Producing Place and Declaring Rights Through Thliitsapilthim (Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations’ Ceremonial Curtains)

Abstract

Thliitsapilthim (designed ceremonial partitions) are textiles used by Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations families to display their crests, which declare rights, responsibilities, and prestige. These large painted murals adorn and transform spaces, from secular to ceremonial, during potlatches and other significant events. This paper combines nearly a decade of ethnographic fieldwork with archival- and museum-based research to argue that thliitsapilthim function as important legal documents for Nuu-chah-nulth peoples and make declarations about rights to territories, natural resources, ceremonial privileges, and family histories.

Keywords:

• Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations
• ceremonial textiles
• potlatch
• Hupacasath First Nation
• Northwest Coast Art

Acknowledgements

The author would like to first and foremost acknowledge all of the Nuu-chah-nulth people who have contributed their knowledge, time, and energy to this research. Special thanks to Haa'yuups (Chuuchkamalthnii) and his extended family for their generosity and hospitality. This research has been supported by the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship, Cornell University College of Human Ecology and Department of Fiber Science and Apparel Design, the Phillips Fund Grant for Native American Research, the Franklin Fund Research Grant and François André Michaux Fund Fellowship from the American Philosophical Society. Thanks to the editors and anonymous reviewers of Textile, to my colleague Sue Watkins for her editorial assistance, as well as my students Amanda Denham, Samantha Stern, and Kelsie Doty for their valuable feedback on various drafts of this text.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The Nuu-chah-nulth are made up of 14 nations with traditional territories located along the west coast of Vancouver Island, the Barkley Sound inlet and as far interior as the Alberni Valley.

2 Thliitsapilthim is the word used in the Barkley Sound dialect. All spellings throughout this paper are based on the Barkley dialect and use an “easy-read” orthography (i.e., no special characters).

3 Research was conducted at the following institutions: Canadian Museum of History (Gatineau, Quebec, Canada); the Menil Collection (Houston, Texas, USA); the Field Museum (Chicago, IL, USA); Museum of Anthropology at UBC (Vancouver, BC, Canada); the Alberni Valley Museum (Port Alberni, BC, Canada); American Museum of Natural History (New York, NY, USA); Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology (Cambridge, MA, USA); Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History (Washington, DC, USA); Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian (Washington, DC, USA); Peabody Essex Museum (Salem, MA, USA); British Museum (London, England, UK), Ethnological Museum of Berlin (Berlin, Germany); the Karl May Museum (Radebeul, Germany); and the private collection of the late George Terasaki.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Denise Nicole Green

Denise Nicole Green, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Fashion Design, Anthropology, and American Indian and Indigenous Studies at Cornell University where she also serves as Director of the Cornell Costume & Textile Collection. In addition to her written publications, she has also directed numerous documentary films in collaboration with Nuu-chah-nulth peoples.