The way of the masks 029596636X

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The Way oftheMasks

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LAUDE LEVI-STRAUSS Translated by Sylvia Modelski

—

— The way of the masks / E78.N78 L4513 1988

20671

Levi -Strauss, Claude. NEW COLLEGE OF CALIFORNIA (SF)

^ -&

78

evi:^7s °^ ^4'

f^-uc:

^-down

who throws

to find a

myth

episode of the coastal

falls ill

all

the others.

as a result of his disobedience,

and the

the reason for the exile he endures, while in other

versions he goes into voluntary eyd\t because of his illness. In the island versions, the lazy

but, since

all

deprives the

young

girl marries the first

mask;

children born of their union die in infancy, she

mask

of the

means of becoming an ancestor. In the

— 1

The Salish Swaihwe

mainland versions, on the contrary, the diseased young ries the

daughter of the chief of the Water People,

who

3

man maris

the

first

who, thanks to his marriage and to their recovery, will now be able to become ancestors. Later, the heroine of the island versions and the hero of the

of the masks, and he also cures

all

the others,

mainland one are returned, she to her

The

who

first is

mask of

mother.

father, he to his

the island versions then marries a close relative

not a sister, while in the myths of the mainland, the hero

enlists his sister to

whom,

in the

Lummi

version especially, he

is

united by an almost incestuous intimacy. This excessive intimacy echoes the sexual incontinence of which, in the island versions,

one of the protagonists

is

guilty with his wife, and this in spite of

the fact that the two types of closeness had been prohibited, by the hero's father in one case and by the brother of the individual in question in the other case.

Now we

understand the purpose of the bizarre fishing trip with

which the island versions abruptly end. Having placed the masks' origin at the beginning instead of at the end of the tale, and having the masks

fall

—

in contrast with the mainland up from the bottom of the water

from the sky

versions where they are pulled

the island versions literally do not

They need

a conclusion

—

know how

to finish the story.

but, of necessity, the conclusion of the

mainland versions can only survive

in the paradoxical

form of the

and drop

out-of-water catch of fishes that strive to run up a

fall

back into basketry nets. This arrangement of the

myth

exactly

counterbalances the fishing of masks from the bottom of the water

made baskets. Thus we obtain two symmetrical conclusions: one where humans use a line to fish masks out of the water, and then put them in baskets; the other where supernatural beings, who are the prototypes of the masks, manufacture baskets which they hang in the open air. They use a and the placing of them

in specially

technique especially invented to catch out of the water by an acrobatic

feat.

fish

that are transported

Way

The

32 I

of the Masks

draw two conclusions from

it is

easier to transform the

than

is

it

this analysis.

One

notices

first

that

mainland versions into the island ones

to carry out this operation in reverse. For the

mainland

versions are built logically, whereas the island ones are not; the

derived from the former

latter acquire a logic

if,

and only

see the island versions as the result of a transformation tial

state

by the mainland versions.

illustrated

is

It

follows from

from the island derivative, thus confirming the opinion of region of the world

who

Swaihwe masks

diffosion of the

drawn from the comparison

from turning tribution to

its

Fraser.

They use

are less convincing than

have just elaborated. Thus,

far

back on history, structural analysis makes a con-

it.

This being the case,

which seems

version,

middle

which I

special-

place the origin and center of

in the

rather vague arguments, however,

those

we ini-

mainland versions must be deemed original, and those

this that the

ists in this

if,

whose

I

note the hybrid character of a Squamish

to have as its principal

aim

to explain an

ancient migration from the coast to the island.

when

In the beginning, earth, a

two brothers heard

man

him

to

there were

a noise

still

very few people on

on the roof of their house.

It

was

dancing, wearing a Sxaixi (Swaihwe) mask. They invited

come down, but

Finally, he agreed but

"No,"

est brother.

the

man

refused and continued to dance.

announced forthwith that he was

said the brothers,

"we

their eld-

are the elder ones,

have just arrived, you are the youngest." Whereupon, the

resumed

his

you

man

non-stop dancing. Exasperated, the brothers drove

him out downriver all the way to a bay. There the stranger married a woman of unknown origin; they had numerous descendants who were endowed with a lively and energetic temperament. Sometimes

sea lions

would

visit a reef

they heard the animals bellow, upriver settlement, which was to the bay; but

it

was

all

more

wasted

near their village.

When

the inhabitants of the original distant from the shore, rushed

effort

—

their rivals, being

on the

The Salish Swaihtve

had already killed everything. This

spot,

from bad to worse

They had

He

till

of

state

famine reigned among the

went

inhabitants.

first

among them who thought up

a sorcerer

affairs

33

a stratagem.

spent months, perhaps years, manufacturing a replica of a sea

When

lion.

it

appeared on the

to start hunting.

wanted

tion,

them

the

trail,

oes.

people upriver pretended

The people downriver,

to be the

further upriver.

along the

river, the

first

Then

to it

harpoon the

alerted false

went down the

by the commo-

game, which lured

river again, carrying

men who were hooked to the harpoon rope women and children who had packed and

The wooden

whose men

had

sea lion headed for the big island.

let

and, in their

boarded can-

Some

families,

go of the rope in mid-course, landed on Kuper

Island (very near Vancouver Island, facing the Fraser estuary). Those

who

held fast arrived at Nanoose (a

little farther to

the coast of Vancouver Island). That

mainland coast of the

is

are friends of the people

the north, on

why the Squamish of the who live on the other side

strait.

This version confirms

my

interpretation, because as the story

unfolds between the mainland and the island,

it

always adopts

intermediate courses. Instead of falling from the sky or surfacing

from the bottom of the lake, the

first

mask suddenly appears on

the roof of a house: halfway between up-above and down-below,

on the same spot where

when he 22).

He

in the "water" versions the hero lands

pays an involuntary visit to the people of the lake (see p. is

greeted by two brothers, an unmarked pair in

whom

marked opposition of a husband and wife or of a brother and sister is neutralized. Although still of relatively celestial origin, this mask is not the first ancestor, since the brothers and their the

fellow

men were

play a

more important

already inhabiting the earth. These characters role than the very unobtrusive

to the single individual recognized

as the first

one assigned

occupant of earth

by the island versions. Finally, the opposition between the horiand vertical axes is neutralized as well, since the mask comes

zontal

Way

of the Masks

34

The

down

only from the roof of a house; and the sea lion hunt, which

takes place entirely

on the surface of the water, replaces

line fish-

ing from the chthonian abysses. Let

me now come

to the

We

second point.

have seen that in

passing from the mainland versions to the island ones, the episode substitutes

fish

for

final

masks. The masks were surely

fish

already in the mainland version, not literally, granted, but in the figurative sense, since they are fished with a line.

because they are compared with that

senses,

d'Alene water

is

it

not

A

Coeur

(thus also Salish, but from the interior) tells of a

caught by a

Reversing this analogy tant

And,

the literal and figurative

they have a strikingly dangling tongue?

myth

spirit

fish, in

woman who

— and

myths often confirms

took

its

the comparison of

this

tongue

more

kind of transformation

for a fish.

or less dis-

—

the Clack-

amas Chinook of the lower Columbia know of an ogre named

"Tongue" by

fish

which we Island

which gets sliced up must be Scorpaenidae, meet again later. From the Salish of Vancouver sculpture representing a Swaihwe mask, with the

after its voracious

with sharp spiny shall

comes

a

tongue of

fins.

These

fire,

fish

effigy of a fish set out in relief in the place usually

occupied by

the tongue; on the other hand, inland, from the Lilloet to the

Shuswap, there

is

a prevailing belief in half-human-half-fish

Water

People (or Mermen). All these

facts

suggest a double affinity be-

tween the Swaihwe masks and

fish:

a metaphorical affinity, since

the large lolling tongue, which

is

acteristics, looks like a fish

metonymical tongue that

one of their distinguishing char-

and may be mistaken

affinity insofar as they are fished fish are

for one;

and

caught. "The water monster

it

is

and a by the

woman," goes

another Coeur d'Alene myth, "sat there with the hook in her

mouth.

