Ot

Res

~ Revival

of the

Potlatch (

By TSAITSUN

‘
suv eyvo0/ae0vevvararva(caaiseicaxassa(vaervavivqutaioveneoyrayva ries) a erie ine vess eu Van an RLIBLRiRLiau IIRL

1 the week of December 15, Chief Nakapenkim —

Mungo Martin,

the well known Native Indian artist —

revived the Potlatch, the festive ceremony of the Native

Indian people of the British

coming of the white

Columbia coast before the /
man and in the days of the pioneers.

Long forbidden by law, the old ceremony was revived by
Mungo Martin to celebrate the opening of his new Kwa-
kiutl Indian House in Victoria's Thunderbird Park. There,

on the first night before Native

Indian guests and hered-

itary chiefs and on succeeding nights before invited guests

and the public, the ancient Native

dances were re-enacted

while, throughout the performance, eagle down, symbolic

of peace, floated down.
carved atop the posts
after the one built
pert a century ago.

The house, with Ho-hoq birds
holding the roof beams, is modelled
by Mungo Martin’s father at Fort Ru
This account of the ceremony was

written by Tsaitsun, an honorary Indian chief, for Native

Voice.

_ x

UST after nightfall, we gather-
ed in Chief Nakapenkim’s new
“house, and after the doors had
been carefully locked against the

Mamatla, Omhid began the ritual,

chants which for more than thirty,
years had been. forbidden to the
people.

As his sonorous voice rolled
out in the welcome, we were glad
that at last the white man had
seen that this was no orgiastic ex-
travaganza, performed _only for
the satisfaction of primitive lust;
put actually a part and parcel of
a way of life that had been good
to our people for generations be-
fore the white man saw fit to for-
bid it.

And as the faces of the old ones
lit up with that. real appreciation
which can come to no one unless
he be deeply moved, we knew
that once again the white man
«was making a belated attempt to
right a wrong that he was asham-
ed of.

To some of us, this was new.
-To others, .it was as old as their
own existence; and to all of us, it
was something wonderful out of a
colorful past of a wonderful peo-
ple, which we were once again.
privileged to watch as “of them.

This was potlatch. Not perhaps
the great gift-giving, pleasure- glv-
ing potlatch of the far past; but
still potlatch, at which a man
showed his proudest possessions;
his dances, his songs, and the gen-
eological drama which could only
be performed for those who own-
ed it.

There were about 250 people
here, every one of these invited
by Chief Nakapenkim himself.
They were come together mainly
to help him in the dedication of
a new house, and as in times of
old, were seated three and four
deep around a roaring fir fire lit
in the centre of the dirt floor.

At the back, two huge totem
house posts representing Canni-
bal Bird and Grizzly Bear. At the
front, two matching house posts
representing Dsonogwa and Griz-
zly Bear, held up the equally huge
ridge post timbers. Es

These posts and timbers were
about three foot in diameter and
the construction of the rest of the

house was equally massive. The
walls and roofs were of hand
adzed cedar planking, and the
house itself was about fifty by
sixty feet in size.

All this we took in in a matter
of moments, the while Omhid
chanted the beginning songs, and
set the stage, in his native Kwaw-
wala, for a spectacle it has been
given to only the very privileged
few to see.

e

The tempo of the singing chang-
ed, and the voice-orchestra sitting
between the two huge totems at
the rear, took up the song. The
volume swelled, and a man came
out from behind the curtain.

He was dressed in red cedar
bark clothing, with his body bare
from the ‘waist up. He wore no
shoes, but on his ankles and wrists
were medallions made of abalone
shell, and he wore a circlet
around his neck.

Now he danced; a sinuous, mov-
ing cadenced step. Crouched

_ slightly, he looked from right to

left, vibrating his wrists so that
the abalone shell caught the fire-
light and flashed it wildly around
the hall. He was followed by two
guards, who watched him.-closely.

Suddenly he gave a sort of wild

call, and the guards moved in
closer, for this man was challeng-
ing the supernatural ones. The
dance became wilder and the
strange animal-like calls were
seemingly pulled unwillingly from
the dancer’s throat. Then, with a
wild leap, the dancer eluded his
guards, and dashed madly out of
the house through the rear door.

Almost immediately, the wild
Cannibal spirits he had loosed
upon the people were in the
lodge, threatening. The first was
man-beast wearing a long-beaked,
carved, and painted mask. This
mask was about five feet in length,
with huge nostrils, painted in
most brilliant reds, whites, yel-
lows and blacks.

Next came another man, in a
mask which almost defied descrip-
tion,

bi & LEW.

The beak resembled the head
of a frog in shape, although a frog
with very elongated lips. From
the centre of the lips, and run-
ning back and over the head was
a ridge perhaps a half inch wide
and three inches high. Something
like the comb of a rooster. The
nostrils of this weird thing were
huge, and took up most of the
upper part of the lip. On the top
of the head there were two smal-
ler heads pointing forward. At
the beak, another smaller head

‘pointing backwards.

All the lower jaws of this hor-
rendous appearing monster were
articulated, and under the man-
ipulations of the dancer, snapped
at us with real authority. And
all this time, the dancers wear-
ing the Cannibal Bird masks gy-
rated, turned, and danced. °

Now a woman of the first danc-
er’s family began to sing against
the evil spirits which were in the
lodge. Gradually, she made her
will prevail upon the wild spirits,
and the dancers sank lower and
lower until the huge masks were
stretched full out upon the floor,
without strength “to lift their
heads.

