The Kw'éts'tel Project

The Kw’éts’tel Project examines a technology that was once integral to the food traditions and economy of Stó:lō-Coast Salish families in the Fraser Valley of southwestern British Columbia, Canada. Kw’éts’tel is a Halq’eméylem word for a ground slate knife designed to butcher fish. For over two millennia, kw’éts’tel were an essential technology—essential to food provisioning throughout much of the annual cycle, and essential to an intensive fishing economy in which surplus salmon was shared, exchanged, and used for potlatching by socially prominent households. Although salmon fishing remains a fundamental part of Stó:lō -Coast Salish foodways and identity, traditional kw’éts’tel are no longer made or used for fish butchery. In the wake of European settlement, colonial policies enacted to suppress Indigenous culture—restrictions on access to fishing, prohibition of traditional fishing practices, and compulsory relocations of Stó:lō children to residential boarding schools—disrupted technological knowledge and ways of passing time-honored cultural practices to new generations. In the present, traditional kw’éts’tel are seen only in the archaeological record, but their design and unique technological properties continue to signify the deep connections between Stó:lō, salmon, and the Fraser River.

A key contribution of the Kw’éts’tel Project is its experimental archaeological investigation of how kw’éts’tel blades were made. By recreating the processes involved in crafting ground slate knives, the project generates new data that deepen our understanding of this essential and ancient technology. Although both broken and intact kw’éts’tel have been recovered through archaeological excavations for decades, evidence of their production has remained scant—perhaps overlooked. By revisiting earlier data collection methods, our team has identified byproducts of blade-making and production errors, raising broader questions about toolmaking labor, knowledge transmission, and other dimensions of intangible cultural heritage. These include decisions about raw material selection and transport, the timing and location of production activities, and the embodied practices involved in crafting functional blades.

The experimental approach and research outcomes presented in this digital compendium are part of a broader framework for studying the materialization of kw’éts’tel production. This framework also includes formal analysis of museum and repository-held kw’éts’tel as well as the identification and geochemical characterization of slate raw material, or toolstone. While these additional components are highlighted on the website, special emphasis is placed on the experimental archaeological data—previously unpublished visualizations, photographs, and videos—that document the production process. The aim is to encourage further experimental studies and to help revitalize a technological form once intrinsic to salmon harvesting practices that continue to anchor Stó:lō family and community life. Understanding how kw’éts’tel were made also opens a path toward interpreting their pre-colonial production and circulation in relation to ways that Stó:lō-Coast Salish communities participated in an intensive fishing economy.

This website is best viewed using Google Chrome.