Tom is a blind old man, whose staff may be heard any day stumping or splashing along the village street of his tribal reservation, or up or down the hillside that slopes to the smoke-drying huts massed by the Somass river. He is an honored member of the Ts’isha’ath, a Nootka tribe that is now permanently located a few miles up from the head of Alberni Canal, the deepest inlet on the west coast of Vancouver Island. The Ts’isha’ath fishes and harpoons along the river, the length of the “Canal,” and down among the hundreds of islands that dot Barkley Sound, the first of the large bays north of Cape Beale that are carved out on the stormy coast line of the island.

Tom’s early life was passed at the now abandoned village of Hikwis, whose row of houses looked out upon the main water of the Sound, but for decades he has led an uneventful existence in his river reservation and its vicinity, old summer fishing grounds that were conquered in the first instance by his people from an alien tribe. Within convenient reach are the slowly booming white men’s towns of Alberni and Port Alberni, where one may lay in a supply of biscuits and oranges for a tribal feast, or make periodic complaint to the Indian Agent. Tom is now old and poverty-stricken, but the memory of his former wealth is with his people. The many feasts he has given and the many ceremonial dances and displays he has had performed have all had their desired effect—they have shed luster on his sons and daughters and grandchildren, they have “put his family high” among the Ts’isha’ath tribe, and they have even carried his name to other, distant Nootka tribes, and to tribes on the east coast of the island that are of alien speech. Nowadays he spends much of his time by the fireside, tapping his staff in accompaniment to old ritual tunes that he is never tired of humming.

Tom’s present name is Sayach’apis, Stands-up-high-over-all. It is an old man’s name of eight generations’ standing, that hails from the Hisawist’ath, a now extinct Nootka tribe with which Tom is connected through his father’s mother’s mother, who was herself a Hisawist’ath on her mother’s side. The tribe is extinct, but its personal names, like its songs and legends and distinctive ritualistic ceremonies, linger on among the neighboring tribes through the fine spun network of inheritance. The name “Stands-up-high-over-all,” like practically all Nootka, and indeed all West Coast names, has its legendary background, its own historical warrant. The first Nootka chief to bear the name, obtained it in a dream. He was undergoing ritualistic training in the woods in the pursuit of “power” for the attainment of wealth, and had not slept for a long time. At last he fell into a heavy slumber, and this is what he dreamed: The Sky Chief appeared to him and said, “Why are you sleeping, Stands-up-high-over-all? You are not really desirous of getting wealthy, are you? I was about to make you wealthy and to give you the name Stands-up-high-over-all.” The ironical touch is a characteristic nuance in these origin legends. And so the name, a supernatural gift, was handed down the generations, now by direct male inheritance, now as a dower to a son-in-law, resident at some village remote from its place of origin. This is the normal manner, actually or in theory, of the transmission of all privileges, and though the owner of a privilege may be a villager a hundred miles or more distant from its historical or legendary home, he has not completely established his right to its use unless he has shown himself, directly or by reference to a speaker acquainted with tribal lore, possessed of the origin legend, the local provenance, and the genealogical tree or “historical” nexus that binds him to the individual, that is believed to have been the first to enjoy the privilege.

Tom did not always have the name of Sayach’apis, nor need he keep it to the end of his days. He assumed it over thirty years ago on the occasion of his great potlatch, a puberty feast in honor of his now deceased oldest daughter. At that time he had the young man’s name of Nawe’ik, now borne by his oldest son, Douglas. It is a name belonging to the Nash’as’ath sept or tribal subdivision of the Ts’isha’ath, and was first dreamt by Tom’s maternal grandfather. It is thus a name of comparatively recent origin, nor does it possess that aura of noble association that attaches to Tom’s present name. Its exact meaning is unknown, but it is said to have been a command—“Come here!”—of a spirit whale, dreamt of by its first possessor. Tom assumed it at a potlatch he gave to his own tribe when he was not yet married. It was just about the time that the discovery of placer gold in the Frazer river was bringing a considerable influx of whites to British Columbia.

Before this, Tom was known as Kunnuh, a Nitinat young man’s name, “Wake up!”, which is again based on the dream of a spirit whale. The Nitinat Indians are a group of Nootka tribes that occupy the southwest coast of the island, and Tom’s claim to the name and to other Nitinat privileges comes to him through his paternal grandfather, himself a Nitinat Indian. The name originated with his grandfather’s father’s father’s father, who received it in a dream as he was training for “power” in whaling. It was assumed by Tom when he was about ten years of age, at a naming feast given the Ts’isha’ath Indians by his Nitinat grandfather. It displaced the boy’s name Ha’wihlkumuktli, “Having-chiefs-behind,” this time of true Ts’isha’ath origin and descending to Tom through his paternal grandmother’s father’s father, who again received the name in a dream from a spirit whale. This ancestor was having much success in whaling and, becoming exceedingly wealthy, was “leaving other chiefs behind him.” Tom was given the name at an ordinary feast by his paternal grandfather.

The earliest name that Tom remembers having is Tl’i’nitsawa, “Getting-whale-skin.” When the great chief Hohenikwop had his whale booty towed to shore, the little boys used to come to the beach for slices of whale skin, so he made up the name of “Getting-whale-skin” for his son. The right to use it was inherited by his oldest son, but was also passed on to the chief’s younger sister, who brought it as a dowry to the father of Tom’s paternal grandfather. Tom himself received the name on the occasion of a mourning potlatch given by his paternal grandfather in honor of his son, Tom’s father, who had died not long before. Before this, Tom had a child’s nickname, in other words, a name bestowed not out of the inherited stock of names claimed by his parents, but created on the spot for any chance reason whatever. Such nicknames have no ceremonial value, are not privileges, and are therefore not handed down as an inheritance or transferred as a dowry. Tom has forgotten what his nickname was.

At the very outset, in the mere consideration of what Tom has called himself at various times, we are introduced to the two great social forces that give atmosphere to Nootka life. The first of these is privilege, the right to something of value, practical or ceremonial. Such a privilege is called “topati” by the Indians, and one cannot penetrate very far into their life or beliefs without stumbling upon one topati after another. The second is the network of descent and kinship relation that determines the status of the North West Coast Indian, not merely as a tribesman once for all, but in reference to his claim to share in any activity of moment. The threads of the genealogical past are wound tightly about the North West Coastman; he is himself a traditional composite of social features that belong to diverse localities, and involve him in diverse kinship relations.

