Quiggly Hole - A Reconstruction

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 T't'ikt (in English the "T-bird Rancherie") in Lillooet, British Columbia. Called a si7xten (SHIH-stn) in the St'at'imcets language, its design is based on notes drawn by anthropologist James Teit, who had settled and married in with the Nlaka'pamux people of Spences Bridge. Teit had never been to Lillooet and based all his knowledge of the si7xten and the rest of his notes on that people, but based all his knowledge on interviews with a St'at'imc woman who had married into the Spences Bridge people. It was not just from her account that Teit drew drawings upon which Lillooet's rebuilt si7xten was built, but also from his knowledge of underground houses in the Thompson and Bonaparte valleys - in his day, many people still lived in them. The reconstruction proceeded with his designs, with the caveat that the si7xten as built may not exactly resemble those used by the St'at'imc, as those with the knowledge of how they were built died years before there was interest in restoring one.

No one lives in an underground house of this type today, but as quiggly towns they 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 a priori occupation rights including sovereignty. Inventories of quigglies and other archaoloegical 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-people resident in the area now, who had originally used their familiar style of housing when they first migrated into the region.