Yuquot: The Power of Yuquot

Our story goes back to the beginning of time.

“In the beginning of things, when animals could remove their coats and become men, Kanakenuhw came down from above and changed them into human beings, making their feathers and skins into real animals. At Muwa’cha he changed Aapwaik [the ‘inventor’] into a man and his feathers into a wren. This was the first of the Mowachaht, and his was the only family in that place. One of his descendants was named Haiyanuwa, and the peoples then became known as the Haiyanuwashtakumhlutha….”

Here at Yuquot, First Ancestors settled; we have been here ever since. The spirits of thousands of years of our ancestors inhabit Yuquot. All visitors feel the power and weight of our history.

Yuquot is our ceremonial home. One of the world’s most sacred structures, the Whaler’s Washing House, was located here before being taken to the American Museum of Natural History in New York in 1904. The shrine was where our whalers prayed and practiced ritual oosemich (bathing) to prepare for the physical and spiritual challenges they faced when hunting the world’s largest animals.

Yuquot also was the site for many Tlookwana, the chiefs’ Wolf Ritual, the most sacred and serious of ceremonies. On important occasions, ha’wiih hosted feasts and potlatches that could last several days, sharing food, resources, songs, dances, speeches and other riches with hundreds of honoured guests.