As far back, then, as he can remember, Tom has been steeped in an atmosphere of privilege, of rank, of conflicting claims to this or that coveted right. As far back as he can remember, he has heard remarks like this: “Old man Tootooch has no right to have such and such a particular Thunder-bird dance performed at his potlatches. His claim to it is not clear. In my grandfather’s days men were killed for less than that, and the head chief of the Ahous’ath tribe, who has the primary claim to the dance, would have called him sharply to order.” But he has also heard Tootooch vigorously support his claim with arguments, genealogical and other, that no one quite knows the right or wrong of. And as far back as he can remember, Tom has been accustomed to think of himself not merely as a Ts’isha’ath, though he is primarily that by residence and immediate descent, but as a participant in the traditions, in the social atmosphere, of several other Nootka tribes. He has always known where to look for his remoter kinsmen, dwelling in villages that are dotted here and there on a long coast line.

The first few years of Tom’s life were spent in a “cradle” of basketry, in which he was tightly swathed by sundry wrappings and braids of the soft, beaten inner bark of the cedar. Even now he has a vague recollection of looking out over the sea from the erect vantage of a cradling basket, looped behind his mother’s shoulders. He also thinks he remembers crying bitterly one time when left all by himself in the basket, stood up on end against the butt of a willow tree, while his mother and four or five other women had strayed off to dig for edible clover roots with their hard, pointed digging-sticks.

During the cradling period, Tom was having his head, or rather his forehead, gradually flattened by means of cedar-bark pads, and the upper and lower parts of his legs were bandaged so as to allow the calves to bulge. The Indians believe that they do not like big foreheads and slim legs, nor do they approve of wide eyebrows, which are narrowed, if necessary, by plucking out some of the hairs. Later on in life Tom was less particular about his natural appearance, having been well “fixed” by his mother in infancy. Like the other men of his tribe, he has never bothered to pluck out the scanty growth of hair on his face. Some of the Indians of Tom’s acquaintance have tattooed themselves, generally on the breast, with designs referring to their hunting experiences, or to crest privileges—a quarter-moon or a sea lion or a pair of Thunder-birds,—but Tom has never bothered to do this. Aside from the head-flattening of infancy, Tom has never had any portion of his body mutilated, unless the perforation of his ears and the septum of his nose, for the attachment of ear and nose pendants of the bright rainbow-like abalone, strung by sinew threads, be considered a mutilation. These pendants, which he and other Indians have long discarded, were worn purely for ornament; they had no importance as ceremonial insignia.

In spite of the fact that neither razor nor tweezers have ever smoothed out the hairy surface of his face, Tom has not altogether neglected the care of his body. To prevent chapping, he has often rubbed himself with tallow and red paint, and in his younger days he was in the habit of keeping himself in good condition by a cold plunge, at daybreak, in river or sea. The vigorous rubbing down with hemlock branches which followed, until the skin all tingled red, helped to give tone to his body. He could not afford to miss the plunge and rub-down for more than two or three days at a time, if only because to have done so would have brought upon him the contempt and derision of his comrades. No aspiring young hunter of the seal and the sea lion could allow himself to be called a woman. In the course of his long life Tom has painted his face in a great variety of ways, whether for festive occasions, or in the private quest of supernatural power in some secluded spot in the woods. Some of these face paints—and there are hundreds of them in use among the Nootka—are geometrical patterns, others are emblematic of supernatural beings and animals. Many of them, like the songs and dances with which they are associated, are looked upon as valuable privileges.

It is long since Tom has worn or seen worn native costume—what little there was of it—but he distinctly remembers the blankets and cedar-bark garments that his people wore when he was a boy and, indeed, well on into his days of manhood. The heavy rains of the Coast, and the constant necessity of splashing in and out of the canoes along the beach, made tight-fitting garments and cumbrous foot- and leg-wear undesirable. The Nootka Indians wore no clinging shirts or leggings or moccasins. They are a barefoot and a bare-legged people. Those of the men who could afford more than a breechclout wore a blanket robe loosely thrown about the body, either a hide—of bear or the far more valuable sea otter—or a woven blanket, whether of the inner bark strands of the “yellow cedar” or the long, fleecy hair of the native dogs. The women wore cedar-bark “petticoats,” which are nothing but loosely fitting girdles, fringed with long tassels of cedar bark. In rainy weather, they also wore woven hats of cedar-bark strands or split root fibers, round topped and cone-like. When the weather was thick and heavy with rain—and this happens often enough in the winter—both men and women wore raincapes of cedar-bark or rush matting. The children ran about completely naked.

The food that Tom was accustomed to in his early days did not differ materially from his present fare. It was then, and is now, chiefly fish—boiled, steam-baked, spit-roasted, or smoked. In all his early haunts, in the houses and along the beach, everywhere he was immersed in grateful, fishy odors. From the earliest time that he can remember anything at all, he has been daily confronted by some aspect of the life of a fishing people, whether it be the catching of salmon trout by the boys with their two-barbed fish spears; or the spearing or trolling or netting of salmon by the older men; or the getting in the sea of herrings with herring rakes, of halibut with the peculiar, gracefully bent halibut hooks that every Indian even now has kicking around in his box of odds and ends, of cod with twirling decoys and spears that have two prongs of unequal length—“older” and “younger”; or the hanging up of salmon in rows to dry in the smoke houses, so that this all-important fish may still contribute his share of the food supply, long after the last salmon of the late fall has ceased to run; or the splitting up of the salmon by the women as a first preliminary to cooking; or any one of the hundreds of other scenes that make of a fisher folk a fish-handling and a fish-eating people.

Second in importance to fish are the various varieties of edible shellfish and other soft bodied inhabitants of the sea—mussels and clams and sea urchins, sea cucumbers, and octopuses. The flesh of the octopus or “devil-fish,” though not an important article of food, was considered quite a dainty, and feasts were often given in which it figured as a special feature, like crab apples or like the apples or oranges of present-day feasts. Far more important than these mushy foods, though probably subsidiary, on the whole, to salmon and other fish, was the flesh of sea mammals—the humpbacked whale, the California whale, the sea otter, the sea lion, and, most important of all, the hair seal.

