A Political History of the Nuu-Chah-Nulth People: A Case Study of the Mowachaht
and Muchalaht Tribes
This thesis is a political history of the Nuu-chah-nulth people who live
on the west coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. The study
spans the period from the earliest archaeological evidence of occupation,
at about 4,300 years ago,to the present day and draws on archaeological data,
archival documents, ethnographic studies and contemporary accounts of Nuu-chah-nulth
society. The geographical focus is both local and regional and moves back
and forth between the regional Nuu-chah-nulth perspective and a case study
examination of the Nootka Sound area, home to the Mowachaht and Muchalaht
tribes.
The thesis has two central objectives. The first is a very general one. By
drawing together the full scope of Nuu-chah-nulth political history onto a
single canvas, the study strives for an integrated, post-colonial account
of this dynamic First Nation. The second more specific aim, is to identify
and follow threads of continuity within processes of change, rather than focus
on events of alienation.
At first glance, contemporary Nuu-chah-nulth polity and society in general
appear so radically different from their pre-European precursors that the
existence of fundamental continuities seems unlikely. However, when continuity
with the past is sought in an examination of the way change occurs, rather
than in the absence of change, the way in which modern Nuu-chah-nulth society
is anchored in its past start to become visible.
The thesis argues that strong threads of continuity link contemporary Nuu-chah-nulth
polity with the political structures and practices which operated prior to
the arrival of Europeans. Some of these threads are identified and followed
from their distant origins in an ancient whale hunting society through two
centuries of contact and interaction with Europeans. The thesis concludes
that the origins of the modern Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council owe as much to
a long indigenous history of confederative political organizing and consensus
building as they do to modern Euro-Canadian inspired First Nations organizations.
It is further argued that it is these indigenous historical roots which give
the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council the remarkable strength and coherence which
so characterizes it today.