.

Among It

.

."

other interior Salish,

I

have

just

mentioned the

Lilloet.

cannot be said categorically that their Sainnux masks corre-

sponded to the Swaihwe masks of their Fraser neighbors, since no

The Salish Swaihwe

specimen

known

is

probable, however,

to have survived to the present.

we

if

This seems

consider, on the one hand, the carved

poles found in Lilloet territory, on ily

35

which Swaihwe masks can

be recognized; and, on the other hand, the

eas-

fact that, like the

Swaihwe masks, those called Sainnux were the privilege of particular lineages who wore them on potlatch occasions, and that they represented beings which were half-men— half-fish. I will return to

The myth of

this point in Part II.

origin

is

however,

different,

despite certain analogies: a visit to supernatural beings, dwelling

who

underground, cians.

are friends of the

But, instead of the hero,

making them

sick,

ters.

One

water and powerful magivisits

them

involuntarily,

then curing them and receiving a spouse in

gratitude, in this case

of the young

who

it

is

the

men who come

Water People who cause

in

the death

the hope of marrying their daugh-

of the young men, endowed with magical powers, finally

succeeds in befriending his hosts and seducing two sisters because

of his luminous body, which the opposite of a leper,

man whom one

invalid old

is

smooth

though he

He

to the touch.

later transforms

is

thus

himself into an

of his wives (the only one

who would

not desert him) carries around in a basket.

Other aspects of the origin myths of the Swaihwe masks

met again among the copper.

It

is

known

Lilloet,

are

but in connection with the origin of

that the peoples of this part of the world

valued this metal highly. In early times, they obtained barter with northern tribes

who,

it

through

in their turn,

procured

it

from

who

extracted

it

in its

Indians of the Athapaskan linguistic family

native state. In historical times, navigators and traders introduced sheet copper,

A

which quickly replaced the other kind.

grandmother and her grandson, say the

survivors of an epidemic.

him, the old ball of hair

caught the

were the only

As the child cried constantly,

woman made

a fishing line with her hair

to

amuse

and put a

Thus equipped, the young hero copper, the talisman that made him a good hunter.

on the hook

first

Lilloet,

as bait.

Way

The

36

of the Masks

His grandmother dried the meat, tanned and sewed the skins; they

became

rich.

The hero decided

He made

to travel.

the acquaint-

ance of the Squamish and invited them as well as other tribes to various feasts. In front of his guests, he sang, danced, exhibited

and distributed the accumulated

his copper,

offered

him

their daughters

children, especially sons, to

to all

whom

his wives

chiefs

they re-

had many

other chiefs gave their daugh-

copper in their turn. That

the tribes.

Two

riches.

in exchange,

marriage:

The young man and

ceived pieces of copper.

ters, receiving

in

Those who possessed

is it

how

the metal spread

regarded

it

a very

as

precious good with which they did not want to part, such high

standing did this rare material bestow on them.

This myth, then, attributes to copper the same aquatic origin as the

other

myths lend

for like the other,

to the

Swaihwe mask. The one

is

fished

and, similarly, their ownership procures wealth.

Furthermore, copper and mask spread by way of marriages contracted with alien groups, with this difference, that the direction

of the circulation

is

not the same: the Swaihwe

mask goes from

the wife to the husband and their descendants, while the copper

goes from the husband to the wife's father, thus to an ascendant. It

seems

as

i(,

by passing from the

tribes of the Fraser to the

Swaihwe origin myth undergoes

Lilloet, the

a

kind of

fission. It is

myth of the Sainnux masks (which same as the Swaihwe); and, in part, in copper's origin myth. The copper is a metallic substance without obvious relation to the masks, although from an economic and sociological angle it fulfills the same fianction, with the proviso that the direction in which the gifts circulate is reversed. met again,

in part, in the origin

are probably the

A

Skagit

myth

tells

the same story as the Fraser

the Swaihwe, except that the supernatural beings

bottom of the waters grant

their visitor, not

myths about

who

live at the

masks but

"all the

property and goods" of the four cardinal points: goods comparable to those procured elsewhere,

by either the mask or the copper. At

The Salish Swaihwe

-^S-^

Kwakiutl

copper {University of British

the other extremity of the

M

Columbia Museum of Anthropology)

Swaihwe masks'

Kwakiutl have a myth about

a

area of diffusion, the

boy called He' kin. Always

skin covered with sores, he seeks refuge at the tain to await death.

A

37

ill,

his

moun-

summit of a him with

she-toad on the spot cures

a

a decorated copper sheet (those strange

magic medicine, gives him which the Kwakiutl and their neighbors considered their most precious possessions and which played a considerable role in social, economic, and ritual transactions), and she confers on him

objects

The

38

Way

name

the

of the Masks

He

appearance. carry

Despite

its

him and

congratulates

gives her the copper as a present "so that she

dowry

in

it

The hero returns to his him on his new

of Copper-Maker, Laqwagila.

family. His sister greets

inversion of the site where the hero seeks death (the

myth

top of a mountain instead of a deep lake), this origin of the copper the

which struck us

same intrigue and several of the details myths of the Swaihwe,

was already present in these myths, in the

Lummi

Even the helpful she-toad

in the

shape of frogs, which,

version, escape from the hero's

body and

this episode:

he wants to as

he

is

when drown

As

him

it is

himself, he it,

first

and he puts

him

to

spirits (givers of the

good fortune. Similarly,

place. This

its

it;

blow

his project into execu-

throw himself into the water to masks),

the frog, substituting itself for the salmon,

him

of

did not mention

I

catches a salmon and roasts

he finds a frog in

to the limit

necessary for

meet the healing his

him

the hero stops on the shore of the lake where

about to eat

of fate taxes tion.

rid

This batrachian also plays a part in a version from the

lower Fraser already used (see p. 22), although

but

assigns to the

as significant in the origin

in particular the role given to the sister.

his illness.

may

to her future husband."

in the

Lummi

is

it

can be said that

the indirect cause of

version, the frogs rid

of their malevolent presence in exchange,

it

could be said, for

two salmon on which the batrachians leap, merge with or to replace them (see p. 27). Both the Kwaand the Salish myths put the she-toad in correlation with and

his renunciation of the as if to

kiutl

opposition to the salmon, and they give the batrachian an identical role, in a plot

involving the acquisition of either the copper or the

Swaihwe.

A

few provisional conclusions emerge from

ceded.

I

have shown certain invariant

traits

all

of the

that has pre-

Swaihwe masks

seen from their plastic aspect, as well as from the point of view of their origin

myths. These plastic invariants include the white color

The Salis h Swaihwe

39

of the costume, due to the frequent use of swan's feathers and of

down; the lolHng tongue and the protuberant eyes of the masks; and, finally, the bird heads, which sometimes replace the nose or surmount the head. Assuming next the sociological point of view,

we note

that possession of or assistance from the

mask

favored the

acquisition of wealth; that masks appeared in potlatches

and other

profane ceremonies, but were excluded from the sacred winter

rites;

belonged to a few noble lineages and

that, properly speaking, they

were passed on solely through inheritance and marriage. Finally,

from the semantic point of view, the myths bring out a double

Swaihwe masks: on the one hand with

affinity in the

the other with copper.

Is

it

we have

Swaihwe masks.

and on

possible to understand the reason for

these scattered traits and to articulate

point

fish,

reached, this

is

them

into a system?