Tom has harpooned his fill of seals in the course of his life and, like most other Nootka men of the last generation, has done a considerable amount of commercial sealing for white firms in Behring Sea. He has caught a few sea otters, which are now all but extinct, but no sea lions or whales, though he claims to have the hereditary privilege to hunt these animals, and to possess the indispensable magical knowledge without which their quest is believed by the Nootka to be doomed to failure.

Boiled whale and seal meat were highly prized and there was no more joyous event to break the monotony of tribal life than the towing to shore of a harpooned whale, or the drifting to shore of a whale carcass. In either case the flensing knives were quickly got ready, the carcass cut up, and feasts held in the village. Tom remembers how excitedly—he was then but a boy of ten or so—he once reported the appearance of a drifting whale carcass a quarter-mile from shore, how the whole village rushed into its canoes, and how they laboriously floated it on to the sandy beach, with their stout lanyards of cedar rope wound with nettle-fiber. The whale was cut up carefully, under the direction of a “measurer” into its traditionally determined portions, which were then distributed, according to hereditary right, to those entitled to receive them. Tom himself got the meat about the navel as a reward for his find. There was an unusual amount of whale oil tried out that time, and the fires at the feasts leaped higher than ever as the oil was thrown upon them, lighting up in lurid flashes the house posts carved into the likenesses of legendary ancestors.

Tom ate very little meat of land animals in his early days. Indeed, like most of the Coast people, he had a prejudice against deer meat and it was not until, as a middle-aged man, he had come into contact with some of the deer-hunting tribes of the interior of the island, that he learned to prize it, though even to this day venison has not for him the toothsome appeal of a chunk of whale meat. Fish and meat were the staples, yet not the only foods. The women dug up a variety of edible roots such as clover and fern root, which made a welcome change, while blackberries, salmon berries, soapberries, and other varieties, frequently dried and pressed for winter consumption, added a sweetening to the somewhat monotonous fare. One relish Tom has never learned to enjoy—salt. All the older Nootka Indians detest salt in their food.

As Tom grew up, he became initiated into the chief handicrafts of his tribe. He got to be rather skillful at working in wood, both the soft red cedar and the hard yew and spirÆa, familiarizing himself with the various wood-working processes—felling trees with wedges and stone hammers, splitting out planks, smoothing with adzes, drilling, handling the curved knife, steaming, and bending by the “kerfing” or notching process. Even in his youngest years, iron-bladed and iron-pointed tools had almost completely replaced the aboriginal implements of stone and shell, but the forms themselves, of the manufactured objects, underwent little or no modification down to the present day. In the course of his long life Tom has made hundreds of wooden articles of use—boxes with telescoping lids, paddles, bailers, fish clubbers, adze handles, ladles, bows, arrow shafts, fire drills, latrines, root diggers, fish spears, and shafts for sealing and whaling harpoons. He has also assisted in making dugout canoes, and has often prepared and put in position the heavy posts and beams of the large quadrangular houses that were still being built in his youth. On the other hand, Tom has never developed much aptitude in the artistic decoration of objects. Such things as paintings on house boards and paddles, or realistic carvings in masks, rattles, ornamental fish clubbers and house posts, are rather beyond his power and have had to be made for him, when required, by others more clever than himself. The one thing that Tom grew to be most proficient in was the preparation of house planks of desired lengths and widths. When he was a young man, he would travel about in canoes from village to village with the stock of planks he had on hand, and trade them for blankets, strings of dentalium shells, dried fish, whale oil, and other exchangeable commodities. It was through trading, rather than through personal success in fishing or hunting, that Tom amassed in time a considerable share of wealth, and it was through his wealth and the opportunity it gave him to make lavish distributions at potlatches or feasts, rather than through nobility of blood, that he came to occupy his present honorable position among his tribesmen.

While Tom and the other men, when they were not busy “potlatching” or visiting some relative, or taking a run down to Victoria, were engaged in fishing and sea mammal hunting and wood-working, the women prepared the food, dug for edible roots, gathered clams, and spent what time they could spare from these and similar tasks in the weaving and plaiting of blankets, matting, and baskets. What receptacles were not of wood were of basketry, while mats of various sorts did duty for tables, hangings, and carpeting. The materials of these baskets and mats, the omnipresent cedar bark and the rush, frayed easily, so that the women were kept constantly busy replenishing the household stock. Even now one can hardly enter a Nootka house without seeing one or more of the women twilling mats and baskets with strips of softened cedar bark or twining the cedar-bark strands into cordage and bags, or threading a rush mat with the long needles of polished spirÆa. In the old days, there was always in the house a great clatter of breaking up the raw, yellow cedar bark with the corrugated bark beaters of bone of whale, and of loosening up the hard strips of red cedar bark into fibrous masses with the half-moon shredders. The women could work up the bark into almost any degree of fineness; indeed, the cedar-bark “wool” that was used to pad the cradles is almost as soft and fluffy in feel as down or cotton batting. When Tom was a boy, the women made only plain, unornamented baskets, whether twined or twilled, and ornamented the mats with sober, but effective lines of alder-dyed red and mud-dyed black. Since then, however, they have taken to making also trinket baskets and plaques of the peculiar wrapped weave, beautifully ornamented with realistic and geometrical designs in the black and white weft of grass. This art came to Tom’s people from the Nitinats or Southern Nootka, who in turn owe it to the Makah of Cape Flattery. Trade with the whites is the chief incentive in the making of these finer specimens of basketry.

Nowadays the Nootka live in small frame houses, a family, in our narrower sense of the word, to a house. It was not so when Tom was young. The village of Hikwis, in which he was raised, consisted of a row of long plank houses, each constructed on a heavy quadrangular frame of posts, which were the trimmed trunks of cedars, and of crossbeams of circular section resting on the posts. The roofing and walls were of cedar planks, running lengthwise of the house. The floor was the bare earth, stamped smooth, and a slightly raised platform ran along the rear and the long sides of the house. On the inner floor one or more fires were built, the smoke escaping through openings in the roof, provided by merely shoving a roofing plank or two to a side. Tom early learned not to stand erect in the house any more than he could help. The smoke circulating in the upper reaches of the house, particularly in rainy weather when the smoke-hole rafters were closed, was trying to the eyes, and people found it convenient to sit or crouch on the floor as much as possible. Some of the houses, like the one in which Tom was brought up, had paintings or carvings referring to the crests or legendary escutcheons of the chief of the tribe, tribal subdivision, or house group. In Tom’s house the main escutcheons were two Thunder-birds, face to face, painted on the outside of the wall planks; a series of round holes cut in the roof, and one in front that served as a door, all representing moons; and paintings of wolves on the boards that ran below the platforms. The chief of the house group, together with his immediate family, occupied the rear of the house; other families of lesser rank, kin to the chief by junior lines of descent, occupied various positions along the sides. Slaves were also housed in the long communal dwelling. They were not, like the middle class, undistinguished relations of the chief’s families, but strangers, captured in war or bartered off like any chattels. The mat beds of the individual families were made on the platforms and were screened off from one another as required.

