Salish and Dene Clothing
West of the coast range less clothing was worn at all times and by all classes than in the interior. The typical male costume of the coast and lower delta…
From: Unknown To: 1907 C.E.
From “Dress and Personal Adornment” in British North America, The far West, the home of the Salish and Déné by Charles Hill-Tout, 1907.
West of the coast range less clothing was worn at all times and by all classes than in the interior. The typical male costume of the coast and lower delta Salish consisted simply of a breech-cloth and leggings. To this was added on formal occasions or in chilly weather, a roughly made deer or bear-skin cloak, or a blanket worn over the shoulders toga-fashion. Men of lazy and thriftless habits, and male slaves, often wore nothing but an apron or breech-cloth; and everybody commonly went bare-headed and bare-footed. Chiefs and men of wealth would sometimes possess a buck-skin shirt or tunic, but this article of clothing was not in common use in this region.
The clothing of a typical woman of rank was a dressed doe-skin shroud or smock which reached from the shoulders to the knees. This was often decorated with fringes strung with beads and shells.
Among some of the island tribes a plaited conical hat with broad, sloping brim was sometimes used, but more often they went bare-headed. Women of inferior rank wore only short petticoats woven from the inner bark of the cedar, which was prepared for this purpose by beating it on a block with mallets with serrated faces made for the purpose. When the bark was beaten soft and fine it was spun into coarse yarn by rolling it with the palm of the hand on the bare leg above the knee. From this yarn thus prepared they wove their short skirts. The native blanket was commonly made from a mixture of mountain-goat wool and dog-hair. The latter was of a fleecy nature, white in colour, and was shorn periodically from dogs bred by the natives for this purpose. This mixture of wool and hair was spun into yarn by the women with the hand and thigh in the same manner as the ' slowi ' or cedar-bark. Sometimes the down of ducks was added to the wool and hair and all three spun together.
The method of weaving the yarn into blankets seems to have been everywhere the same. As the yarn was spun on the leg it was permitted to fall in loose coils into open baskets set on the ground. When a sufficient quantity has been spun for the purpose in hand, two of these baskets are taken at a time and placed alongside each other, and their contents are then rolled up together on a rod into a ball in such a manner that it can be unrolled from the inside. The two inner ends of the ball are now pulled out and fastened to the shank of a spindle. This shank, which is from two to three feet long, carries a whorl made from stone, or preferably from whalebone when this material is obtainable.
This spindle is rotated by striking the lower side of the whorl with the right hand, the upper end of the shank being held between the thumb and forefinger of the other hand, and the lower resting on the ground. By means of this spindle the two strands of yarn are twisted round each other into a single thread about the thickness of a lead-pencil. These threads are employed for a variety of purposes besides blankets. But if they are to be converted into the latter they are woven upon a very simple loom which consists practically of an upper and lower cross- or yarn-bar.
These yarn-bars are variously held in place. Sometimes they are tied, as among the Dene, to two vertical rods, the whole forming a rough rectangular frame. Sometimes, as among the Vancouver Island Salish, they are set in vertical posts which have slits or holes at intervals in them to permit of extending or reducing the length of the web. The warp is strung in separate endless strands from one yarn-bar to the other, and kept asunder for the passage of the hand and shuttle by a very simple kind of 'heddle' made of a thin piece of wood set about the middle of the frame. The weft in the old-time blankets was made of a single-strand thread several times smaller than that forming the warp filament. The shuttle was sometimes a thin rod upon which the weft-thread was wound after the manner of a kite-string. Sometimes a shuttle was employed like that used in netting.
The actual weaving appears to have been the same among all the tribes, both Salish and Dene, such specimens of Salish blankets as have come under my observation being woven after the manner of the Dene webs described by Father Morice. This consisted in tying the weft-thread to the outermost warp filament in such a way that it is doubled, each end being wound upon a separate shuttle. One of these is then passed over the warp filament and the other under, the threads are then twisted round each other and passed in the same manner over and under each successive filament till the last one is reached, when they are brought back again in the same way.