At the

the dual problem posed by the

3 The Kwakiutl

Xwexwe

On

Vancouver Island, Salish language groups were neighbors of

the

Nootka

and of the Kwakiutl

to the west

proximity explains

how

these

Swaihwe masks from the in

Kwakiutl

is

two peoples came

borrow the

to

Salish, including even their

This

name, which

Xwexwe or Kwekwe. More realistic in Nootka and Kwakiutl masks represent a

pronounced

their manufacture,

the

strongly expressive face, while preserving I

to the north.

all

the characteristics that

have distinguished in the Swaihwe. They are adorned with wild

goose down. Certain specimens of Kwakiutl origin are painted

white and bear, on the upper part, stylized motifs reminiscent of the feathers that decorate the same masks all

Xwexwe

the

masks, Nootka

lolling tongue, the

of bird heads

—

as

among

the Salish.

bulging eyes, and the appendages in the shape

these last sometimes whimsically distributed.

dancers carried a sistrum identical to that of the Swaihwe.

undoubtedly the same mask, transposed into hieratic,

more

And

well as Kwakiutl, have the

lyrical,

and more

The Kwakiutl linked

the

a style that

is

The It is

less

violent.

Xwexwe masks

with earthquakes. Their

dance, wrote Boas, "is believed to shake the ground and to be a certain

means of bringing back the hamatsa,"

initiate to the highest

40

that

is,

the

new

ranking secret society, the Cannibals. Dur-

1

The Kwakiutl Xwexwe

4

Nootka Xwexwe mask (University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology)

ing initiation, the novice became ferocious and wild and ran in the woods: the objective was to bring in the village

community. This

Swaihwe) with earthquakes was myths (pp. 20, 27) and it throws

him back

to reintegrate

Xwexwe

association of the

him (or

already in evidence in the Salish a curious light

of the sistrums carried by the dancers, as

it

the quivering twigs tipped with "snowballs" of the top of the Salish masks. In From Honey

to

on the symbolism

does also on that of

down, which adorn

Ashes,

I

drew atten-

42

The

Way

of the Masks

a

severed head, used to pacify the

Kwakiutl ceremonial

rattle representing

nibal dancer {British

Columbia Provincial Museum,

Victoria)

Can-

The Kwakiutl Xwexwe

way Plutarch explained "The sistrum

tion to the

the role of sistrums

the ancient Egyptians:

.

.

.

makes

43

among

clear that all

it

things in existence need to be shaken, or rattled about, and never to cease

from motion but,

as

it

were, to be waked up and agitated

when they grow drowsy and torpid." The sistrum was a symbol of the god with the welded thighs who "for shame tarried in the wilderness; but

Isis,

by severing and separating those parts of

body, provided him with means of rapid progress."

One

minded of the hero whom Swaihwe origin myths, and

my

had rendered infirm

disease also,

as

emphasized

I

in

his re-

is

in

the

earlier

work, of the Karaja Indians' demiurge whose arms and legs were tied to prevent disasters.

the

him from destroying

the earth by floods and other

According to Dr. Gloria Cranmer Webster, curator

Museum

at

of Anthropology in Vancouver at that time and

Kwakiutl by birth, the

Xwexwe masks

did not want to stop danc-

ing once they got started; they had to be physically constrained to

do

Also, they would prevent the children from laying hands

so.

on presents

(in recent times, coins),

them during the spectacle. I all the more interesting since at at

diffusion area, the

masks

Lummi

which is the other extremity of the Swaihwe

chose the strongest

hope that they would dance

in the

athletes eventually

would give way

the feast was being held, and gifts all

which were randomly thrown

will return to this detail,

it

men

a very long time.

to the person in

was

to wear the

this person

These

whose honor

who

distributed

around, under the watchfial eye of the youngest spectators,

who were on

the lookout for the opportunity of a scramble to seize

them.

To account

for the origin of the

masks, the Kwakiutl had two

some frankly mythic, others of rather legendary Roughly true to historical fact, these latter tales refer to

types of stories; character.

who are Southern Kwakiutl on Vancouver Island. One of

marriages concluded with the

neighbors of the

Comox,

a Salish people

^/ /y

J

t

%

.-*««»=

The Kwaktutl Xwexwe

them begins gion

—

at the

moment when

a chief of the Fort

the territory of the Kwagiutl subgroup

nounce that he wants large crew.

Rupert

this proclamation,

The Comox gave them

a

re-

his herald an-

marry the daughter of the Comox

to

Immediately following

—had

45

chief.

he set off to sea with a

good welcome and accepted

the wedding presents, which filled two vessels, and the bride-to-

be packed her baggage.

A

thundering noise was then heard while

shell-rattles kept jingling:

four

masked personages appeared and

began to dance. In the course of the banquet that followed, the

Kwakiutl tasted the camas first

time.

The Comox

(Liliaceae,

with edible bulbs)

chief ordered that the

then handed them over to his son-in-law as

masks be "pacified,"

gifts.

new name and twenty

son-in-law received a

for the

In addition, the

cases

which, upon his return home, he treated his people.

of camas to

He

then or-

dered the Swaihwe to dance. His wife gave him three children, but, after the birth of the fourth, the couple separated; the wife

returned to her native village with two of the children and the

Comox, to perform a few Kwakiutl dances of the winter rite. The two children had Kwakiutl names, which, through them, went for the first time to the Comox. right, for the

Another legendary

tale

Kwakiutl hoping to find

concerns two

Comox who went

a wife for their

to the

grandson and son. The

was approved, received a new name (that of the young

suitor

paternal grandfather), gave a potlatch to his

got as a gift the mask of Sisiutl,

new

girl's

relations,

and

the double-headed serpent, whose

Comox family among the Kwak-

dance he was thus able to perform in front of his

who had iutl,

never seen

it.

He

established himself

but his father took charge of returning the

Comox. winter

It is

rite,

Sisiutl

to the

since that time that these Indians have celebrated the

of which the Sisiutl dance

Kwakiutl Xwexwe mask

{British

is

a part.

Columbia Provincial Museum, Victoria)

ru^

The Kwakiutl Xwexwe der and four

47

masked dancers appeared, painted with ochre, cov-

ered with feathers, and

threaded scallop shells.

in

their

hands holding

The Comox

rattles

made

of

chief harangued his visitors

and granted them the right to perform the dance, and he

also

them a chest containing the masks with their accessories. Between the island Salish and the Kwakiutl (of both the and the mainland) there existed, therefore,

a

gave

island

network of ambigu-

ous relationships which could include everything from matrimonalliance to war.

ial

In both cases, the masks and the privileges

attached to them were the objects of rivalries and trade, on the

same or

basis as

women, proper names, and

Xwexwe mask

winter

rites,

foodstuffs.

in these tales, being excluded

The Swaihwe

from the sacred

passes from the Salish to the Kwakiutl on the occa-

sion of a warring expedition or a marriage; in this latter case, the

By mask goes in the reverse direction, from the Kwakiutl to the Comox, which is also what the young Comox bridegroom does when he settles down with his in-laws. Such stories undoubtedly originate transfer

is

made

in the

same direction

as

that of the bride.

contrast, as an integral part of the winter rites, the Sisiutl

from customs which once existed. Others obviously pertain

to

mythology. For instance, the story of this Kwakiutl Indian of the Nimkish

who wanted

group,

to

go from the town of Xulk (already men-

tioned) where he lived, to the head of Cape Scott, at the northern

extremity of the island, to

visit a place

made famous by

a mythical

event.* In the evening, he arrived at Gwegwakawalis, a small bay

young one day descended from the sky. They alighted Qum'qate, near Cape Scott, took off their bird skins and became humans, the

*Two

at

first

that

eagles

and

their

people of the region. If this it

is

the event referred to here,

preserves the code of the island Salish

message alone survives, inverted, the terms of a code that

is

in the present

no longer

celestial,

it

is

significant

Swaihwe origin myths, whose myth, which transposes

but aquatic.

it

into

48

The

Way

of the Masks

at the foot of the cape, built a small

house

for himself,

lit

a fire,

dined, but could not sleep. During the night he heard a rumble,

and the ground shook

as if in

an earthquake.

