Art

The Nuxalk people call themselves the Nuxalkmc. A century ago, anthropologists called them the Bella Coola. Traditional Nuxalk territory is the central coast of British Columbia. The central province of the Northwest Coast includes tribes that emphasize the ownership of inherited privileges that were dramatized in elaborate, theatrical rituals and personified in carved masks and figures. Motivation for art production is implicit in the concept of privilege on the Northwest Coast, and the tribes of the central province, Bella Bella, Oowekeeno, Bella Coola, Kwakiutl, and Nootkans, all produced graphic art in quantity, setting them somewhat apart from the people of the southern province. The Bella Coola, although making up only a small part of the central province, developed such a distinctive variant on the art that they deserve separate consideration. Among them were prolific and imaginative artists, and the complex Bella Coola mythology furnished endless inspiration for sculpture and painting.

In Nuxalk winter ceremonies, lasting four nights, dancers wearing masks of supernatural beings danced, sang, and enacted dramas based on tribal myths. The dancers inherited their membership in the Nuxalk secret society, and each had the right to perform the dance of a spirit. The more elaborate ceremonies required weeks of practice.
AMNH/ E. Labenksi (https://www.amnh.org)

Bella Coola carving style, expressed mainly in masks and monumental sculpture, is most similar to that of the Kwakiutl and other Northern Wakashans. The overall impression of Bella Coola sculpture is one of bold planes and the strong juxtaposition of convex and concave forms. It is best seen in the treatment of the human face. Basically Bella Coola sculptured faces that were naturalistic in the forms and the features and their relationship to each other, but it is distinctive and generally easily recognized for the hemispherical or “bulbous” forms of the face, with surface painting consisting of solid U-forms both following and crossing the strongly defined intersections of carved planes. Boxes, spoons, and combs were also carved and occasionally painted.

Many different mythical beings represented in the sculpture required a great many variations on the basic forms of the face, but the Bella Coola character was almost always present. Animals and birds were also frequent subjects for Bella Coola sculptors, with facial planes and forms like those of humanoid representation, allowing for the differences in basic form. The imaginative genius of Bella Coola sculptors was put to work inventing articulated masks and figures to dramatize family myths in the ceremonial complexes. They also produced monumental sculpture such as house frontal poles with entrances through a gaping mouth or a house post with enormously outstretched arms that seemed to support the eave beams of the roof.

Both pictographs and petroglyphs are found throughout Bella Coola territory. A story was recorded associating one particularly large petroglyph site with an account of how a first ancestor who was a Cannibal dancer received a special power while at this place. He kept this power hidden there under a stone. Several times each year he invited his friends to the site to sing and dance.

Basketry was a minor art among the Bella Coola. Almost no elaborately decorated basketry was made, thee production confined nearly entirely to utilitarian burden and storage baskets. However this was not the case when it came to weaving. Bella Coola weaving consisted primarily of robes twined of yellow cedar bark or of mountain goat wool yarn. Some Bella Coola woolen robes from the late nineteenth century were embroidered with elaborate designs in colored yarns on the white background. Bella Coola were masters at working with shredded red cedar bark, and their ceremonial regalia in that material – head and neck rings, embellishment on masks and other paraphernalia- was spectacular.

Although by the 1980s Bella Coola art had not experienced the strong revival felt by the art traditions of some other areas, the art itself has had a major influence on the work of artists from other tribes. Many of them admired the strengths and subtleties of Bella Coola sculpture and painting and experimented with the forms.

Among current Nuxalk artists are Alvin Mack, Lyle Mack.

Alvin Mack is an accomplished and well-respected artist of the Nuxalk Nation. Mack hasmentored dozens of young artists through his work at the local Acwsalcta School and as a leader in the community.

Mack considers creating art akin to culture, and sees no distinction between the two. He is passionate about his Nuxalkmc culture and sees the art as an essential vessel to keeping traditions alive and educating people about Nuxalk history.

He cites his own father, Willie Mack, as one of his greatest influences, recalling that Nuxalk art would have almost died out if it wasn’t for a few dedicated carvers who kept the art alive, his father being one of them. He considers his work to be more traditional, focusing on the Nuxalk story each piece conveys.

In 2014 Alvin was the recipient of the prestigious BC Creative Lifetime Achievement Award. 

Alvin states, “I always go back to our history, and that history has so much lost information that needs to be rebuilt in our community. So the subject for me is to bring that history out: who we are, where we’re from, and we can let the world know “this is us” through our art.” 

Sturtevant, William C., and Wayne P. Suttles. Handbook of North American Indians. Vol. 7, Smithsonian Institution, 1990. 

American Museum of Natural History, Hall of the Pacific Northwest Coast, Nuxalk, amnh.org/exhibitions/permanent/northwest-coast .

Authentic Indigenous Arts Resurgence, authenticindigenous.com .

Copper Sun Journey & Gallery, Meet the Artist, coppersungallery.ca/ .