Category: Victoria Ethnology

Installation of a Songhees Chief

Originally published in Discovery, 20(1). Winter 1992. By Grant Keddie The Museum’s Anthropology photograph collection contains many photos whose subject and time remain a mystery. Recently, I put together a series of five undocumented photographs (four are shown in this article) from different parts of the collection that seemed to be related to the same event. A little detective work revealed that the photos documented the visit of the Governor-General of Canada to Victoria in 1927. As the highest ranking representative of the Crown, he was anointed as an honourary Indian chief. The information sources I located added to my knowledge of an earlier Indian history before the coming of Europeans … a history which I will reveal here in … Continue reading “Installation of a Songhees Chief”

Hunting the Devil

By Grant Keddie Aboriginal peoples, from the central coast of British Columbia to SW Alaska, represent the octopus in their art, myths and ceremonies. All First Nations peoples living along the coast also ate octopuses, which are high in protein. But while there are many historical accounts of skinned octopus arms being used to bait hooks for halibut fishing, there are few descriptions that have been uncovered about where and how octopuses were caught. Some accounts have been found for the south end of Vancouver Island. In 1951, James Fraser of the Songhees told anthropologist Wilson Duff that the “big rock” in Gonzales Bay was called “devilfish rock” and “If you touch that rock, devilfish come up.” It was also … Continue reading “Hunting the Devil”

David Latasse

David Latasse. Of Saanich and Songhees Heritage Piecing together Outsiders Views 2016. By Grant Keddie David Latasse was a Tsartlip (W_JOLELP) First Nation. They are part of the Saanich (W_SANEC) peoples whose territory is centered on the Saanich Peninsula and southern Gulf Islands. Latasse gained notoriety from 1927-1936 as a speaker in his native language at ceremonies, the subject of an early movie maker and as a source of information via translators for newspaper reporters and at least one anthropologist. He was born about 1858-1863 and died May 2, 1936. For most of his life he lived near his mother’s relatives on the Tartlip Reserve located on the Saanich Peninsula north of Victoria. We are fortunate to have letter that was dictated by Latasse himself and addressed to the … Continue reading “David Latasse”

Changing the Weather in Songhees Tradition

2012. By Grant Keddie Special rocks were used in rituals by First Nations to change the weather and ensure safety in venturing out in pursuit of food or to create unsafe conditions for one’s enemy. One of these locations was recorded by Anthropologist, Franz Boas as being “not far” from the military gun batteries at Finlayson Point in Victoria’s Beacon Hill Park. First Nation advisors indicated that: “If a man desires a certain wind he moves one stone a very little from its place, each stone representing one wind. If he should move it too much the wind would be very strong” (Boas1991:578). It is uncertain whether these were special stones used for this purpose or whether they were some … Continue reading “Changing the Weather in Songhees Tradition”

James Squameyuqs

By Grant Keddie James Squameyuqs–Songhees Chief 1864-1892 James Squameyuqs (Grand fir tree), also spelt as Scomiak, Comey-uks, Kumayaks, Skomiax, Skomiak, Scomiax and Somiax, was born about 1797. On 12 November 1864 he became the second chief of the Songhees since the founding of Fort Victoria. “Comey-uks” is the second person listed on one of the aboriginal treaties made by Governor James Douglas in 1852. This treaty was called the South Saanich Treaty, but included the area south of the territory of the Saanich people, from Cowichan head to Mount Douglas. Songhees band member James Fraser related how his grandfather, the first Songhees chief, named Freezy, or Chee-al-thluc, “invited James Kumeyaks of Sidney Island to move to Victoria”. In 1867 Squameyuqs’s home … Continue reading “James Squameyuqs”

The Archaeology and History of Macaulay Point.

By Grant Keddie. Inspired by the Landscape As Donald Macaulay with his Tsimshian wife Margaret and the first four of their six daughters Mary, Flora, Catherine and Sarah, gazed out at the beautiful ocean view and the fields draped with blue camas, he must have been reminded of his native home on the Scottish Isle of Lewis. It was 1850, and Macaulay was bailiff of the new 600-acre Viewfield Farm owned by the Puget Sound Agricultural Company. Macaulay could hardly have known that this landscape would one day be named after him. Or that it would become a popular military camp in the late 1890’s, where Victoria’s citizens flocked to witness regimental demonstrations. Macaulay Point was first named Sailor Point … Continue reading “The Archaeology and History of Macaulay Point.”

A Modern Stone Figure on a Lekwungen Landscape

By Grant Keddie 2021. By Grant Keddie In the summer of 2020, I recovered a large 240 lb stone figure with a team of four others from the waters near Finlayson Point on the southern shores of Victoria (see Appendix 1). At the time I looked at the cultural context and physical evidence and determined that I would treat the cultural landscape and oral history as the more favourable evidence that the stone figure was likely to be an old Indigenous ritual figure. It turned out that I initially erred on suggesting that the stone figure was an old one when a modern-day stone carver told the media that he carved the stone. Here I provide a summary of how … Continue reading “A Modern Stone Figure on a Lekwungen Landscape”

The Victoria Legislative Building Properties and Indigenous Peoples

By Grant Keddie The properties on which our legislative buildings are now located in Victoria Harbour are within the traditional territory of the Lekwungen First Nations, today represented by the Esquimalt and Songhees Nations. There is clear evidence in the form of written documents and maps that James Douglas intended this property to become an Indigenous Reserve as part of the treaty settlements of 1850. (See Appendix 1: The Paper Reserve.) The legislative property is shown on this 1862 map to the left of lot VI belonging to James Douglas. It is located at the southern foot of the James Bay Bridge. (BC Archives 11520A. Part of Beckley Farm No.4.) The Lekwungen people were rightfully compensated, in November of 2006, … Continue reading “The Victoria Legislative Building Properties and Indigenous Peoples”

The 1843 Observations of the Lekwungen People by Jean Baptiste Zacharie Bolduc.

During the first visits of Hudson’s Bay Company officials to Victoria Harbour—William McNeil in 1837 and McNeil with John Work and John McLoughlin in 1839—there was no information recorded about the Indigenous Lekwungen peoples of the area. (Keddie 2003) The first information was recorded in 1842 during the visit of the company’s James Douglas to settle on the location of the future Fort Camosun—later Fort Victoria. It was during Douglas’s second visit in 1843 that he brought along the Québécois Jesuit Jean Baptiste Zacharie Bolduc, a missionary who was part of the Quebec Mission to the Pacific Northwest (fig. 1). The accounts of the Bolduc provide some of the most important observations of the Indigenous peoples in the Victoria region, more so than … Continue reading “The 1843 Observations of the Lekwungen People by Jean Baptiste Zacharie Bolduc.”

The Victoria Smallpox Epidemic of 1862

By Grant Keddie Preface One of the great tragedies in the History of British Columbia was the smallpox epidemic of 1862-63, which killed thousands of Indigenous peoples. A previous pandemic spreading across northern North America from the western Atlantic coast hit British Columbia around 1780, before non-Indigenous settlement in the region. Estimates from other documented areas would suggest that at least 80% of the population may have died from this first introduction of smallpox into the region. This massive interruption would have resulted in the re-alignment of Indigenous societies. In early 1853, a smallpox epidemic spread from the Columbia River to Neah Bay on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State, causing a heavy death toll in that area. George Gibbs … Continue reading “The Victoria Smallpox Epidemic of 1862”