Opposite Contraries (22 page)

Several different species of totem may be found in British Columbia. “Heraldic columns are erected by B.C. tribes to commemorate the event of a chief taking his position in the tribe by building a house. These poles vary in length from 40–60 ft. and are hollowed in back and carved in front. The general name for these among the Haidas is
keeang,
but each column has an individual distinguishing name; when a chief decides to erect a keeang and build a lodge, he invites all the tribes in the vicinity to be present. Upon arrival, they are received by dancers in costume and hospitably entertained. At the appointed time the Indians move the pole upon rollers to a hole previously dug 7–10 ft. deep (the pole has of course been already carved and ornamented). Long ropes are fastened to it, which are grasped by gangs of men, women and children who stand at a considerable distance, waiting to haul. The strongest men in the company raise the pole with their hands until it reaches their heads, when stout poles tied together in the form of shears are placed under it as supports. Sharp pointed poles are used to raise it to an angle of 45 degrees and then the signal is given for the persons at the ropes to haul. With a loud shout,
the butt is dropped; the column being set plumb is then packed around the base with earth. The crowd repairs to the house of the owner, who gives a potlatch, a big feast being prepared, and a great distribution of all his property consisting of blankets, trinkets, money. These gifts are distributed to all gentes except the one to whom the column belongs. The Tlinkleets, Haidas and Tsimpseans erect mortuary columns upon the death of a chief. These are solid circular poles carved only on base and summit. When they are erected, a feast is given to the multitude and blankets are distributed to the makers of the pole.”

This collection contains many specimens of these mortuary columns. In Q.C.I., there are many poles in which the actual coffin is buried. These are thick cedar trunks and are placed in the earth large end up. In the top is a large cavity hollowed, and the coffin is placed within, and slabs nailed across the front with the crest carved upon them. Nos. [?] and [?] are examples of these burial posts.

“Several clans are sometimes united with a common totem. These are known as Phratry. The phratry with its common totem and interests embraces several clans, each with its own subcrest, There are several phratries among the tribes of B.C. This totem is a material object revered by a body of men and women who believe themselves to be of one blood, descended from same ancestor and bound to protect each other, on account of this kinship and faith in same totem. By means of clan totems the clan name was perpetuated among the Indian tribes as shown by totem posts where name of clan usually surmounts the column, family history and genealogical record being contained in carvings below.
Personal or inherited columns
are common among the native tribes of B.C. Early in life the Indian
seeks a lonely spot in Forest, Mountain or Prairie. Here he fasts and prays until (in a dream) is revealed to him his personal totem, in the form of some animal whom he kills, preserving the skin so that he may ever have it with him to protect and guide him. He must never afterward kill or eat any of its kind. Whenever he goes as a hunter or a warrior it must accompany him to assure success and safety. If he becomes a medicine man it will reveal to him some herb as medicine that the other shamen know nothing of and he depends on its instruction to give him influence in his tribe.”

Indians believed in a multiplicity of spirits — that all nature, in all her forms, was thus animated: every object had its own soul or spirit, which was distinct from the body or material form and could separate itself from it and live an independent or ghostly existence. Not only were these objects which we call animate — that is living, sentient bodies possessed of souls, or spirits — but also every insensate object. The smallest and most insignificant in common with the largest and most impressive, a blade of grass, stick or stone, the very tools or utensils made and employed by themselves, each and all possessed spirit forms more real than their corporeal ones because more permanent and indestructible. The material form of an object could be destroyed, the tool broken, the fish or deer killed and eaten, but the spirit forms of the object would still remain. Thus, the spirit world was very real to them, ever present, ever encompassing them, indeed the source of all the ill or pleasure of their existence. They were ever at the mercy of the ghosts of things whose pity must be implored, anger propitiated or goodness recompensed.

