8000 Year Long Culture Gone With the Scoop of a Shovel The ancient village of Cesna:m, also known as the Great Fraser Midden or the Marpole Midden is located in the territory of the Musqueam First Nation, and is partially on the current reservation. The Marpole Midden was considered in the twentieth century, by many archaeologists, to be “the single most important site on the Northwest Coast because of its tremendous size and extensive history of excavation and interpretation” (Roy 2006/7:68). Excavation of the site began in 1884, and since then it has become an example of how the relationships between First Nations in British Columbia, archaeologist, and the law has changed over the last century. In the 1890’s the site was excavated to provide skeletal remains and artifacts for a new exhibit that would feature “the remains of Indian life in British Columbia” (Roy 2006/07:74) in the American Museum of Natural History. The Musqueam First Nation, who originally occupied the territory before colonists removed them from their land, had no voice in the removal of their ancestors’ remains. The remains were collected purely to build an inventory in museums and research the race of the skeletons found; not to protect the discoveries for their current cultural significance. Many of the 700 plus skeletons
were discarded because of a lack in storage space, which reflects the European settler professional disregard of Coast Salish people. A common practice of museums, that still exists today, was to accumulate First Nations cultural items and present them as historical artifacts. This associated First Nations culture with the past as the Canadian Government assimilated Aboriginals and restricted their access to traditional food sources, and customs such as the Potlatch. This period especially represents a time of dispossession of Coast Salish People by the Canadian Government. From the 1890s through the first half of the twentieth century, Marpole Midden remains were studied to determine what ‘race’ they belonged to. Ancestry of the Musqueam people was refuted and professionals argued that the biology of current Musqueam people and the remains were significantly different. This was a common outlook of colonialist archaeology. Susan Roy quotes a 1948 reporter asking who are the people that originally lived within the territory. The reporter claimed, "they were not Indians certainly" (2006/07:70). Roy argues that this type of archaeology asked questions about migration and identity in order to delegitimize First Nations territorial claims and validate European settlement (2006/07). In the 1930s clay facial replications were created from the skulls found at the site, and they were used as evidence that the current Musqueam Nation did not originate from the Asiatic looking ancient people. This discredited the Musqueam people from claiming the land because it was assumed that they had replaced the original inhabitants. It also silenced their voice in conversations of what to do with the discovered remains. As twentieth century infrastructure development in 7
Figure 5. Map of Musqueam Territory in Urban Vancouver.
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