He came

out, sat

a murmur of conversation that seemed to Axdem, on the opposite side of the cape. He went bed and fell asleep. A man came to him in a dream and him to purify himself, to go to Axdem and, once there,

down, and overheard originate from

back to ordered

tremors, to enter a ceremonial house which he

after four earth

would

him

to

down

see, to sit

there

and wait. The same vision appeared

During these two days, the hero

the following night.

bathed, fasted, then took the road to

He

Axdem.

arrived there at nightfall, saw a big house and itself

fire

lit

and

women

spirits.

in.

A

men

appeared, and an orator addressed an invocation to the

Four times, the

codfishes,

went

spontaneously in the middle; soon, a troop of

women changed

themselves into big red

animated by convulsive movements, which were the cause

of the rumblings heard by the hero; after the convulsions, they

human

reassumed their

masks danced

shape. Four characters wearing

in front of

meantime, those

Go

them jangling

Xwexwe

the shell rattles. In the

officiating sang:

away, ugly ones

{twice)

Ugly ones with lolling tongues {twice) Ugly ones with protruding eyes {twice) Each time the dancers exited, the

The

fishes

changed back into women.

upon him the name Red him with "the supernatural treasures of ceremonial." The hero asked that the ceremonial house

orator greeted the hero, conferred

Codfish, and presented this great

be delivered to his home. that the house

and

He

was told to go back to his place and

accessories

would

follow.

Our man therefore summoned the

returned to Xulk, stayed in bed four days, then

whole population

whom

he entreated to wash before the meeting.

In the evening, the whisperings of invisible beings told

him

that

The Kwakiutl Xwexwe his ceremonial

He

house had arrived.

entered

it

49

with his guests.

heard, the earth shook four times, the masks

Rumbhngs were

appeared and danced. The hero showed everyone the gifts he had received from the fishes: the four sculptured posts of the house,

Xwexwe

the four

masks, the four wooden drums and notched

which, when sawed against the drums, produce rumbling

sticks,

noises, and, finally, the four shell rattles. "All these were put into

the room, for there treasure

.

.

is

no food and property that was obtained

from the Red Cod. That

.

is

the reason

why

it is

as a

said

that the red codfish are stingy."

A

disconcerting moral, were

not for the fact that,

Swaihwe masks have an opposite

Salish, the

those

it

who own them

mask borrowed by

a

or

who have

which

I

population from

will give all

my

nature: they enrich

neighbor should see

its

and

their brother

married (that

mentioned

are self-centered

to say, refuse to

is

said to have a

who

is

(p.

its

a fact rich in

more two

attention later. All the

so since, in a Salish version already sisters

the

secured their service. That a

attributes inverted in the course of this transfer lessons to

among

24), the

and refuse to get

open up to the outside world) are

"stomach of stone." Drs.

W.

G. Jilek and

L.

N.

Jilek-Aall, great experts on Salish culture, have helpfully pointed

out to

me

Swaihwe

as

that this phrase it is

is

also present in the songs of the

celebrated today, and that

he or she who thinks only

selfishly

,

who

it

refers to the egotist,

refuses to act for the

good

communicate with them. Thus, the character that Xwexwe mask is the same as that which the Salish lend to humans until the mask which in this allows them to free themselves from case has the opposite virtue it. It will be remembered that the Kwakiutl Xwexwe masks have of others and to

the Kwakiutl attribute to their

—

—

another way of showing their sordid character: they prevent the children from collecting the coins that are randomly flung at them.

On mon

the other hand, the Salish and Kwakiutl masks have a trait,

in that the convulsions

gripping the

fish

com-

(which are

The

50

Way

of the Masks

linked to underground rumblings and earthquakes) refer directly to those afflicting the

Water People of

been contaminated by the hero's

acknowledged power

the Salish myths,

and

saliva,

who

have

also refer to the masks'

22—23). But before

to cure convulsions (pp.

looking for an angle from which to approach these problems (since the direct data at I

my

disposal shed no lights),

specify the identity of the fish

mentioned

it

is

advisable that

myth, and

in the

try

to discover their semantic function.

Commonly

called

Red Cod

or

Red Snapper

in the

myths, these

are not really cod, but deep-water rockfish of the species Sebastes

As the

ruberrimus of the family Scorpaenidae.

same family includes

dicates, they are red, but the

The one

black or otherwise colored.

than one meter in length. scales,

It

is

myths of

It is

concerned with com-

its

spinous

fins

and

this region frequently refer to villages of red

From

that cover their body.

it

more

to

not surprising, therefore,

scorpaenids, frightening creatures because of the sharp

from these

in-

species that are

which may grow

notable for

which can injure fishermen.

that the

am

I

prises very large individual specimens,

name

scientific

fish is lean

a

more

trivial

fin

and spines

point of view, the meat

and dry, so that, according to the myths,

requires generous dousing with oil, the cause of digestive dis-

comforts which the myths also note and on which here. This point will be taken to the

Nootka, Red Cod was

who one day cooked to

up elsewhere (chap. a powerfial

shall not 14).

an earth oven

and resuscitated them immediately

do the same when

dwell

According

and formidable magician

his twelve virgin daughters in

to feed his guest. Raven,

Raven wanted

I

after.

he returned the invitation,

but his daughters died and Red Cod said he could not bring them back to

A

life.

myth of

the Tsimshian (northern neighbors of the mainland

Kwakiutl) links the red scorpaenid to the origin of copper.

One

night, a prince of celestial origin in "a wonderfijl garment of shin-

ing light," appeared to a jealously guarded chief's daughter

who

The

52

Way

Masks

of the

was languishing

for

want of

a

husband. The following night, he

sent his slave to fetch her, but she mistook the latter's identity

and gave herself to him. The prince then sister,

who was lame and whom he

back on the younger

fell

He

cured of her infirmity.

then

took his revenge by succeeding in taking possession of the copper: the precious metal lay on the top of an inaccessible mountain,

from which the prince dislodged copper came sliding

down

it

with

a

magic slingshot. The

slowly into the valley where

it

divided

we know. The prince and his slave trip. The prince changed the slave into a red scorpaenid whose stomach pours out of its mouth each time it raises its head. The experts confirm that an internal organ of this fish does come up to its mouth when it is pulled out of the itself to create the deposits

then quarreled during a fishing

water: "the red snapper," say the Squamish, "turns itself inside

out."

The prince

also

changed

his sister-in-law into a scorpaenid

of the species called Blueside: "the prettiest of

was a princess"; then he went back ing on earth their two daughters

to the sky

who had

the

all

with

fish,

for

it

his wife, leav-

since married.

One

day,

the eldest told her husband about the copper deposit created by

her father on the upper Skeena. tion to

go and g^t

it,

but the project

stop on the way, to cut scents."

of

it

As

The

for the

fizzled out:

down and hew

prince's daughter

and became

The couple organized an expedithey preferred to

the tree of "sweet smelling

and her husband made a business

rich.

younger daughter, she enlisted her husband

search for the salmon that transforms itself into copper.

ceeded in finding

in the

He

suc-

but the fiames exhalating from this "live

it,

copper" poisoned him; he died.

It

was decided to burn the copper,

and thus was the discovery made of what

is

difficult to interpret

otherwise than the art of smelting. This episode

is

all

the

more

mysterious because, generally, knowledge of this art by the Indians of the Pacific Coast

is

denied: before the introduction of sheet

copper by navigators and traders, they had limited themselves to

The Kwakiutl Xwexwe

53

sawing and beating native metal. Anyway, the prince came back

down he

to earth

and resuscitated

his son-in-law.

should be careful of the living copper,

use to

make

taught him that its

except his daughter's husband and their descendants,

all

who, he said, alone will "to

He

and he prohibited

know how

costly coppers."