In such a house Tom early learned his exact relationship to all his kinsmen. He soon learned also the degree of his relationship to the neighboring house groups. He applied the terms “brother” and “sister” not only to his immediate brothers and sisters but to his cousins, near and remote, of the same generation. He distinguished, among all these remoter brothers and sisters, “older” and “younger,” not according to their actual ages in relation to his own, but according to whether they belonged to lines of descent that were senior or junior to his own. Primogeniture, he gradually learned, both of self and progenitor, meant superiority in rank and privilege. Hence the terms “older” and “younger,” almost from the beginning, took on a powerful secondary tinge of “superior” and “inferior.” The absurdity of calling some little girl cousin, perhaps ten years his junior, his “older sister” was for him immensely less evident because of his ever present consciousness of her higher rank. As Tom grew older, he became cognizant of an astonishing number of uncles and aunts, grandfathers and grandmothers, of endless brothers-in-law—far and near. He was very much at home in the world. Wherever he turned, he could say, “Younger brother, come here!” or “Grandfather, let me have this.” The personal names of most of his acquaintances were hardly more than tags for calling out at a distance, or at ceremonial gatherings.

Along with his feeling of personal relationship to individuals there grew up in Tom a consciousness of the existence of tribal subdivisions in the village. The Ts’isha’ath tribe, with which he was identified by residence, kinship, and upbringing, proved really to be a cluster of various smaller tribal units, of which the Ts’isha’ath, that gave their name to the whole, were the leading group. The other subdivisions were originally independent tribes that had lost their isolated distinctness through conquest, weakening in numbers, or friendly removal and union. Each of the tribal subdivisions or “septs” had its own stock of legends, its distinctive privileges, its own houses in the village, its old village sites and distinctive fishing and hunting waters that were still remembered in detail by its members. While the septs now lived together as a single tribe, the basis of the sept division was really a traditional local one. The sept grouping was perhaps most markedly brought to light at ceremonial gatherings. Tom learned in time that of all the honored seats recognized at a feast, a certain number of contiguous seats in the rear of the house belonged to representatives of the Ts’isha’ath sept, a certain number of others at the right corner in the rear to those of another sept, and so on. Thus, the proper ranking of the septs was ever kept before the eye by the definite assignment of seats of higher and lower rank.

But it must not be supposed that Tom’s childhood and youth were spent entirely in work and in the acquirement of social and ceremonial knowledge. On the contrary, what interested him at least as much as sociology was play. He spun his tops—rather clumsy looking, two-pegged tops they were—threw his gaming spears in the spear and grass game and in the hoop-rolling game, hit feathered billets with a flat bat, threw beaver teeth dice (though this was chiefly a woman’s game), and, when he grew older, took part in the favorite game of “lehal,” the almost universal Western American guessing game, played with two or four gambling bones to the accompaniment of stirring songs. More properly belonging to the domain of sport was the somewhat dangerous game of canoe-upsetting, in which the contestants upset their canoes and quickly righted them at a hand-clap signal. This was an especially favored game of Tom’s. All through his life, up to the time that he lost his sight, he was as instinctively familiar with the run of water, the dip and lurch of a canoe, and the turn of a paddle, as with the movements of walking on the land. Indeed, for days on end, at certain seasons, his life flowed on insistently to the very rhythm of rising and falling wave.

In at least one class of activities and beliefs Tom constantly received definite instruction from his father and maternal uncle. This was the world of unseen things, the mysterious domain of magic, of supernaturally compelling act and of preventive tabu. There were hundreds of things he must be careful to do or to avoid if he would have success in hunting and fishing, if he would be certain that unseen but ever present powers favor him in his pursuits or, at the least, desist from visiting harm upon him. He must be particularly careful not to anger the supernatural powers, among whom are to be counted the fish and mammals of the sea, by contamination with unclean things—and most obnoxious of all unclean things is the presence or influence of a menstruating or pregnant woman. For instance, a sealer or hunter of sea lions must not drag his canoe down to the water’s edge, but have it carried over, as otherwise it might run over offal or some spot through which a menstruating woman had passed, and thus carry with it a scent that would frighten away the game. And one must be careful about his speech when hunting on the sea. A curious example of this is the fiction by which fur seal hunting is spoken of as gathering driftwood, the fur seal himself being referred to as “the one that sits yonder under a tree.” It would not do to let him know too precisely what is going on while he is being hunted! The various tabus that Tom has learnt and practised in the course of his life are almost without number, and his practical success and longevity he ascribes in no small measure to his religious observance of them all.

The tabus are largely preventive measures. But Tom learned that there are more positive ways of working one’s will in the world of magic. One of these is the use of certain amulets on the person, hidden in the house or woods, or in connection with hunting and fishing implements. As a general good-luck amulet, Tom was fond of wearing in his hat the spine of the “rat-fish.” When his father was about to die, he called Tom to him and whispered in his ear an important secret. This was that the chief life-guarding amulet of the family had been a fire drill that was secreted at the bottom of an old box filled with all sorts of odds and ends. Its efficacy depended largely on the fact that hardly anybody knew of it. In general, secrecy helps tremendously in the power of all magic objects and formulÆ. An Indian likes to withhold as much as possible, even from his nearest kin, until economic urgency or the approach of death compels him to transmit the magical knowledge to some one that is near and dear to him. Some of his most powerful amulets Tom would secrete in the canoe or hide under the cherry bark wrappings around the hafts of his hunting spears. These amulets were of all sorts, but chiefly fragments of supernatural animals—blind snakes, crabs, spiders, or the like—obtained in the woods.

