Bighouses

Because no one on our tour had Covid, we were allowed to Zodiac to the Kitasoo village of Klemtu to visit their Bighouse. Originally, the Bighouse was a place for gathering, for holding potlatches, and for living in extreme weather. The original Bighouse in Klemtu was replaced in 2003, and because no more carvers lived in the area, they had to go outside the community to get their totems carved. Because it is so expensive to rent, it is only used two or three times year. It does have a fire ring in the center, and because of its infrequent use, it did not smell smoky. Painted on the outside of the Bighouse is a mural of all four clan animals, and on the doors were carvings of them: the Raven, the Wolf, the Eagle, and the double-finned Orca. A welcome totem stood in front of the Big House, though it used to be a watch totem to protect the village. The native population used to be over 100,000, but when the Europeans arrived with their diseases, they nearly wiped out the entire group of people. Two tribes came together (with two different languages), and now the population is about 800. Because the town has good jobs in timber and fish farming - they even have to import people to handle the number of jobs available now - most of the young people stay in the community or return to it.

From what I could tell, much of the culture of those who live in Klemtu has disappeared. When asked about arts, he said a few people paint but no one weaves, makes baskets, or creates pottery. Very few speak the native languages, but someone has recorded about 200 hours of an elder speaking both languages, and the researcher is transcribing them so that a record of them exists. Interestingly, time is a relative thing in many cultures. In the First Nations, recent time is measured by First Contact - the first contact with the Europeans. It was then their culture began to shift, mostly in bad ways. The Europeans introduced disease into the area, sometimes intentionally in infected blankets, nearly wiping out their culture, and in the 1930s the First Nations began to realize that in order to survive they had to assimilate in some ways to western ways. After seeing how the people live, it makes me sad to think that they had to change so drastically to survive.