"to kill the live copper" and

He showed

tects oneself against deleterious fumes.

them, in

Thanks

fact,

how one

to this

pro-

knowledge,

the couple became fabulously rich.

This myth, founder of privileges claimed by a lineage and concerning the knowledge and working of copper, rests on a series of

The

oppositions and parallelisms.

characters can be sorted into

groups according to their ultimate destination,

two

celestial or aquatic.

two sisters who are the protagonists of the the two sisters who are the protagonists of the

In this regard, the

second part repeat first,

because the eldest of the girls discovers an aerial wealth

the tree's perfumes; the youngest discovers aquatic wealth

copper salmon.

From one generation

—

the

to the other, therefore, the

and the eldest cross each other. between the prince and his slave,

respective affinities of the youngest

Other oppositions

are also noted:

the beautiful princess and her handicapped sister, the "dead" cop-

per on top of the mountain and the "live" copper in the water, the fragrant odor of the tree and the fatal stench of the copper,

both of them sources of wealth,

As the metamorphosis of

—

the slave

a perfidious

the red scorpaenid

stinginess. This fish

is

its

is

and grasping character

here again placed on the side of

in opposition to the salmon, the live copper

which generously enriches guard against

etc.

its

owners, provided they

know how

to

danger. Although the Tsimshian do not know

Swaihwe or Xwexwe masks, they do associate, within of opposites, the red scorpaenid, which the Kwakiutl depict the

a pair as the

giver of masks, with the copper that the Salish relate directly to

the masks.

Furthermore, the same myth, but told in reverse, exists

among

The

54

Way

of the Masks

the Squamish (of the mainland coast, north of the Fraser),

had the mask under the

reported

name of

Sxaixi.

who

The two

daughters of a shaman often went near a lake to find a husband.

Black Cod was the

him Rock Cod, a bright big-mouthed. Then Red Cod showed

to answer their calls; they refiased

first

because of his big bulging eyes. Next came

and

fiery

form, but he was too

up, making the waters glow as

if

a great fire

burnt beneath, but

he had big eyes and a gaping mouth and they did not want him

young

either. In fact, the

nous son of day," in in the "wonderfial

were hoping to attract the "lumi-

girls

whom we

recognize the alter ego of the prince

garment of shining light" who comes from the

sky in the Tsimshian myth, whereas here he emerges from the

bottom of the waters. and shining sister.

He

appeared

like the sun,"

finally,

"a golden form, bright

and consented

to

marry the younger

But, like the Water People of the Lilloet

nux masks

35), the old

(see p.

his

the Sain-

shaman, father of the two

was using his daughters to lure their

them by

myth of

sisters,

suitors in order to destroy

magic powers. The hero managed

to foil all the traps,

and he transformed the house into an enchanted rock within which he imprisoned his father-in-law. This rock exists: if one insults it, and the culprit sinks with

a storm breaks out

Here again,

therefore, a hero,

the copper and

who announces

metallic dazzle,

is

scorpaenids.

Part

II.

I

bility

go deeper into the

The preceding

is

is

role

indications are

is

the provider of

given to these

enough

fish in

to convince

me

Kwakiutl myth of the origin of the

not fortuitous, and that

between the

elsewhere

himself through his sunlike and

put in correlation with and opposition to the

shall

that their intervention in the

masks

who

his boat.

it is

Xwexwe masks and

explained by an incompati-

which the copper and the symbol. These partial and

the substance /7^r excellence

riches, of

fragmentary indications, however, are not suflScient to understand that the

Swaihwe masks,

Salish into direct relation

as

I

have observed, are brought by the

with the acquisition of wealth; whereas,

The Kwakiutl Xwexwe

among

the Kwakiutl directly and

the red scorpaenids utl

—

fill

—

same, and the same

And

I

must

this, in spite

of the fact that,

remain the

exist, their plastic characteristics affinity

can be observed between them and

earthquakes. In order not to close uncertainties,

the Tsimshian indirectly,

associated with the masks by the Kwaki-

an opposite function.

wherever the masks

among

55

stretch

out of the impasse where

we

my

brief with this constat of

my method

and discover

a novel

are provisionally blocked.

way

4 Meeting the Dzonokwa Any myth or sequence in a myth would remain incomprehensible if each myth were not opposable to other versions of the same myth

or to apparently different

myths, each sequence opposable to

other sequences in the same or other myths, and especially those

whose

framework and concrete content, down to the small-

logical

seem to contradict them. Could we conceivably apply method to works of art? Yes, if each object, through its con-

est details,

this

and colors, were the opposite of other objects whose corresponding elements, by their different treatment, contour, decoration,

tradicted this

its

own,

Should

in order to carry a particular message.

be true of masks, one would have to grant that, like the words

of a language, each one does not contain within itself

meaning. The

latter

in the particular

is

the result of

entire

its

things: the sense included

term chosen, and the senses (which have been

excluded by this very choice) of substituted for

two

all

the other terms that could be

it.

Let us assume then, as a working hypothesis, that the shape, color,

and features that struck

masks have no plete

intrinsic

me

as characteristic of the

meaning, or that

when considered by

itself.

this

meaning

incom-

All attempts to interpret these

elements individually would therefore be wasted. Next, 56

Swaihwe is

let

us as-

Meeting the Dzonokwa

sume

and these features

that this shape, these colors,

which they

rable from others to

57

are insepa-

are opposed, because they

were

chosen to characterize a type of mask, one of whose raisons

d'etre

was to contradict the original.

On

this

assumption, only a com-

me

to define a semantic field

parison of the two types will allow

within which the respective fianctions of each type will be

complementary.

tually

meanings that

Assuming

must

knowing I

it,

to

the

level of this

my

when

the Swaihwe

The opposite mask

mask

if

that stands in oppo-

its

distinguishing features from

describing the prototype. Let

its

mask

range of

analysis.

accessories

me

try this

and the costume that goes

manifests an affinity for the color white.

will therefore be black, or will manifest an

dark hues. The Swaihwe and

with feathers;

total

mu-

Swaihwe, one should, therefore,

be able to deduce

this,

have used

affinity for

on the

that there exists a type of

experiment. Through

with

is

try to place

and correlation

sition

those

I

It

the other

mask

its

costume are adorned

does entail

trimmings of animal

origin, these should be in the nature of fur.

The Swaihwe mask

has protruding eyes; the other mask's eyes will have the opposite characteristic.

The Swaihwe mask has

ging lower jaw, and

it

type, the shape of the

exhibits an

a

wide-open mouth, a sag-

enormous tongue;

mouth should preclude

in the other

the display of this

organ. Finally, one would expect that the origin myths, the respective religious, social, and economic connotations of the types, will have between

them the same

two

dialectical relationships

symmetry, of contrast, or of contradiction) as those previously noted from the plastic point of view alone. If this parallelism can (of

be proven,

it

will definitely confirm the initial hypothesis accord-

ing to which, in a domain such as that of masks (which combines

mythic

elements,

social

and

and

plastic

phenomena, seemingly

so het-

religious

expressions), these three orders of

fianctions,

erogeneous, are fiinctionally bound together. Hence, they will justifiably receive the

same treatment.

58

The

Way

of the Masks

Kwakiutl Dzonokwa mask {Museum fur Volkerkunde, Berlin)

Meeting the Dzonokwa

Now, no

mask should meet

sooner have the conditions this ideal

been enunciated a

priori

than

its

existence in reality

Starting from purely formal requirements,

I

59

was in

recognized.

is

fact describing

all its plastic characteristics, the mask Dzonokwa, which the Kwakiutl own among many others, including, let us not forget, the Swaihwe mask (under the name

and reconstructing, with called

Xwexwe) borrowed from

the Salish. Moreover, Kwakiutl legen-

dary tales establish a connection between the two types: the hero

who

of one of those tales, the

Xwexwe

nokwa; and

masks,

his

is

will succeed in the peaceful conquest of

the son of the supernatural being Dzo-

magic power

derives, above all,

from his

ability to

shout like his parent.