Some men are fortunate in getting power for hunting, fishing, wealth, love, doctoring, witchcraft, or whatever it may be, from supernatural beings or visitations. Amulets are often obtained in connection with these experiences, which regularly take place in mysterious or out-of-the-way places—the open sea, a remote island, the summit of a mountain, the heart of the woods,—and of all mysteries, it is the mystery of the dark woods that most fascinates and inspires with dread the coast villager, so much at home on the sandy beach and on open sea spaces. The supernatural givers of power are a variegated and grotesque lot—mysterious hands pointing up out of the earth; the scaly, knife-tongued, lightning serpent; fairy-like beings; treacherous tree nymphs; hobgoblins; ogres; and strange hybrid animals that seem to have stepped out of nightmares. All these denizens of the supernatural world have power to bestow that may not with impunity be refused. This power, once obtained, must be carefully husbanded by the observance of requisite tabus.

Tom has not had as many supernatural experiences as some men, but he has nevertheless been favored by two or three striking visitations. A gnome-like being of the beneficent, wealth-giving class known as Chimimis, once appeared to him as he was sitting out at dusk in company with two other men. Though these companions had their eyes directed at the Chimimis, they could not perceive him. Tom alone, speechless with astonishment, saw him place two spears on the roof of the house, walk off to the neighboring house, and disappear, so it seemed, in a log. When Tom came to himself, he scraped off those parts of the spear shafts that the hand of the Chimimis had gripped. He preserved the scrapings as an amulet and, in time, became one of the wealthiest men of his tribe.

At another time Tom obtained power from a supernatural being known as “Full-eyed,” a diminutive, brownie-like creature. He was lying very ill in the house, gazing steadfastly at the fire, when the popping up of a little cinder caused him to raise his eyes. He saw what seemed to be a child circling the fire in a counter-clockwise direction, which is the exact opposite of the Nootka direction in dancing. He knew immediately that it was Full-eyed. The brownie carried a small storage basket on his breast, and picked up from the floor anything he could lay his hands on. Though Tom had been unable to sit up straight, this supernatural experience infused him with such sudden strength that he was now easily able to sit up. He believed also that, from this time on, wealth rolled into his house more rapidly than ever. The third of Tom’s supernatural experiences was less striking than the other two, but apparently equally potent in its practical results. Tom was reclining on the sleeping platform of the house, in the dead of winter, when he observed a strange thing in one of the storage baskets on the box that marked the head of his bed. He noticed that a big black bumblebee gave birth to an infant bee. This seemed remarkable and evidently significant in view of the fact that the young bees ordinarily come into being in the summer, only. Because Tom was sole witness to so strange an occurrence, he was more than ever favored in the accumulation of wealth.

Such extraordinary occurrences as these are clearly in the nature of accidents; they cannot be relied upon for the necessary aid in the successful prosecution of life’s work. The standard, and on the whole, the most useful means of securing this necessary aid is by the performance of secret rituals. Nothing came to one who did not undergo considerable hardship in training. This Tom learned early in life. If he wished to be a successful fisherman, or a hunter of sea mammals, or a land hunter, he had to retire at certain seasons to secret places in the woods, known only to the respective families that frequented them. Here, for days on end, he would bathe, rub himself down with hemlock branches until the skin tingled with pain, pray to the Sky Chief for long life and success, and, most important of all, carry out secret, magical performances based on the principle of imitation. If he wished to obtain power in sealing, he would build effigies of twigs representing the seal, the harpooning outfit, and the hunting canoe. The aspirants for success would dramatize the future hunt in its magical setting. He himself performed imitative actions and offered continuous prayers for success. These periods of preparation tested physical endurance to the utmost; fasting, continuous wakefulness, sexual continence, and the observance of all sorts of tabus formed part of the training. There was little that one could not learn to do, if only he were hardy enough to undergo the necessary magical preparation. Such young men as were fired with extraordinary ambitions, say unusual success in whaling or the acquirement of potent shamanistic power, would train the will and chasten the cries of the flesh for incredibly long periods, their spiritual eye fixed singly on the austerities of magical procedure.

Tom never devoted himself to unusual rigors in the acquirement of magical power. He contented himself with the normal routine enjoined upon those planning to seal, to spear salmon, to troll, to catch halibut with hooks, to spear cod with the aid of decoys, to accumulate wealth, to prepare for ritualistic performances, and to obtain enough shamanistic power to withstand the attempts of evil-minded people to bewitch him. He never ventured upon the more difficult and exhausting procedures required to make a successful whaler or hunter of sea lions. Of the more unusual types of secret ritual, Tom attempted but one. When past middle age, he was fired with the ambition to learn how to interpret the speech of ravens. The ravens are believed to be the supernatural messengers of the wolves, the most austere and eerie of all beings, in the belief of the Nootka. Could Tom have learned to unravel the mysteries concealed in the croakings of these supernatural birds, there is little doubt that he would have been able to advance in ritual power far beyond his fellow tribesmen. Unfortunately he found the quest of this difficult knowledge too exhausting, too baffling. Tom acknowledges his failure with a sigh.

The secret rituals could only be performed at auspicious periods, when the moon was waxing and when the days were becoming progressively long. It was for this reason that Tom was always very careful to keep track of the passage of time, of the recurrence of the moons. If some neighbor, less wise and observant, committed the error of taking one moon for another and of performing magical rituals out of season, Tom would say nothing. He would smile and keep counsel with himself, knowing well that his neighbor’s efforts when the hunting season came around, were doomed to failure. While Tom was one of those that never went out of his way to bewitch his neighbors or to spoil their luck, he was naturally not altogether displeased when they put themselves at a disadvantage. It was none of his business to correct them, to strengthen the hands of possible rivals.

Medicine men gained their power in a manner perfectly analogous to all other quests for magical assistance. The difference was simply that they sought aid of such beings as were known to grant power to cure diseases and to counteract witchcraft. The material guardians and amulets obtained by medicine men, generally certain birds and rarer fish, were locked away in their breasts. When required for the detection of sickness, for the cure of the diseased, or for the overcoming of an evil opponent, they could be called upon to fly invisibly to the desired goal and to return at will. Tom himself obtained a modicum of power from the mallard ducks, but not enough to warrant his considering himself a regular practitioner. He had, also, a certain inherited, shamanistic power, or rather privilege, that came to him from a Nitinat ancestor. This is why at public shamanistic performances which form part of the Ts’ayek cult, Tom’s oldest son has the right to initiate shamanistic novices at a certain point in the ceremonial procedure, though he himself is not a practising medicine man.