“Among the Salish of the interior every man and woman customarily had his or her personal friendly spirit or spirits, the
methods of acquiring these seem the same everywhere. The seeker goes apart by himself and undergoes a more or less lengthy course of training and self-discipline. The course continues for a period of four days to four years. (Among these people four is the mystic number and everything goes by it.) Those taking the longer course are generally seeking shamanistic or other special mystery powers; prolonged fasts, frequent bathings and exhausting bodily exercises are the means adopted for inducing the desired state — the mystic dreams and visions. With the body in this enervated condition, the mind becomes abnormally active and expectant, dreams, visions and hallucinations naturally follow. It is not difficult to realize how
real
to him must seem the vision of the looked for spirit and how firm his belief in its
actual
manifestation; the spirit of almost every object might become a totem, a few only lacked mystery power. Each class or order of people had its favourite and characteristic objects, this applied particularly to the shaman or medicine men who each possessed many familiars and were equipped by their incantations to have great influence with the spirits. Their chief familiars were objects that had reference to death, dead bodies or parts of them, nocturnal animals, darkness, gravestones and suchlike. Warriors, guardian spirits, were mostly carnivorous animals, blood, thunder and all kinds of weapons. Fishermen sought spirits of canoes, water, fishing utensils, waterfowl etc. The women’s favourite guardian spirits were objects used by themselves such as baskets, kettles, buckets, packing lines etc. Once a person believed himself under the protection of one of these spirits his first act was to secure this thing and carry it on his person, or, if this were not possible, to hide it in some place accessible in time of need or trouble.

“Dr. Peet says that human figures were used to represent totems although they were sometimes employed to show the mythologies which prevailed and when such [was] the case, a higher type of totemism has been introduced. It has been claimed that the monkey may be seen on the totem posts of the Haidas but no animal of that description has been found upon the North West Coast. The figure supposed to be that of the monkey being the bear with a human face and form.”

One of these old mythological legends told me in Kispiox ran thus: it is in connection with pole No. 82. This pole represents a woman’s figure on the base with a frog coming out of each eye and another out of the mouth. This is the story: A beautiful young woman went down to the water to clean her fish. She looked about her for a large flat stone to sit upon while she worked. A monster in [the] form of a frog had long loved her, but she would have nothing to do with him. She used to climb on a tree leaning over the water and taunt him when he would vainly try to clasp her reflection. So when he saw her come to clean her fish, he flattened himself out among the stones, and she, taking him to be a large flat stone, sat upon his back and began to clean her fish. Stealthily, he slid into the water, bearing her with him, and down he dived to the bottom where the fish were his slaves, the frogs his servants. The ducks and geese on the top of the water were the sentinels guarding his realm. For long she lived under there and wept and mourned to get back to her home and husband, but in vain. At last it was revealed to her by her guardian spirit that there was a certain weed which all these people were very fond of and which if eaten by them would produce a sound sleep (we will suppose it was a seaweed); she procured large quantities of this weed
which they all devoured greedily and were soon fast asleep. She passed by the monster and his people and rose to the top of the waters, but the ducks and geese refused to touch her weed. Now up to this time ducks and geese had been blind. They possessed eyes, but the slits had not been made so they could not see through the lids. She asked these poor blind creatures if they would not like to see. Of course they said yes, so she offered to slit all their eyes if they would let her pass. This she did, but she was in such a hurry lest the people below should awake and miss her that she had little time for care and she cut them all crooked. That is the reason that to this day you will frequently see wild ducks and geese with one eye larger than the other or with crooked lids. But the woman escaped and got back to her husband. The poor fowls were too bewildered with their first sight of the world to think anything about her.

