Material
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Use
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Importance
2010
Material
Gladys Evanoff: This is beads [pointing to the pouch] and there is a pocket here and these are real not imitation ones, picked in the water somewhere, and it is decorated with this shells, k’enq’ena [dentalium shells]and this is nagelch’ey, “beads” . . . those dentaliums are real they are not artificial they are not plastic-made. They [the ancestors] go to some lake to pick those and there’s bugs inside them. When they throw a piece of meat out the meat gets full of those dentaliums with the bugs in it, then they pull it in and throw it in a pot of boiling water and all these dentaliums fall off and that’s where they collected those dentaliums from.
Use
Gladys Evanoff: They used to trade for it, that sash over there is made out of dentalium beads and there is a sack in the front where they kept their shells in or whatever .
. .
Aaron Leggett: They use those for anything else?
Gladys Evanoff: Probably gun shells that’s all I’m pretty sure, but it looks like they used it for tobacco or something.
Aaron Leggett: Davak, [tobacco] yeah. Or sometimes they are described as fire bags sometimes.
Gladys Evanoff: For matches
Aaron Leggett: For matches or a long time a go maybe a little birch bark, this one probably the way it is stained could be Davak [tobacco] . . .
normal">Karen Evanoff: Do you remember them wearing that Helen?
normal”>Helen Dick: They just used that stuff, you know they used them if they were gonna go hunt and stuff, and they put that stuff on or if they have a ceremony or —
normal">Gladys Evanoff: Potlatch or stuff, it’s the only time they used that kind of decoration stuff . . . The chiefs wear them.
normal”>Karen Evanoff: But, they wear it to go hunting too though?
Helen Dick: Mm-hmm.
Importance
Karen Evanoff: But those [dentalium shells] are, like strong, like medicine?
normal">Gladys Evanoff: Yeah, they are they are protected that’s what they never used to take it unless only time they took these k’enq’ena [dentalium shells]were if they were having a ceremony thing, to make a dance thing or dance hat or something like that. They didn’t just take it to take it and I don’t think they told very many people where it was at because it was very sacred and they believed in that you’re not supposed to bother it because it belongs there.
So, I don’t think very many people knew where to get that.
normal">Karen Evanoff: K’enq’ena [dentalium shells] were a very sacred thing.
normal”>Gladys Evanoff: Yeah, very sacred, would you imagine if more people knew where to get it, it would be like gold now. These are very expensive stuff and to get it from the water, you know it is very hard, it is even harder than that make-belief k’enq’ena [dentalium shells] . . .
normal">Helen Dick: They only used for certain things, they don’t just wear them — they don’t leave them all over, you have to always hang them.
normal”>Gladys Evanoff: No kids playing with it, it is very —
normal">Helen Dick: Sacred.
normal”>Gladys Evanoff: It is not even — young women, you know don’t touch it or play with it or whatever, never.
normal">Karen Evanoff: So, it was very respected then . . . is that like bad luck if kids or girls touch it?
normal”>Gladys Evanoff: I don’t know, must be or something like that . . .
normal">Helen Dick: But, sometimes, I don’t know the girls can’t really touch those stuff like teenagers.
Gladys Evanoff: Women used to make it . . . the older women made them not the young girls . . .
Helen Dick: They are very special to the old folks, you know because they are easy to break. They are not as thick as new ones, now they have the fake ones — these are really thin.
Gladys Evanoff: Like glass, but they are thin. They also used those for ceremonial stuff they make sashes out of that — the ones they use now are plastic-made.
Helen Dick: So, they are really special for the old folks. That they used these — when they make it, you know the kids don’t play with it, they put it up somewhere because it is special, you know . . . you don’t go get them if you’re not gonna use them right way, if you’re gonna go get them you have to use them the right way. These are for the sashes they wear for potlatches, or they go dances, or if they go to the meetings and then they wear them .
. . so after they are done using them they put them away neatly because it is special to them and I think it is [because] they have to be really careful picking it.
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