Dzonokwa

designates a class of

supernatural beings, most often female, but

endowed with breasts word mainly

Generally speaking, the term

no matter what their

sex.

I

will, therefore, use the

The Dzonokwas dwell

in the feminine gender.

they are savage giantesses, also ogresses,

far inside

who kidnap

the woods;

the Indians'

children to eat them. Yet, the relations they maintain with hu-

mans

are

ambiguous, sometimes

a certain complicity.

Dzonokwa; many of by their distinctive

hostile,

sometimes imbued with

Kwakiutl sculpture favors representations of its

masks

are

known, being

easily recognized

traits.

Ceremonial ladle in the form of Dzonokwa {courtesy of

Museum

of the American Indian, Heye Foundation)

Dzonokwa mask with sunken

eyes {British

Columbia Provincial Museum, Vic-

toria )

These masks their

are black, or else the color black

predominates

in

trimmings. They are, most often, decorated with black tufts

representing the hair, beard, and mustache (donned even by the

female specimens), and the wearers used to wrap themselves in a black blanket or in a bear skin with dark fur.

The

eyes, instead of

being protuberant and outward-looking like those of the Swaihwe

masks, here are pierced through the bottom of hollow sockets, or else they are half-closed. In fact, the

concave effect

is

not limited

to the eyes: the cheeks, too, are hollow, as are other parts of the

body when Dzonokwa

is

represented standing.

One Kwakiutl myth

Dzonokwa mask with

has a hero .

.

.

eyes

who "saw

dosed {National Museums of Canada,

a hole in the rock

a river

Dzonokwa

a

in the eyes of the

cording to another myth, the skull of a

J10153)

on the bank of

and he saw that the holes were the eyes of

and he dived into the water

no.

.

.

.

Dzonokwa." Ac-

Dzonokwa

served as a

washtub. Ceremonial dishes, sometimes enormous, represent the ogress.

who

The main

lies

on

its

dish

breasts, the navel,

The mouth of

its legs folded. It is accompanied by a whose hollow pieces represent the face, the

and the kneecaps,

respectively.

the masks and other effigies

but, on the contrary, as it

carved out of the belly of the creature

back with

veritable table service

monster

is

emits

is

its

pushed forward

in the

is

not wide open,

pout formed by the

characteristic cry, "uh! uh!" This pursing

The

62

Way

of the Masks

of the lips precludes any tongue lolling out or even showing at but, in the absence of the dangling tongue,

senting

down

Dzonokwa

to the

givQ

ground,

all;

the statues repre-

decidedly pendulous breasts, hanging

it

sometimes

is

it

all

said,

because they are so

heavy. It will

be remembered that, according to the Salish, the pro-

totypes of the

Swaihwe masks come from the sky

bottom of the water, that

is,

from the

or

from up above or down below. The

Dzonokwa masks, come, as I afar. From

ogres or ogresses, prototypes of the

have said, from the mountains or the forest, thus from the functional point of view, the ancestors

who founded

Swaihwe masks represent the

the highest ranking lineages: they incarnate

the social order, in contrast with the spirits,

and not ancestors

(i.e.,

Dzonokwa who

are asocial

by definition, the creators of

lowing generations) but kidnappers

who put

this

fol-

continuity in

masked character tries to lance (pp. 17, 26). As I will

jeopardy. In the course of the dances, a

blind the Swaihwe by blows with a explain later,

Dzonokwa

blind or afflicted with poor sight, and

is

she herself tries to blind (by gluing their eyelids with

gum)

the

children she has stolen and carries in her hod; whereas, the

Swaihwe

masks

Swaihwe

are themselves carried in baskets. Finally, while the

masks never appear during the sacred winter masks participate It

in

them by

should be recalled,

divide the year in half.

named

bakus,

rites,

Dzonokwa

right.

at this point, that the

The

the

Kwakiutl used

to

clan system prevailed during the half

which comprised the spring and summer. Following

a four-day carnival,

were displayed, the

in the course of tsetseka

which the ancestral masks

period opened, which took up the

fall

and winter. From one period to the other, the proper names, the songs, and even their musical styles changed.

organization gave social

way

The profane

to the religious secret societies.

A

clan

special

system came into force, defined by the relationships that

Meeting the Dzonokwa

Dzonokwa mask with Victoria)

half-closed eyes {British

63

Columbia Provincial Museum,

64

The

Way

of the Masks

individuals were supposed to have with the supernatural.

which was completely devoted

this winter period,

During

to the rites,

each secret society proceeded to the initiation of those whose birth

and rank qualified them

The

for

membership.

village then split into

whom

an audience for

main

distinguish two

must further The superior nibals: each

two groups. The non-initiated formed

the initiates appeared in spectacle.

class

among

categories

One

the latter.

included the societies of the Seals and the Can-

was subdivided into three grades, which took twelve

years to pass through.

War

was that of the

and may

inferior class

A

little

below the two great

The Sparrows, who

Spirit.

secret societies

constituted the

also have included retired old initiates,

were

themselves subdivided, according to age, into Puffins, Mallards, Killerwhales, and Whales. Parallel societies regrouped the

women.

At each end of the

Seals, a

spirit

scale,

between the Sparrows and the

of competition, of hostility even, reigned.

rites offered a theatrical

The

initiation

element: the performances were sometimes

dramatic, sometimes they verged on a circus, and they required skillful direction

involving simulations, acrobatics, and conjuring

tricks.

Within

this

complex system, of which

general outlines, the

cret society of Seals, played a

dancer

who wore

it

I

have drawn merely the

Dzonokwa mask, which belonged minor though prescribed

pretended to be asleep, or

to the serole.

The

at least sleepy.

A

rope was stretched between the dancer's seat and the door to allow

him

to feel his

little late to

way around. Also,

this

personage always arrived a

witness the carnage in which the

new

initiates to the

Cannibal secret society pretended to engage. The ritual songs glorify

Dzonokwa who carwho makes nightmares! Great lady who makes us

the ogress' power: "Here comes the great

ries off

humans

in her arms,

us faint. Great bringer of faint. Terrible

loses her

way

who

Dzonokwa!" And

as she circles

gives us nightmares,

yet, she

around the

fire

is

too drowsy to dance,

and stumbles; she must

Meeting the Dzonokwa

Mask

65

of Dzonokwa sleeping {University of

British Columbia

Museum of Anthropology)

be led back to her seat where she promptly

fails

asleep.

Once

awakened, she does not participate actively in the ceremony and when someone points a finger at her she goes back to sleep. One could hardly imagine a more contrasting behavior to that of the

Swaihwe

(or

Xwexwe)

dancers, who,

among

the Salish, themselves

come from (whereas another party points a finger toward the Dzonokwa where she sits and from where she does not want to budge), and who, among

point a finger to the sky to show where they

the Kwakiutl, once launched do not want to stop dancing unless

they are restrained.

While the Kwakiutl have borrowed the Swaihwe masks from the Salish, the latter share with them the Dzonokwa character or its

equivalent.

The

Fraser groups

and the island Comox

call

her

Sasquatch or Tsanaq: a black giantess with bushy eyebrows, eyes deeply sunk in the orbits, long thick hair, a fat-lipped pursed

66

The

Way

of the Masks

mouth, hollow cadaverous cheeks. The wearer of the mask wraps himself in a black blanket and sways sleepily near the door. Evidently, it is the same character as the Tzualuch of the Lummi, a giant ogress who roams about looking for children to take away in the basket she carries on her back; and the same as the Tal of the

and mainland, an ogress who cooks children in an earth oven and from whose ashes, after she has fallen in and been conisland

sumed, mosquitoes (those miniature cannibals) though the wearing of the mask family could buy the

are

born.

