Aquiggly hole, also known as apit-house or simply as aquiggly orkekuli, is the remains of anearth lodge built by theFirst Nations people of theInterior ofBritish Columbia and theColumbia Plateau in theUnited States. The wordquiggly comes from a mispronunciation of thensyilxcǝn term qʷc̓iʔ, which was incorporated into Chinook Jargon askickwillie.[1]Kick willy, kickwillie, orkeekwulee are the spelling variations of theChinook Jargon word for "beneath" or "under".
A quiggly hole appears as a circular depression in the ground, the remnants of a former log-roofed pithouse (locally named abarabara or an ulax). Quigglies generally come in large groupings known asquiggly 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 southernBritish Columbia, notably from theFraser Canyon nearLillooet across theThompson River valley and down theOkanagan Valley.
Hudson's Bay Flats is the old location of a site calledFort Chilcotin, which contains several quiggly holes.[2] The Thompson River between Pritchard and Kamloops also has quiggly holes.[3] 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.[4]
One of the most famous "quiggly towns" in the Fraser Canyon is theKeatley Creek Archaeological Site, between the modern-dayFirst Nations communities atFountain andPavilion 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 theFraser River, 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).
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 aroot cellar. 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 wordquiggly 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 thesweat lodges 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.
Although found to a limited degree on the southernBritish Columbia Coast andPuget Sound where log-framelonghouses 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 theInterior Plateau in log-cabin villages, "modern" housing in the 19th century, were launched by theMissionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate as part of their missionary work.
A reconstruction of an underground house can be seen by the public near theLillooet Tribal Council's offices near the reserve community of Tʼtʼikt (in English the "T-birdRancherie") in Lillooet, British Columbia. Called asi7xten (SHIH-stn) in theSt̓át̓imcets language, its design is based on notes drawn byanthropologistJames Teit, who had settled and married in with theNlakaʼpamux people ofSpences Bridge. Teit had never been to Lillooet and based his knowledge of thesi7xten and the rest of his notes on that people and from interviews with aStʼatʼimc woman who had married into the Spences Bridge people. Teit's drawings, upon which Lillooet's rebuiltsi7xten was built, also owed to his knowledge of underground houses in the Thompson andBonaparte valleys; in his day, people still resided in them. The reconstruction proceeded with his designs, with the caveat that thesi7xten 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 Nationsland claims, where they are more than symbols of native occupancy: they are the proof of ownership, as well asa priori occupation rights includingsovereignty. 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 theBritish Columbia Heritage Conservation Act, on both public and private lands.[5]
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 theOregon Coast, in what is otherwise exclusively log-frame/housepost housing area. Its occupants are believed by archaeologists to have been ancestors of theAthapaskan people resident in the area now, who had originally used their familiar style of housing when they first migrated into the region.
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