Many Nootka are accused of gaining power to bewitch their enemies or rivals, whether by the handling of their food, nail parings, and body effluvia, or by the pronouncing of direful spells in connection with the name and effigy of the hated person. Tom never indulged in such mean spirited pursuits, but he is very sure that many of his acquaintances have done so. It is the constant fear of witchcraft that even to this day causes the Indians to keep many dogs around the house, and to lock their doors securely at night. The barking of the dogs is useful in calling attention to malevolent “pains” or minute disease objects that wander about, particularly at night, while the locking of doors is essential in denying these objects an entrance.

The great supernatural beings of Nootka belief, such as the Sky Chief, the Thunder-bird, and the Wolves, loomed very large in Tom’s life, whether in prayer or in ritual. Certain Nootka are more deeply religious than others. They are more fervent in their prayers and they work themselves up to a greater ecstasy in the performance of rituals that are sacred to divine powers. In contrast to men of this type, Tom has always been rather sober, not a skeptic by any means, but not an emotional enthusiast. His knowledge of religious ceremonials is vast, but the spirit that animates this knowledge is rather one of order, of legal particularity, not of spiritual ecstasy. The practical economical world, the pursuit of gain, has always been more congenial to Tom’s temperament. This does not mean that Tom is a rationalist in matters relating to the unseen world. Only the educated or half-educated half-breeds are rationalists, and more than one of them has angered Tom by his ill-advised attempts to disturb him with skeptical arguments. However, there has been no change in Tom. He knows, as firmly as he knows his own name, that when the rumble of thunder is heard from the mountain, it is because the Thunder-bird is leaving his house on the peak, flapping his wings heavily, as he makes off for the sea to prey upon the whales. He knows also that when those that are not blind like himself tell him that there has been a flash of lightning, it is because the Thunder-bird has dropped the belt wound about his middle. This belt is the lightning serpent, zig-zagging down to the earth or coiling in a flash around a cedar tree.

Aside from the elementary problem of making his living, a Nootka’s main concern is to earn the esteem of his fellow tribesmen by a lavish display of wealth. It is not enough for him to accumulate it and to live in private ease. He must, from time to time, invite the other families of his tribe, and the neighboring tribes, to public ceremonies known as potlatches, in which one or more of the important privileges to which he is entitled are shown and glorified by the distribution of property to the guests. The exhibiting of privileges may take several forms. The most important of them refer to ancestral crests, which may be shown in a dramatic performance, as a picture on a board, or latterly, on canvas, or symbolized in a dance. Ceremonial games are another frequent type of exhibitions of privileges at certain potlatches. Nearly all privileges have their proper songs, which are themselves jealously guarded privileges, and which are sung on these occasions.

There are two considerations that make the public performance of the more important privileges a matter of the greatest moment. In the first place, a man must clearly indicate his right to its performance by recounting the origin myth that it dramatizes, and by tracing his personal connection with the originator of the privilege. In the second place, he must be careful to distribute at least as much property as has already been distributed in his family, in connection with the public presentation of the privilege. If it is at all possible, he will try to exceed the record, so as to add to the public prestige not only of himself and his immediate family, but of the privilege itself. Should he fail in either of these essential respects, he is shamed. Hence, an important potlatch is not to be lightly undertaken. It requires much careful thought and preparation, and it necessitates the gathering of enough wealth to pay for all the services rendered by singers and other assistants, to present substantial gifts to the guests, and to feed the crowd of men, women and children that are present at the ceremony.

A potlatch is not often given as a mere display of wealth. Nearly always it is combined with some definite social or religious function, such as the giving of a name, the coming to marriageable age of a daughter, marriage, a mourning ceremony, the Wolf ritual, or a doctoring ceremony. Potlatching in its fundamental sense, in other words the giving away of property to the guests, is an essential of practically all ceremonies, big or little, religious or profane. Every potlatch involves at least three parties, the giver, the guest or guests, and the person in whose honor the potlatch is given. The last of these is generally some young member of the family whose prestige is thus furthered early in life, but it may be a stranger who has done the giver a service. There are different kinds of gifts. Certain of them are ceremonial grants to which the highest in rank of the tribe are entitled, but which they are expected to return with one hundred per cent interest at a subsequent potlatch. Another class of gifts, which feature the most important and picturesque part of the potlatch, is made to the highest in rank among the guests. There is no rigid rule as to the return of these gifts, but in practice they are nearly always liquidated at a return potlatch, with gifts of an equal, and in many cases greater, value. Finally, towards the end of the potlatch, there is a general distribution of smaller amounts to the crowd. Less careful account is taken of the return of such gifts than of the first two types. In part, the giving of a potlatch amounts to an investment of value, though it is doubtful whether, among the Nootka, the greater part of the expenditure incurred at a potlatch ever returned to its owner.

A potlatch serves not only a definite social and economic purpose for its giver, but affords, as well, an opportunity for minor distributions of property, such as public payments for services, on the part of other individuals present. Indeed any announcements of importance, such as the handing over of a privilege or a change in name, would be most appropriately made at a potlatch. The assembled tribesmen and guests were, to all intents and purposes, witnesses to such announcements.

Tom began to give potlatches on his own account when still quite a young man. The first one of any importance that he was responsible for, was a potlatch in honor of his niece’s husband. This was a man of low birth, whom Tom had vowed to have nothing to do with. When his niece, however, gave birth to a child, Tom relented and, in order to wash away the stain on his family’s honor, he called together thirty of his relatives, and distributed four guns and a blanket to each. He also sang two of his privileged songs, which he then and there transferred to the child as its due privilege. This potlatch not only marked a reconcilement with his low-born nephew, but gave the little youngster a fair start in life in the race for status. The next of Tom’s potlatches was a Wolf ritual, in which he himself performed two of the ceremonial dances, those of the Thunder-bird and the Wolf circling about on all fours.

