated to give a very slight negative buoyancy to the apparatus. When the bunch of splints was a short distance from the bottom, he jabbed downward hard. The resistance of the water retarded the descent of the flat board so that the bunch of splints, uncompressed and therefore flared apart, reached bottom first. The board with its stone sinkers slowly slid down over the splints, compressing them strongly. The fisherman hauled the apparatus surfacewards, unlashing the joints of the rods as he went. Were he lucky he might find a shell or two, or even several, pinched between the tips of the splints. Then he put the contraption back into the water to make another try. The device was apparently fairly efficient, the dentalia beds rich, and the Nootkan dentalia fishermen must have been industrious at their trade, for they obtained great quantities of the molluscs, which they carefully cleaned, sorted into three sizes (long, short, and in-between), and traded to neighbors packed in neat wallet- like cedarbark baskets or in fathom-long strings”.
Appendix 3.
Alexander Ross. 1849. Lower Columbia River in 1811.
“The circulating medium in use among these people is a small white shell called higua, about two inches long, of a convex form, and hollow in the heart, re- sembling in appearance the small end of a smoking pipe. The higua is thin, light, and durable, and may be found of all lengths, between three inches down to one-fourth of an inch, and increases or decreases in value according to the number required to make a fathom, by which measure they are invariably sold. Thirty to a fathom are held equal in value to three fathoms of forty, to four of fifty, and so on. So high are the higua prized, that I have seen six of 23 inches long refused for a new gun. But of late, since the whites came among them, the beaver skin called enna, has been added to the currency; so that, by these two articles, which form the medium of trade, all property is valued, and all exchange fixed and determined. An Indian, in buying an article, invariably asks the question, Queentshick higua? Or. Queentshick enna? That is, how many higua? Or, how many beaver skins is it?”.
Appendix 4.
Commentary on Spear Construction by Edward Curtis (1915).
Curtis notes the spear has a: “three-inch yew pole about forty-five feet long was first secured. A sound piece of spirea (S. opulifolia) fifteen inches long and two inches thick was then, by bending, split into a great many thin, resilient splinters, about five hundred in number, so that when finished it resembled a great stiff brush six inches in diameter. Next were prepared several thin yew blades, equal in length to the spirea splints and three and a half inches broad, and with the comers of the lower end cut off so that it terminated in a fairly acute joint. The splints were now fastened securely about one end of the pole, the yew blades were bound by the upper ends about the bundle of splints, so as to form a continuous shield of a single thickness, and near the pointed lower ends a cedar withe encircled the bundle with sufficient tightness to hold the blades and splints firmly together. Two oblong stones, each weighting thirty-five to forty pounds, were secured on the shoulder, or upper end, of the bundle of splints, on opposite sides of the pole.
,..When this mechanism was put into the water, the stones just counterbalanced the buoyancy of the wood, and the pole stood upright with the bundle of splints resting not too heavily on the bottom. The fisherman, alone in his small canoe, seized the pole by the tip, to strike the bottom without too great a force. The shells, fastened to the rocks by the base and with the pointed end upward, were forced among the splints, and when the pole was lifted again they were torn from the rocks. At the next plunge of the mechanism, more shells were forced in, and those of the first catch were pushed up further. Thus it went until the resilient splints, held together by the yew blades, were distended at the bottom to a diameter of eighteen inches. The cedar-withe binding gradually slipped upward as the splints were distended. When the “feel” of the plunger indicated that the splints were filled, the pole was hauled up and the lower end was rolled into the canoe
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