The Haidas or people of Queen Charlotte Islands are a particularly fine race of people. They are very clever workers and excel in carving; as well as the large cedar columns, they make smaller totem poles of carved slate [argillite] which they get from parts of the southern island. These are beautiful and take a very fine polish when finished. They also carve pipes, boxes and other things out of this slate. Of late years, however, there are very few people left who do this work and it is of a poorer type to cater to the tourist trade, neither so fine nor so true as the older carvings. These people also do beautiful metalwork, gold and silver bracelets etc., besides their fine basketry. The basketry of the Indians is a very fine art. Every tribe of people have their own style of baskets and various materials are used, viz. cedar roots, cedar-bark, rushes, grass, birchbark, also the quills of birds and the porcupine. Regarding the purpose of ornamentation and design on
these baskets, “to imagine them only ornamentation would be to misrepresent their true character and the original intention of the basket maker. The primary purpose of all design and representations among primitive people was not decorative in the sense in which we use the word but symbolical of certain ideas or to represent their totems and tutelary spirits, for it was customary to carve these upon many of their personal belongings and utensils.” These ideas and forms are sometimes so conventionalized as to be unreadable to us, but the symbolism is clear enough to the Indian.

There is a great dignity about the Haida people. They take life more seriously than most tribes. It was interesting to note that the faces of their totems were more austere and grim in appearance. I only saw one smile, No. [?]. Up the Skeena River, on the contrary, the Tsimpseans seem to regard life in a more cheerful light, and there were many more cheerful countenances depicted. Another peculiarity about the two districts that I noted was this — the unpainted poles on the islands become very grey and pale pearly tints from exposure to the elements and their crevices become covered with moss, whereas those up the Skeena become warm brown in colour and almost appear like new wood, though on close observation you can see they are of great age and much worn. The Haida people have diminished vastly in numbers. I was told that whereas thirty years ago there were 30,000 natives in the Skidegate Inlet, they now number three hundred souls. A terrible scourge of smallpox in the islands wiped out many of their villages. The people have now formed themselves into two bands, the Masset people on the North Island, the Skidegate on the south.

The other villages stand forsaken. I visited some of those old places, and their solemn forsaken loneliness and dignity is
indeed wonderful. Very few houses are left standing though you always find traces of the solid beams and posts of the old potlatch houses still standing. There was a terrible ceremony attached to the building of these great houses, for it was customary to put live slaves in the postholes and plant the post on top of them.

I got a Haida man and his wife to take me to Cha-atl. Up the Skidegate Inlet we went in a wide deep fishing boat with a gasoline engine in it. These people are ideal travelling companions and born campers. The trip was only planned late the evening before and we started at nine the next morning, but nothing was forgotten; even the cat came along, and the ease and method with which they made camp were astonishing.

The day of our start was perfect. We stopped at an old village and made lunch and I sketched all the poles left standing, some five or six in number. I never yet saw an Indian village that was not beautifully situated, the very pick of the land all about, and no one loves and absorbs that beauty more than the Indian. It has been my privilege to know some Indians intimately (and it is necessary to know these people well before they will speak freely before you). On asking them of the country (as to its situation and pictorial advantages for my work), I have heard some of the most beautiful and expressive descriptions of places, often times in broken English with Chinook intermingled. But it is more than the superficial appearance of the place they give to you. They have absorbed its beauty, its calm and its intensity, and they make you “feel” it. They are full of poetry, these people.

Skidegate Inlet is lovely. In places it is quite narrow and also very shallow, needing a very careful steersman; here the man
stood upon the boat’s prow and looked down through the clear water for the channel. No word was spoken; he signalled with his arms, the woman steered accordingly. There was no fuss or worry. I did not know ’til afterwards that these shallows were a difficult and dangerous piece of water to navigate. We were followed up almost the entire inlet by large shoals of porpoises who gambolled round the boat with mad antics and made a splendid sight leaping as they did right out of the water. Six and eight abreast on both sides of the boat as if at a given signal. They did not leave us until we came to shallow water.

We reached Cha-atl late in the afternoon. It is situated almost at the mouth of the Skidegate Inlet on the West Coast in a beautiful little bay. Many poles are still standing and many many more are lying among the intensely thick underbrush, moss grown and rotting. There are, though, fine specimens left. No. [?] is a sample of three large ones standing in the centre of the group. We were in full sound of the roar of the West Coast surf, that West coast of Q.C.I. with its fearful reputation; few venture round there. The sea is always rough, treacherous and wicked. Men who have seen it tell me that they have never anywhere seen such an absolutely wild, ferociously rugged coast.