Quiggly
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A quiggly hole, also known as a pit-house or simply as a quiggly or kekuli, is the remains of an earth lodge built by the First Nations people of the
Interior Interior may refer to: Arts and media * ''Interior'' (Degas) (also known as ''The Rape''), painting by Edgar Degas * ''Interior'' (play), 1895 play by Belgian playwright Maurice Maeterlinck * ''The Interior'' (novel), by Lisa See * Interior de ...
of British Columbia and the Columbia Plateau in the United States The word ''quiggly'' comes from or , the Chinook Jargon word for "beneath" or "under".


Appearance and location

A quiggly hole appears as a circular depression in the ground, the remnants of a former log-roofed pithouse (locally named a barabara or an ulax). Quigglies generally come in large groupings known as ''quiggly towns'', some with hundreds of holes indicating a potential population of thousands. Some of these holes were residential for single family or larger groups, while some may have been storage only. Quiggly towns are typically located where solar exposure, water supply, and access to fish, game and gatherable foodstuffs are favorable. Quiggly towns and smaller groups of quiggly holes are common features of the landscape in certain areas of southern British Columbia, notably from the Fraser Canyon near Lillooet across the Thompson River valley and down the Okanagan Valley. Hudson's Bay Flats is the old location of a site called
Fort Chilcotin Fort Chilcotin was a short-lived trading post of the Hudson's Bay Company, located at the confluence of the Chilko and Chilcotin Rivers, British Columbia, Canada. It operated between the years 1836 and 1844. A commercial failure due to the lack ...
, which contains several quiggly holes. The Thompson River between Pritchard and Kamloops also has quiggly holes. Indigenous artifacts have been recovered from quiggly holes including arrowheads and scrapers. Some rockhounds believe digging around quiggly holes looking for artifacts destroys what little historical record remains.


Archaeological site

One of the most famous "quiggly towns" in the Fraser Canyon is the Keatley Creek Archaeological Site, between the modern-day First Nations communities at Fountain and Pavilion and home of over 115 quiggly holes. It has been the subject of formal archaeological investigation. Diggings have shown its origins to have been between 4,800 BCE and 2,400 BCE, with ongoing habitation up to 1,100 BCE. The reason for the abandonment is believed to have been the collapse of a slide which had blocked the
Fraser River The Fraser River is the longest river within British Columbia, Canada, rising at Fraser Pass near Blackrock Mountain in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for , into the Strait of Georgia just south of the City of Vancouver. The river's annual d ...
, forming a lake reaching upstream many miles, such that the location at Keatley Creek was near the shoreline (it is today on a benchland high above the river's canyon).


Description

This type of structure was used for storage as well as housing and cooking, and may have had its origins as an expansion of the concept of a
root cellar A root cellar (American English), fruit cellar (Mid-Western American English) or earth cellar (British English) is a structure, usually underground. or partially underground, used for storage of vegetables, fruits, nuts, or other foods. Its na ...
. In their most elaborate form, a deep pit is covered by a dome made out of a log frame, then covered by earth. Usually entrance is made either by a side hole, or a ladder via the fire hole in the top. Today the word ''quiggly'' usually only means the archaeological remains, not an active underground house, if one is being spoken of in a story or a history. Similar structures are used in the
sweat lodge A sweat lodge is a low profile hut, typically dome-shaped or oblong, and made with natural materials. The structure is the ''lodge'', and the ceremony performed within the structure may be called by some cultures a purification ceremony or simply ...
s that are common in First Nations communities today, though those are made out of sticks instead of logs, with branches and blankets instead of earth as a covering. As with sweat lodges, some quiggly holes were once undoubtedly used for ritual and community as well.


Range of use

Although found to a limited degree on the southern
British Columbia Coast , settlement_type = Region of British Columbia , image_skyline = , nickname = "The Coast" , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Canada , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 = British ...
and Puget Sound where log-frame longhouses and lean-to structures are more common, they are the main trait of native pre-Contact archaeology throughout the Interior cultures, and may have variously been either seasonal or permanent settlements. Replacement of quigglies with modern-style housing in the Interior only began in the late 19th century, with individual holdouts of active underground house living into the mid-20th century. Efforts to resettle Indigenous peoples of the Interior Plateau in log-cabin villages "modern" housing in the 19th century, relatively speaking were launched by the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate as part of their missionary work.


