They were the current representatives of a tradition 10,000 years in the making.

That context matters for understanding what colonization destroyed and what survival preserved.

The cultural practices that Northwest Coast communities maintained through the devastating period of contact and colonization — the ceremonial traditions, the artistic knowledge, the clan structures, the oral histories — were not mere remnants of a simple past but threads of a 10,000-year tradition of coastal life.

The Cave and the Present

On Your Knees Cave still exists on Prince of Wales Island.