Changes and Choices in Heiltsuk Consumption of Euro-American Goods at Old Bella Bella, BC, 1833-1899

Summary

The contact-era Heiltsuk village of Old Bella Bella, British Columbia, site of both HBC Fort McLoughlin (1833-1843) and a Methodist mission (1880-1890), existed during a time of rapid changes. Missionary influence resulted in a shift among the Heiltsuk from traditional longhouses to European-style single-family frame houses, creating two spatially and temporally separate archaeological assemblages. Using data collected during a 1982 excavation of this site, this study compares artifact assemblages from one contact-era traditional house and one frame house in order to analyze changes in the frequencies of various artifact types. This research examines the process of adoption of European material culture on the Northwest Coast by looking at how European goods were incorporated into Heiltsuk culture over time and explores the idea that material culture was actively used by the missionaries as a tool of enculturation.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Culture Change and Persistence among North American Indigenous Peoples in the Contact Zone   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2015

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 584