But,

created a hereditary privilege, any

mask provided

it

had the means

to

do

so. In

contrast to the Swaihwe, which was the privilege of a few high-

ranking lineages, the purchase of the Tal mask was an expensive,

but in every other respect easy, way

for upstarts (that is, the

"nou-

veaux riches") to acquire social status. The two types of mask, therefore, are

opposed also in

this regard.

3 Dzonokwa Myths Considered purely from the plastic point of view, the Swaihwe

mask, which may be described sition to the

as full of protrusions,

Dzonokwa mask, which

is all

cavities;

One

tween

foresees that a similar relationship

their social,

oppo-

in

but at the same

time, the two complement each other almost like a cast.

is

may be

mold and

its

observed be-

economic, and religious functions. Could the

same network of oppositions and correspondences extend group of myths associated with each type respectively?

to the I

have

analyzed and commented upon the mythology of the Swaihwe masks among the Salish. Let me now pursue my investigation among the Kwakiutl, on the subject of the Dzonokwa already

mask.

A

preliminary statement

Xwexwe masks ish)

is

called for.

The

tales relating to the

(which correspond to the Swaihwe

among

have seemed to belong to two types: one historical, or

legendary; the other frankly mythic.

Nimkish and Koeksotenok subgroups,

The

first

the Salat least

type features the

as far as the

Kwakiutl are

Comox subgroup for the Salish. From the point who tell them, the setting for these stories, there-

concerned; and the of view of those fore,

is

a central zone of the island

and of the mainland

coast,

and

the part of the island immediately to the south. In the case of the 67

68

The

Way

second type of

of the Masks the mythic tales, the opposite

tale,

unfold between Nimkish country and Cape Scott, that

between the same central zone of the island and

they

true:

is

is

to say,

northernmost

its

two remarks, it can be said that the myths of the Xwexwe masks evolve entirely on a north-

part. Putting together these

origin

south

By

axis.

contrast, the

myths

that feature the

Dzonokwa come mainly

from Kwakiutl groups, which are scattered along west

axis:

roughly east-

a

Nakoatok, Tsawatenok, Tenaktak, Awaitlala, Nimkish,

Tlaskenok, to which one might add the northern Nootka. Several of the place names collected by Boas either allude to or refer di-

Dzonokwa. But, all Nimkish River, a site

rectly to the

these individual places

facing the

at the

various localities in Knight Inlet, where the myths

—have

unfold it

may be

—an

bottom of Seymour will

I

islet

Inlet,

examine

the same character. In fact, the center of gravity,

"myths of Dzonokwa"

so called, of the

Knight

Inlet

fjord in

Kwakiutl

and

its

surroundings. Knight Inlet

territory. It penetrates far into a

is is

if

situated in

the deepest

mountain mass

whose highest peaks reach between 3,000 and 4,000 meters, sometimes higher: Silverthrone Mountain and Mounts Waddington,

Tiedeman, Munday, Rodell. Very

far to

the east

redoubtable and inaccessible region. Thus, the spread out between two poles: the strangers, if not of enemies,

Comox

lies

the most

Xwexwe myths

are

country, the world of

on the one hand; and the high

seas,

unknown, on the other. The poles of the transalong which the Dzonokwa myths are distributed, cor-

the world of the verse axis,

respond, on the one hand, to the sea, and on the other, to the

mainland

in its

most forbidding and frightening

aspects.

Doubtless, these remarks are to be taken with caution.

Our

data

on the Kwakiutl, rich though they may appear when compared with others, are

far

from exhaustive, and we cannot rule out the

possibility that in actual fact the distribution of

geographical names

is

less

clear-cut than

I

myths and of

have indicated. But,

|[

Kwakiutl regional group

70

Way

The

even

of the Masks

were to grant a merely exploratory value to the research

if I

done by Boas and locate the

his followers, the fact that

going in opposite directions

is

me

is

necessary.

in the

hush a child who cried

The

child ran

could be heard, but he could

cries

not be reached. After vain efforts, the search for

The

ex-

strong.

middle of the night and Dzonokwa caught him. She

dragged him underground; his

off.

in

type.

first

relate that in order to

weak and

constantly, his parents threatened to call the ogress.

away

me

The myths

gamut whose

qualified, relatively speaking, as

begin with an example of the

The Nimkish

as rather

very rich, and to guide

that have been collected are distributed along a

may be

me

in itself, has struck

this labyrinth, a preliminary classification

Let

to al-

just as significant.

The Xwexwe masks' mythology, scanty. That of the Dzonokwa is

tremities

me

allows

it

myths concerning the two types of masks along axes

him was

called

ogress took the child far into the interior of the country.

But the young captive had cunning: pretending to punch holes his keeper's ears,

her into the

fire

his adventure.

and burned

Some

took possession of fiars,

etc.

The

in

from which to hang ornaments, the child pushed her.

Back

at the village,

he recounted

of the villagers went to Dzonokwa's place and her riches: preserved berries, dried meat,

all

father of the

young hero distributed them

in the

course of a potlatch.

A myth right

of the Awaitlala,

bank of Knight

reaches of the fjord.

who

deep

lived

family there decided to go up the fjord in

a boat to fish.

But the salmon they put up

after another.

The parents complained

about his for

on the

Hanwati, toward the lower

Inlet, begins in

A

in the interior,

laziness: if only

he had

set

to dry disappeared one

bitterly to their

himself the

trials

young son prescribed

boys of his age, he might have enjoyed the protection of a

spirit

which would help

his family

Stung to the quick, the lad took

keep the

fruit of their labor.

ritual baths.

A

spirit

came

to

Dzonokwa Myths

1

1

him and educated him. It also gave him round stones with which now robust young boy succeeded in killing the fish thieves, who were none other than a band of Dzonokwa. In their lair, the the

hero and his father found

little girl

ogresses and accumulated goods:

meat, bear and wild goat skins, dried berries, plus

salmon. They carried this loot, as well

as the

two

all

the stolen

little

Dzonok-

was, to a village apparently belonging to a Kwakiutl group from the east coast of Vancouver Island, beyond the Awaitlala territory.

The

father took

Dzonokwa

as his ceremonial

name; he invited

"all

them a banquet, and, at the peak of the excitement, produced the two Dzonokwas whom he had kept hidden. The entire audience became as though intoxicated by their presence. The young man took advantage of this situation and the tribes," offered

killed

many

survivors.

people.

Dzonokwa

of

He

distributed skins and

Back home, he built to

commemorate

fiars

among

the few

in front of his house four statues

his exploits.

Hanwati that a myth of the Tenaktak, neighbors of the Awaitlala, deep inside Knight Inlet, takes place. A hunter and It is also at

his wife

had camped to

to steal fish that his

bow, shot

managed

at

fish at the

had been and

entrance of the fjord.

dim shape moving

they heard and saw a

set to

dry underneath. The

hit the creature,

who

man

took

fell in

the bushes but

tracks

and found the

to escape.

In the morning, the hunter followed

body of

At night,

the roof of their shelter

its

endowed with great hanging breasts and a round protruding mouth. It was a male Dzonokwa (for this anatomic oddity, see p. 59). The couple paddled upriver to their village. The next day, a party of men going downriver caught a strange creature

sight of a great female

They went back

Dzonokwa,

all

in tears

to the village, reported

on the rocky shore.

what they had seen, and

mourning her missing congener. The young men, who were very excited, wanted to go the hunter guessed that the creature was

look for her immediately, but the eyewitnesses did their best to

Dzonokwa dancer {from torical

Curtis.

