CHAPTER XXXVI

POTLATCH AND DEVIL DANCE

The potlatch was the greatest institution of the Indian and is to this day. It was the crowning glory of the Indian life and worth the meade of a thousand victories over the foe. It was the ambition of the hyas tyee, the politics of every ruler who could secure wealth enough to accomplish the great and glorious end. It impoverished the giver but brought gladness to the hearts of the people, and honor ever after to him who gave. It was a beautiful custom; beautiful in the eyes of the natives of high or low degree, confined to no particular tribe but to be met with everywhere along the coast. It no doubt had its origin far back in the misty past. Come from whence—who can tell? Perhaps, through the generations of the world down through all the ups and downs and changes and variation of mankind, keeping step with that most beautiful of all civilized customs, the gifts of Yuletide, for Christ’s sake, and perchance the very same origin marked the beginning of both.

Before the introduction of the cloths and implements of civilized man, the simple native satisfied himself and the people by giving of those things he could gather from the chase or manufacture by his crude arts. Skins of wild animals fancifully wrought and colored, the wild ponies of his herds, bows and arrows, his canoes, everything he sacrificed on the altar of the potlatch which meant a gift, to give, etc. When he was enabled to get blankets, knives, guns, etc., from the whites the potlatch took a wider range and not even the glittering yellow gold was spared the sacrifice. The great day set so many suns or moons ahead, arrived, great was the interest and excitement of the occasion. From far and near assembled the invited guests and tribes and with feasting, singing, chanting and dancing, the bounteous collection was distributed; a chief was made penniless, the wealth of a life time was dissipated in an hour, but his head forever after was crowned with the glory of a satisfied ambition; he had won the honor and reverence of the people.

The gifts were not always preserved by the recipients, especially with some of the Sound tribes for it was a work of a noble unselfish brave to immediately destroy whatever had been thrown to him. So it was that fine new blankets, guns, bows and arrows and the like were often destroyed scarcely before they touched the ground. At the Old-Man-House potlatches have been given within the residency of the whites when the frenzied Indians have fallen upon a shower of gifts and soon had them entirely destroyed. The blankets, easily secured by barter with the Hudsons Bay company’s agents, were usually hung up and with knives and daggers would in a twinkling be slashed and cut into hundreds of fragments and strips. The blankets in those days cost a great deal of money, $10 to $20 a pair, so that in a very short time hundreds of dollars worth of valuables would soon be destroyed.

Back in the distant past and not within the memory of the Indians of to-day the ceremony had its attendant features of a more heathenish kind, for the blood of sacrifice was spilled as a more fitting observance of the grand occasion. Slaves succumbed to the horrible rites and moaned out their death chants which blended and contrasted with the mirthful song of their possessors, engaged for the time in their dance of blood. An incident of the awful tragedies is inspiringly told, if such a construction can be put upon it, by an early missionary, an eye witness, whose description is re-clothed in the splendid words of Hezzekiah Butterworth:

“I once witnessed a potlatch and I hope I may never see such a scene again. I had landed among a tribe of northern Indians on the Whulge, where I had gathered a little church some months before, and I expected to hold a meeting on the night I arrived in one of the canoes. The place was deserted; the woods were all silent. Sunset flashed his red light along the sea, such a sunset as one only sees here in these northern latitudes. A wannish glare of smoky crimson lingering long into the night. As soon as the sun went down I began to hear a piping sound like birds in all the woods around. The calls answered one another everywhere. I had never heard a sound like that. I tried to approach one of the sounds but it receded before me.

“Suddenly a great fire blazed up and lit the sky. I approached it; it was built on a little prairie. Near it was a large platform covered with canoes, blankets, pressed fish, berry cakes, soap—clayey or berry soap, wampum and beads. Not an Indian was in sight save one. She was an old squaw bound to a stake or tree.

“‘What is this?’ I asked in Chinook.

“‘Cultus tee-hee.’

“‘Cultus tee-hee?’

“‘Dah-blo!’

“She wailed in Chinook.

“‘When—tamala?’ (to-morrow.)

“‘Ding Ding’—

“‘Cultus tee-hee.’

“‘Cultus hee-hee.’

“‘Dah-blo!’

“Then I knew that all was preparation for a potlatch, and that there was to be a devil dance—ding ding—at that very hour.

“It was a night of the full moon, as such a night would be selected for such a ceremony. The moon rose red in the smoky air, and the sounds like the bird calls grew louder and wilder. Then there was a yell; it was answered everywhere, and hundreds of Indians in paint and masks came running out of the timber upon the prairie. Some were on all fours, some had the heads of beasts, fishes and birds, some had wings and many tails.

“Then came biters attended by raving squaws. The biters were to tear the flesh from the arms of any who were not found at the dance after a certain hour.

“Now the drums began to beat and the shells to blow. Indians poured out of the woods in paint, blankets and beads.

“A great circle dance was formed; the ta-mahn-a-wis or spirit dance was enacted. Great gifts were made as at a pow-wow or wah-wah. Then the dark crowd grew frantic, and under the full moon gleaming on high came the devil’s dance.

“The first victim was a live dog. He was seized, torn in pieces and eaten by the dancers, so as to redden their faces with blood. The yells were now more furious; the dancers leaped into the air and circled around the old woman tied to the tree.

“I will not describe the sickening sight that followed; I will only say that the old hag, who was accused of casting an evil eye, shared the same fate as the dog.

“Why do you worship the devil?’ I asked an exhausted brave the next day.

“‘Good spirits always good; him we no fear. Please the devil and him no harm you. All well—happy; good ta-mahn-a-wis, bad ta-mahn-a-wis, see?’”

It was plain—the old philosophy of the sinking sailor who prayed ‘good lord! good devil!’ The tradition was—it came out of the long past—that the devil must be appeased.