Some time after this, Tom resolved to marry a Ts’isha’ath girl named Witsah. In spite of the fact that she was a member of his own tribe, Tom wooed the girl not as a Ts’isha’ath, but as a member of a Nitinat tribe, among whom he had kinsmen on his father’s side. As his own father was dead, he had ten of his Nitinat uncles woo the girl on his behalf. The wooing is always an important part of the marriage preliminaries, and consists chiefly in the placing of objects, symbolizing one or more of the privileges of the suitor, outside the house of the girl’s family. The suitor himself is not present. Sometimes the objects are refused, when the suit may be continued until an acceptance is gained, though this does not necessarily follow. The suitor privileges deposited by Tom’s representatives consisted of ten fires and a carving, representing the lightning serpent. These were accepted and returned to Tom’s uncle as an indication of willingness on the part of the bride’s parents to proceed with the marriage ceremony. Not long after the return of the privileges, the marriage ceremony was celebrated among the Ts’isha’ath people. The money distributed at that time by Tom and his Nitinat relatives constituted a bridal purchase, but when Tom’s first child was born, the property then distributed was returned to Tom and the Nitinats with interest.

The greater part of the marriage ceremony consists of the performance of ceremonial games, each of which is accompanied by special songs, and followed by distributions of property. These games symbolize the difficulty of obtaining the hand of the bride, referring as they do to legendary tests that suitors were compelled to undergo in the past, before they could be admitted by the bride’s father. One of the tests, for instance, might be the lifting of an especially heavy stone, or standing for some time without flinching between two fires. According to legendary theory such tests should be endured by the bridegroom himself, but in actual ceremonial practice any one of the bridegroom’s party may be the winner in the contest, and receive the prize from the bride’s father or whoever of her people is the proud possessor of that particular marriage-game privilege.

Some time after his marriage Tom gave two potlatches in a single month. The first of these was a puberty potlatch in behalf of a younger sister of his. The second was a birth feast or, as the Nootka term it a “navel feast” for his first child, a boy. About a year later Tom invited the Ucluelet people, one of the Nootka tribes, to a feast at which many dance privileges were performed and much property distributed. By this time Tom was getting to be pretty well known among the tribes of the west coast of Vancouver Island, for his rapidly growing wealth and for his potlatches. It was, therefore, no surprise to him, though it proved very gratifying, to have the chief of the Ahousat, one of the most powerful of the northern Nootka tribes, especially invite him to a potlatch at which he was given four of the chief’s ceremonial songs. In return, Tom gave a potlatch to the Ahousat and the Comox, a tribe of alien speech from the east coast of the Island. He distributed four hundred blankets to the former, three hundred to the latter.

A year or two after this potlatch, occurred the decisive event in Tom’s social career. This was the birth of his first daughter. The most magnificent Nootka potlatches are generally given in connection with a daughter’s puberty ceremony. Ever since his marriage, Tom had been hoping to be able, in the fullness of time, to make a record in potlatching among his people, and to show his most valued privileges at the puberty potlatch of a daughter. Now that he was actually blessed by the arrival of a little girl, Tom’s plans took immediate shape. He set about the accumulation of property with more zest than ever, driving many a sharp bargain with the Indians and whites, and he revolved frequently in his mind what tribes he was to invite, and what dramatic displays, dances and songs he was to use at the great ceremony. His first concern was to build a large house of native construction that the guests were to enter when invited to the Ts’isha’ath people. Appropriate timbers for posts and beams are not easy to find, especially since the white man’s sawmill has made its appearance in the country. Hence, Tom was indefatigable in making inquiries of various persons and keeping his eye out for sufficiently large and conveniently located cedars. As he found such trees, he had them felled, hauled up to the Ts’isha’ath village along the Somass river, and put in place as opportunity presented itself. The actual construction of the house was thus spread over a period of some ten or fifteen years.

At one time an unfortunate casualty occurred. One of the heavy crossbeams fell to the ground, fortunately without injuring any one, but the event was considered an ill omen. Nevertheless, Tom did the best he could to ward off the evil influence by having a dance performed in honor of the spirit of the beam. Special songs that he possessed for this purpose were sung at the time.

Tom hoped that he could have the house completed before his daughter arrived at maturity. He was doomed to disappointment. His house still lacked one of the crossbeams and all the lighter wood-work, when his wife announced to him one morning that their daughter had come of age, was menstruating, in other words, for the first time. There was nothing for it but to have the puberty ceremony performed at once, reserving the main puberty potlatch for a few months later. Tom painted his face red and invited the neighboring Hopach’as’ath tribe to the puberty ceremony, the “torches standing on the ground,” as it is termed.

This ceremony marks the beginning of the period of seclusion of the girl. She is painted and ornamented for the occasion, generally with legendary insignia belonging to the family, is made to stand in front of two long boards painted with representations of Thunder-birds and whales, and has water thrown four times at her feet. Four or ten poles, the so-called “torches,” are lighted and later distributed with gifts to those entitled to receive them. Songs of various types are sung, particularly satirical songs twitting the opposite sex. Ceremonial games, some of them anticipating later marriage games, are also performed and prizes are distributed. After a general distribution of goods, the guests depart, leaving the girl to fast for four days and to enter upon a secluded period of various tabus behind the painted boards in the rear of the house.

After the puberty ceremony, Tom proceeded to Victoria to lay in his store of supplies for the impending potlatch. He bought an enormous number of boxes of biscuits, and to this day nothing pleases him more than to tell of how he compelled the white merchant to give him a special rate on the unusual order. As soon as the provisions were safely deposited at his village, Tom invited twelve tribes to his potlatch. To the nearer tribes he sent messengers; the more remote tribes of the east coast he invited in person. When the appointed day arrived, the Ts’isha’ath found that they had on their hands by far the largest number of guests that had ever visited the tribe at a single time. It was the proudest moment of Tom’s life. Everything went well. There was enough food for all, the distributions of property were generous, and all the privileges were interestingly presented. There were a considerable number of these privileges performed, one or two of them being fairly elaborate dramatic representations that were new even to the most northern Nootka tribes, great potlatchers though they are. Tom’s hereditary claim to the performances, the dances and the songs, was carefully explained by the ceremonial speaker. The ancestral legends were in every case recounted at length. Tom’s title to the special crests of the whale and the Thunder-bird was duly set forth. The explanation of the carved house posts took the speaker back to the creation of the first Ts’isha’ath man from the thigh of a woman. Due account, as usual in these origin legends, was taken of the flood. The potlatch securely established Tom’s position among the Indians of the Island. To this day it is often referred to by the Ts’isha’ath and their neighbors. Tom’s family was “put high” as never before. More than once, Tom’s grandson has found himself, when visiting comparative strangers, say among the East Coast tribes, received with open arms and honored with gifts of great value, all on the strength of his grandfather’s potlatch.

