Plateau Peoples

 

• The Plateau cultural area consists of the high plateau between the British Columbia coastal mountains and the Rocky Mountains.
• The Plateau peoples include the Secwepemc, Stl’atl’imc, Ktunaxa, and Tsilqot’in.
• Plateau society favoured equality and communal work, although men were the major decision makers.
• Within each village there were a number of chiefs who organized specific activities — there was a salmon chief for fishing, etc
• In some areas of the Plateau a council of elders was drawn from the community at large to help make decisions
  

• Aboriginal peoples on the Plateau divided labour based on gender.
• Men were responsible for hunting, trapping, fishing and manufacturing implements from bone, wood and stone, and also for warfare. 
• Men who had acquired certain physical and spiritual abilities during their adolescent training became "professional" hunters of bear and mountain goat. However, all men were expected to be good deer hunters
• Women's responsibilities included preparing and preserving food, harvesting plants, maintaining the home and caring for small children. 
• Remote hunting grounds and root-harvesting grounds were generally open to all those who spoke the same language, and inhabitants of a specific area sometimes gave consent to use these areas to others.
• Mandatory sharing and economic equality formed the backbone of society
• Each spring the appearance of the first run of salmon and the first fruits or berries was celebrated with a special ceremony to ensure a good harvest.
• Long distance transportation on the Plateau was done primarily by dugout or bark canoes. To travel on foot in winter, Plateau peoples used snowshoes
• Plateau peoples lived in three main house types constructed from portable, reusable materials:
• the semi-subterranean pit house
• The pit house most often consisted of a circular, square or oval excavated pit that was protected by a conical roof of poles that were covered with brush and earth
• Tule-mat lodges usually took the form of one of three main ground plans: rectangular, parallel sides with rounded ends, or rectangular with one end rounded. Lodges housed several families with separate sleeping areas and a shared central area for cooking and other communal domestic activities.
• Clothing was made from the tanned hides of animals and woven from local grasses or from the pounded bark of bushes.
• Moccasins were common; most often they were made from deer hide, but occasionally from salmon skin.
• Winter clothing consisted of the thick skins of fur-bearing animals.
• Songs were important in traditional Plateau life, and were used by individuals to summon religious and magical powers.
• Singing was sometimes accompanied by wooden flutes, rattles of deer hooves, but mainly by hide-covered wooden-frame drums.