A reconstruction

A reconstruction of an underground house can be seen by the public near the Lillooet Tribal Council's offices near the reserve community of Tʼtʼikt (in English the "
T-bird The Ford Thunderbird (colloquially called the T-Bird) is a personal luxury car produced by Ford from model years 1955 until 1997 and 2002 until 2005 across 11 distinct generations. Introduced as a two-seat convertible, the Thunderbird was pro ...
Rancherie") in Lillooet, British Columbia. Called a () in the
St̓át̓imcets language Lillooet , known in the language itself as / (), is the language of the St’át’imc, a Salishan language of the Interior branch spoken in southern British Columbia, Canada, around the middle Fraser and Lillooet Rivers. The language of th ...
, its design is based on notes drawn by
anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...
James Teit, who had settled and married in with the
Nlakaʼpamux The Nlakaʼpamux or Nlakapamuk ( ; ), also previously known as the ''Thompson'', '' Thompson River Salish'', ''Thompson Salish'', ''Thompson River Indians'' or ''Thompson River people'', and historically as the ''Klackarpun'', ''Haukamaugh'', ''K ...
people of
Spences Bridge Spences Bridge is a community in the Canadian province of British Columbia, situated north east of Lytton and south of Ashcroft. At Spences Bridge the Trans-Canada Highway crosses the Thompson River. In 1892, Spences Bridge's population inclu ...
. Teit had never been to Lillooet and based his knowledge of the and the rest of his notes on that people and from interviews with a
Stʼatʼimc The Statimc (), also known as the Lillooet (), St̓át̓imc, Stl'atl'imx (), etc., are an Interior Salish people located in the southern Coast Mountains and Fraser Canyon region of the Interior of the Canadian province of British Columbia. Stati ...
woman who had married into the Spences Bridge people. Teit's drawings, upon which Lillooet's rebuilt was built, also owed to his knowledge of underground houses in the Thompson and Bonaparte valleys; in his day, people still resided in them. The reconstruction proceeded with his designs, with the caveat that the as built may not exactly resemble those used by the Stʼatʼimc, as those with the knowledge of how they were built died years before there was interest in restoring one. Quiggly towns are important landmarks in the broader context of First Nations land claims, where they are more than symbols of native occupancy: they are the proof of ownership, as well as occupation rights including sovereignty. Inventories of quigglies and other archaeological remains are important parts of the land claims process and archaeological protection acts may be invoked to preserve and study them. Quigglies are protected under the ''British Columbia Heritage Conservation Act'', on both public and private lands. Although many quiggly towns are relatively new, up to a few hundred years, many more are very ancient, as at Keatley Creek, but also throughout the Interior. And in addition to the Plateau cultures, there is an isolated appearance of quiggly-type structures on the Oregon Coast, in what is otherwise exclusively log-frame/housepost housing area. Its occupants are believed by archaeologists to have been ancestors of the
Athapaskan Athabaskan (also spelled ''Athabascan'', ''Athapaskan'' or ''Athapascan'', and also known as Dene) is a large family of indigenous languages of North America, located in western North America in three areal language groups: Northern, Pacific C ...
people resident in the area now, who had originally used their familiar style of housing when they first migrated into the region.


See also

* Dugout (shelter) * Earth lodge *
Pit-house A pit-house (or ''pit house'', ''pithouse'') is a house built in the ground and used for shelter. Besides providing shelter from the most extreme of weather conditions, these structures may also be used to store food (just like a pantry, a larder ...
* Zemlyanka


References


External links


Keatley Creek Archaeological Site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Quiggly Hole Indigenous architecture First Nations in British Columbia History of British Columbia Traditional Native American dwellings Semi-subterranean structures