Tom’s potlatching career did not end here. Some time later he invited the Kyuquot, a Nootka tribe adjoining the Kwakiutl. At this potlatch he gave a dramatic representation of a number of privileges, including two Thunder-birds, a spouting whale, the supernatural quartz-beings known as He’na, and a supernatural bird known as Mihtach, a sort of mallard duck that haunts the top of the mountain called “Two-bladders-on-its-summit.” The Heshkwiat tribe of Nootka was the next to be invited to a potlatch. A year or two after this, the second greatest ceremonial event in Tom’s career took place, in the form of his second Wolf ritual or Tlokwana. The ritual was given for the special benefit of his oldest son Douglas and his newly married wife. These were the chief initiates in the ritual. Curiously enough, Tom’s little grandson, as yet unborn, was also initiated. This is an extreme instance of the tendency of the Nootka Indians to heap honors upon their offspring at the earliest possible opportunity.

The Wolf ritual is the most awesome, the most fascinating and fear-inspiring ceremony that the Nootka possess. Whatever religious exaltation or frenzy they are capable of, finds expression in this elaborate ritual. The performance, which generally lasts eight days, preferably in the winter, is dominated throughout by the spirit of the wolves who are believed to be hovering near at the outskirts of the village. The more important parts of the ceremonial are open to only such members of the tribe as have been initiated. Many tabus must be observed by those participating, and an attitude of high-minded seriousness must be maintained throughout. In the old days, frivolity during the more strictly religious parts of the ritual, aside of course from the ceremonial buffoonery, was very severely punished by the marshaling attendants. Spearing to death on the spot was the penalty for infraction of the most sacred tabus.

The ritual begins with the songs and other ceremonial activities of an ordinary potlatch. Rumors are set going of the appearance of wolves in the neighborhood of the village. These rumors, accentuated by tales of narrow escapes and bloody casualties, act powerfully upon the imagination of the children, who are soon reduced to a state of panic. All of a sudden the lights are extinguished, and the four “wolves” break through the side of the house. In the confusion that ensues they make off with the youngsters that are to be initiated. From this moment, begins the ritual proper. A certain number of the tribe have the hereditary privilege to “play wolf,” that is, to act as wolves during certain parts of the ritual beyond the confines of the village, to make off with the novices, and keep these as supposed prisoners in the woods. For a number of days, there are supposed to be unsuccessful attempts to take back the captured novices, but the wolves remain obdurate until certain songs are sung, when the novices are brought out in view of the people and the series of attacks finally succeeds in routing the wolves. The novices are supposed to be frenzied by the spirits of various supernatural beings that possess them. They must be brought back by force. Those privileged to do so lasso them, and, to the accompaniment of sacred songs, the struggling novices are conducted to the potlatch house, whistling furiously all the while. The hubbub of mingled whistling, drumming and simultaneous singing of many distinct ritual songs, continues for the greater part of the night. The din is indescribable. During the following day is performed the most sacred episode in the ritual. The whistling spirits that possess the novices must be exorcised by means of sacred dances and songs. A purification ceremony of bathing in the river or sea follows. The remainder of the ritual consists of the performance of a number of special dances, each of which is appropriate to the particular supernatural being that is supposed to have possessed one of the initiates. There are many of these dances, varying greatly in their prestige as privileges, and in their character of religious frenzy. Probably the most austere of the dances is that of the supernatural wolf, who crawls about in reckless pursuit of destruction and has to be restrained with great difficulty by a number of attendants. Other dances represent various types of woodsy creatures or ogres. Many of them are pantomimic representations of animals, while human activities of various kinds are represented in still others.

With this Wolf ritual Tom’s ceremonial activities gradually lessened. He continued to take an active interest in whatever potlatches were given by his family, and he often helped with his advice and active coÖperation in the singing of songs and the delivering of ceremonial addresses, particularly of the formal speeches of thanks. Now that he had done his share in establishing the glory of his family, Tom sat back and allowed his eldest son to take the initiative, at least in theory, in all ceremonies affecting their standing in the tribe.

It is long since Tom has been able to do useful work. He is entirely dependent on his oldest son’s family, with whom he lives, but they do not feel his presence to be a burden. For one thing, he is uniformly good-natured, very talkative about his own past and in judging his neighbors, and always ready to help with his advice in matters of importance, whether it be the preparations for a potlatch or some contested sealing claim. But back of the garrulous, shabby Tom of the present, looms up the Tom of the great potlatches of former days. It is to this Tom that his children and grandchildren almost entirely owe the high standing that they maintain among their people.

When Tom dies he will be put in a coffin and buried in the ground. This was not the old Nootka custom. The more important families had caves in which their deceased members were put away; others were laid in burial boxes or rush mats which were then put up in trees back of the village. Near the place of the burial there would be put up a grave post, constructed of roof rafters of the house, on which would be painted one of the crests of the deceased.

Though the old burial customs are no longer followed, some of the beliefs and practices attending death have not yet died out. Thus, the immediate personal effects of the deceased, as well as considerable additional property, are always destroyed. In the old days the whole house might be burned down, and tales are told of how the mourning survivors would move off to another spot to build them a new house. In all likelihood there will be performed immediately after Tom’s death a ceremony intended to comfort the family of the deceased and to induce Tom’s spirit to leave the house and its vicinity. Tom’s soul will have left his body in the shape of a tiny shadow-like double of himself, through the crown of his head, to assume eventually the form of a full-fledged ghost. It is safe to assume that the tabu of the dead person’s name will be carefully observed. Not only will Tom’s name not be mentioned by his tribesmen for a stated period, but all words that involve the main element of his name will be carefully avoided. This element denotes the idea of “distant.” People will have to get along as best they can without it, whether by beating about the bush, by stretching the meaning of some other element so as to enable it to take its place, or, if need be, by borrowing the corresponding element, provided it be of different sound, from some other dialect. Wailing sounds will be heard in the village for some time after Tom’s death, and it is very likely that at a mourning potlatch a number of privileges belonging to the family, say four songs, will be thrown away. Such privileges are tabued during the mourning period. At the end of the mourning period, which may be anything from a year to ten, another potlatch is given by one of the family and the tabus are lifted. When that time arrives Tom’s name will have passed into native history. The name Sayach’apis, “Stands-up-high-over-all,” will then be freely referred to with pride or with envy.

Edward Sapir