Culture
The Nuu-chah-nulth were one of the few groups on the Pacific Coast who hunted whales. Whaling is essential to Nuu-chah-nulth culture and spirituality. It is reflected in stories, songs, names, family lines, and numerous place names throughout the Nuu-chah-nulth territories. Perhaps the most famous Nuu-chah-nulth artifact is the Yuquot "whaler's shrine", a ritual house-like structure used in the spiritual preparations for whale hunts. Composed of a series of memorial posts depicting spirit figures and the bones of whaling ancestors, it is presently in storage at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. It was the subject of the film The Washing of Tears, directed by Hugh Brody, which recounts the rediscovery of the bones and other artifacts at the museum and the travels of the Mowachaht people, the shrine's original owners, in seeking to repossess them.
Read more about this topic: Nuu-chah-nulth People
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