The work is thus continued from side to side until the whole is completed, the web being slid over the yarn-bars from time to time to suit the convenience of the weaver who always weaves the web downwards. Sometimes among the Salish more than one of the warp filaments is woven in at a time. A common style was to weave in a pair at a time. In doing this the weft-threads were not always placed close together. I have seen old blanketing with these at least an inch apart. Sometimes the ends and sometimes the sides of the blanket would be finished off or decorated with loop-work fringing. The blankets of the notables of the tribes often had patterns worked in them in black and red, similar to those seen in the old basketry of this region.
Among the interior Salish, where the winters were colder, and where hunting was a common occupation, and skins of animals therefore more plentiful, the people wore better and more tastefully made clothing than on the coast.
The typical dress of a man of standing in his tribe consisted of several distinct garments. These were a short shirt or tunic, trousers, leggings, moccasins, and cap. The first was generally made of dressed deer-skin, the arm and side seams of which were commonly decorated with fringes of the same material. Instead of a tunic a kind of jacket with open front was sometimes worn, but this was not a general garment
The trousers, also made, as a rule, of buck-skin, are a modern garment which came into fashion after the advent of the Fur Companies. They were also fringed on the outer side from near the top to the bottom. In the place of these trousers a breech-cloth was formerly used, and the legs were protected by long leggings which reached to the thigh, meeting the leg-hole of the breech-piece. Both leggings and breech-cloth were commonly fringed. An apron of skin or bark sometimes took the place of the breech-piece in the case of old men.
Moccasins were everywhere worn by the interior tribes, the dryness of their climate permitting this to be done. These were commonly made of buck-skin also, but the part intended for the leg was generally smoked, while that for the foot was left unsmoked. The pieces were sewed together with thread made of deer sinew. Different styles and makes of moccasins were used by the different tribes. Sometimes they would be ornamented with dyed porcupine quills, goose feathers or horse-hair. Socks of grass, cedar bark, and sage-brush bark were commonly worn with these in summer weather. In winter these gave place to others made from bear, buffalo, or deer skin with the hair left on. Sometimes these stockings were made from the leg skin of the animal turned hair side in.
The head coverings or caps were formed from the skins of animals and birds, such as the beaver, deer, fox, lynx, loon, hawk, and eagle. Sometimes the entire scalp of an animal served as a cap. Among the Thompsons it was a common practice to wear as a head-covering caps made from the skin of the animals they regarded as their totems or guardian spirits.
In addition to the garments just described, the wealthy among some of the tribes wore, in cold weather, cloaks or robes of beaver, coyote, wolf, bear, buffalo, and other skins with the hair on and turned outwards. Some of the buffalo robes were occasionally dressed soft and white, the hair being all scraped off and the inside painted in various designs. Buck and doe skins were also thus treated at times by some of the tribes. The cloaks and robes of the poorer class were made of common skins and also of sage-brush and willow bark.
The dress of the women of the interior differed but little from that of the men except that as a rule it was made of finer and softer material and more highly ornamented. The tunic was generally made longer, sometimes as long as a smock, and was often profusely decorated about the breast and shoulders with dentalium shells, dyed porcupine quills, goose feathers, and horse-hair. The body of the tunic was commonly made of two doe-skins sewed together at the sides.
All the seams, both on the arms and body, were heavily fringed. In addition to these garments which often showed great variation in cut and style, some being short and full, and others long and narrow; some being worn loose like the men's shirts, and others tied in at the waist, according to the individual taste of the wearer or the fashion of the locality a bodice of buck-skin, the lower part of which was cut into a fringe, encircled the body below the breasts. In some centres sage-brush or cedar bark was substituted for the buck-skin; the material for these, as for all their other garments, depending to a large extent upon the locality and the ease with which it was procured. When these garments were made of the latter material the fringe-work often extended to the knees. Below these two body garments they wore on their lower limbs leggings and moccasins the same as the men save that they were generally shorter and more highly ornamented.
Maidens, from the time of puberty to their marriage, wore breech-cloths like the men, but they were made to fit tighter and were of thicker buck-skin. In shape, these breech-pieces were like legless trousers; and as the thick buck-skin had a tendency to chafe the skin, many girls wore a second under-cloth beneath the buck-skin, made of softer material, such as finely beaten sage-brush or cedar bark. These they renewed from time to time.
Hill-Tout, Charles. British North America, The far West, the home of the Salish and Déné, The Copp Clark Company, 1907
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