E The tempo of the woman’s sing-
ing changed, and the Cannibal

Birds staggered to their feet, turn-,

ing right and left, attempting to
set away from the power of purity
in the woman’s song. But it was
of no avail, the woman had the
power, and placing her hands in
front of her, with her palms
turned outwards against the evil
Cannibal ones, she forced them
behind the curtain, and so out
of the house.

Now again the first dancer re-
turned, this time, to show that he
had overcome.the Cannibal spirits,

albeit with the help of his female

relative (whom he had the power
to command).

He wore his ceremonial robes.
Over his shoulders he wore a fine
Chilkat blanket, carefully woven
of yellow, white and black wools.
On his head he wore the cere-
monial head-dress, decorated with

abalone shell and ermine fur. |

Around his waist was a cere-
monial dance apron, heavily dec-
orated with beads, and carrying

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we cet pet ,

many little tinkling bells. He had
abalone shells at his ankles and
wrists, and his face was painted
with the tribal marks.

He danced, This was quite dif-
ferent from the fearful, careful

dancing when he was not. sure ‘

whether he could overcome the
evil ones.

This was a proud dance.
steps were measured and stately,
performed with sureness. Where
before he had crouched, with
wild and furtive motion, now he
stood and danced erect, proud,
sure, self-sufficient. '

The change was startling. eIn
front of the fire, he paused, and
here he performed the dance that

would from then on be his own

personal dance.

Again the tempo of the singing
changed. This time the song had
a free and happy lilt, for this
song was to tell the people that
the dancer had been accepted in-
to the Ha’matsa society, the So-
ciety of Wild Men, sometimes in-
appropriately called the Cannibal

Societies. The Ha’matsa had
danced his dance.
eo

There followed one of those odd
Kwakiutl secret dances. We could
not see a great deal of what went
on, but it appeared that a young
girl had swallowed a pine needle
and had so become with child of
a supernatural being. When this
haby was born, it had turned into
a frog. We saw the frog, a carv-
ed figure about the size of a nor-
mal baby, which was chased out
of the lodge because it was un-
wanted.

There is, of course, a real story
behind the ceremony but the
writer was unable to ascertain
what it was.

Next, ‘Nakapenkim crossed the

: floor to speak to a young woman

who was sitting on the right. She
arose and followed him, and stood
just in front of the old chiefs,
and behind the logge fire.

Then six children, ranging in
age from six to sixteen arose and
took their place along side her.
Each was caparisoned in button
blankets, a sort of ceremonial
robe; and each had a ceremonial
head-dress placed on his or her
head.

Then Nakapenkim spoke. He
told us that this girl was his niece.
She had left her village and mar-
ried a white man.

Through the years, she had
brought miuch honor to her peo-
ple. She had raised her children
to have a real appreciation of
their heritage, and because of
this, he said, the children were
proud to come and help him when

The *

MAR.

he gave his potlatch. So, said
Chief Nakapenkim, he intended
to give each of these children a
name belonging only to their In-
dian ancestors, and he proceeded
to invest them. :

To the youngest girl he gave
the name of her great grand-
mother (his own mother’s name);
to the two girl’s next oldest he
gave the two names of‘his sister .
(their maternal grandmother); to
the three boys, who were the old-
est of the children, he picked
names from amongst the legend-
ary names of their own ancestors,
and he completed the ceremony
by reinvesting the young woman
with her own tribal name. This
reinvestment was designed, to
strengthen: her name fourfold.

The young woman was Mrs.
Ellen Neel, world-famous carver
of totem poles. Her pride in the
honor conferred on her was evi-
dent.

Next we were shown the gen-
eological dance of the chief: Nak-
apenkim is, in private life, Mun-
go Martin, uncle of Ellen Neel,
student of Charlie James, and
himself a far-renowned Native
artist. : ioe

In this dance, there are from
thirteen to twenty masks involved.
The first being Wolf, calls. each
suecessive dancer. from behind
the curtain, and as the. dancers
perform, Wolf goes continually
back to the curtain to call in the
other dancers,” =:

Marten, Land Otter, Kingfisher,
Wren, Squirrel, Large and Little
Deer, Raccoon, Mouse, and Night-
Owl were easily recognizable
when pointed out. There were
others not so readily recognized.

Each dancer did the same
movements, but each danced as
the animal he was supposed to
represent would dance if he were
there in the flesh.

As the old chiefs sang Nakapen-
kim’s song, each dancer moved,
jumped, gyrated, fluttered or
simply moved as the. choreogra-
phy required. se

As one looked along the circle
of dancers, the thought was in-
escapable that here was a drama
which must have taken a very
long time to perfect. And when
one finds out that every word of
these songs, every movement of
these dancers were carried from’
generation to generation solely in
the minds of the rememberers,
then the very fact of their sur-
vival $s little less than a miracle.

We left Nakapenkim’s lodge at
nearly midnight. We were proud
to have been invited to see this
reat spectacle. May the Native
people find their future as good,
or even half as good .as they had
before the white man came to
Canada.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — FEBRUARY 5, 1954 — PAGE 9