The North American

Indian,

vol.

10, His-

Photography Collection, University of Washington Libraries)

dissuade them: "Its eyes are enormous," they explained. "There

seems to be

fire

burning inside them.

box." In spite of

all this,

and questioned

her;

Thinking she might

the

Its

young men

head left,

is

as

big as a storage

found the Dzonokwa

she told them that she had lost her son. kill

someone out of sorrow

for her son, the

youths ran away. In the village, there lived an ugly

youth

who seldom

spoke.

up, and, without a word, interrogated the

He

young man,

left in his

small canoe. In his turn, he

Dzonokwa who promised

returned her son to her.

He

a very quiet

listened to his comrades' story, got

to

make him

rich if he

led her to the hunter's shelter

and

Dzonokwa Myths followed the

the body,

trail to

73

which the Dzonokwa, accompanied

by the hero, carried to her place.

The house was very big and presented to her protege:

mask

filled

with goods which the giantess

dressed skins, dried goat flesh, and a

body of her son

that was just like her face. She revived the

with a living water she drew from a basin, and she threw some of it on the homely hero, who became very handsome. But he was sad, he said, because he

he would

know how

to the village

with

had

to bring all

She promised that

lost his parents.

them back

to

life.

The hero returned

his riches, celebrated the first winter rite,

and mother with the giantess's magic water.

resuscitated his father

day, in front of the whole village, he performed the

The next

dance of the Dzonokwa whose riches had allowed him to entertain his guests

and shower

gifts

upon them. At

huntsman from the beginning of the

that

moment,

the

he laid claim

tale intervened;

on the dance, which, he maintained, had been conquered through bloodshed. "Oh no," replied the hero, "Dzonokwa gave me this dance. She did not say, 'Take this dance and give

who

killed

my

son.' "

And

to this day, jealousy

it

to the one

and enmity

exist

between the descendants of these two men.

The Awaitlala and

the Tenaktak also recount, and in almost the

same terms, that there was once her son.

Night

a

woman who

lived alone with

after night, their salmon provisions

would disap-

The woman made herself a bow and barb-pointed sat in ambush, saw the Dzonokwa who was lifting up the she let off a shaft and the giantess was wounded in the

pear.

Dzonokwa in her

ran away, pursued by the heroine

house and

who

saved the skull and

treatment lent

who found

cut the head off her remains.

bathed her son in

him unusual

it

breasts.

her dead

The woman

as if in a basin.

vigor. Later, the boy

various monsters, including a

arrows, roofing;

This

triumphed over

Dzonokwa whom he turned

into

stone.

Another Kwakiutl group, the Tsawatenok, lived north of King-

Way

74

The

come

Inlet.

of the Masks

One

of their myths features a princess who, soon after

puberty, loved to run about the woods at the risk of being carried

away by "Dzonokwa of the she

met

a speech

a big

and stout

impediment, invited her

mired the young

make

forest."

girl's

As

a

matter of

woman who, stammering to her place.

plucked eyebrows. The

fact,

one day

because she had

The

giantess ad-

girl

promised to

her just as beautiful and received in payment, in anticipation

of this service, the ogress' magical garments, which were none

other than her puberty clothes.

The

princess took

Dzonokwa

to

her village where, pretending to put her in the care of the barber,

they called a warrior

Bella Coola

who

killed her with a

Dzonokwa mask {Milwaukee

Public

hammer and

a stone

Museum of Milwaukee County)

^i^

Dzonoktva Myths

75

By order of the princess, the body was decapitated and burnt. The whole village went to the ogress' house, which was filled with such riches as skins, fiirs, dried meat, and grease. The heroine's father took possession of a mask with a human face

chisel.

surmounted by an eagle

in its aerie, called

"Nightmare-bringer-

nest-mask." These events took place during the profane season.

Dzonokwa's provisions were distributed around and the clan responsible for this bounty acquired first rank. It is since that period that

time of their puberty, young

at the

made of goats' hair. I will The Nakoatok of the mainland

return to this conclusion.

dresses

of the island,

tell

wear Dzonokwa's

girls

coast, facing the northern part

of twelve children

who

played on the beach

while eating mussels. They harshly drove off a

little girl

whom

The child saw a Dzonokwa approaching, carrying her basket on her back. Perceiving that she would be the first one taken, she armed herself with a

they scorned because she was harelipped.*

mussel

she used

shell;

where she

lay,

and

let

it

to

herself

slit fall

open the bottom of the basket to the

ground, followed by

five

other children.

Once she got home, Dzonokwa made preparations to cook the remaining victims. A very pretty woman, rooted to the floor up to her waist in a corner of the cabin, taught them a magic song to send the ogress to sleep; then there would remain only for the six

children to push her into the

fire.

And

this

is

in fact

what hap-

When

Dzonokwa's own children came home, the pretty person told them to sit at the table. The other children, who had been hiding, jeered at them for eating their mother's flesh, and

pened.

the little ogres ran away. ural protectress

*On

The

survivors disinterred their supernat-

and took her back to the

the meaning of this infirmity, see

tomique de Dieterlen,

la

gemellite," Systemes de

Hermann,

Paris,

my

signes,

village.

article:

"Une

textes reunis en

1978, pp. 369—76.

prefiguration ana-

homniage a Germaine

76 Let

The

Way

me

end

of the Masks this survey of the

who

Bella Bella,

weak forms with the Heiltsuq,

are related to the

or

Kwakiutl through language and

culture and are settled on the mainland coast between Rivers Inlet

and Douglas Channel facing the southern part of the Queen Char,

lotte Islands.

They

say that a little girl

who

did not stop weeping

was entrusted to her grandmother in the hope that the

know how

to soothe her.

A Dzonokwa assumed On

the old

woman and

tore off

and dropped the fringes of her

the

trail

up

stole the child.

to the top of a

latter

the way, the

dress.

would

the appearance of little girl

Her people followed

high mountain where the ogress lived.

little girl was released. Returning The home, Dzonokwa noticed that she was gone and set off in pursuit of her. She caught up with the troop of liberators; to neutralize

latter

was not there and the

her, they bit their tongues

and spat the blood in her direction.

Left: Heiltsuq Dzonokwa mask with closed eyes {Milwaukee Public Museum of Milwaukee County); right: Dzonokwa mask with half-closed eyes {Milwaukee

Public

Museum of Milwaukee County)

Dzonokwa Myths

11

She protested that she loved the child and wished to be near her. a token of her good intentions, she gave her dances to the

As

chief.

They succeeded

some

after

effort in

chasing her away.

Other Heiltsuq myths giy^ Dzonokwa another name, Kawaka, by which she is occasionally called in this dialect. Taking advantage of a death-dealing epidemic, this ogress stole the cadavers and

even able-bodied men,

whom

she paralyzed by spraying with sparks

that she let fly out of her eyes. These were like holes.

wanted

to

know who

the

Kawaka

ogresses,

He

the thief was.

managed

the ogress and

to escape.

all

of

The

whom

fiirs,

were killed and their bodies

also

know

from the ones already examined.

little

where and, brief.

Let

in

me

any

went to war against

all

their goods, consisting

and dried meat. Thus enriched, he became

The Heiltsuq

a great chief.

Indian

let himself be stolen by

village

burnt, while the hero took possession of of copper sheets,

An

case, they

therefore

myths that vary have discussed them else-

versions of I

would not add much

move

to the present

on to the strong versions, which

originate mainly from Vancouver Island.

Neighbors of the Nootka, the Tlaskenok, lived in the north of the island, on the western coast. One of their myths relates the visit

of a family to a village situated on the shore of Klaskino

Inlet, across the

their children,

water from their

whom

she

gum. The mother of the hard that mucus ran from

first

little

own

shore.

An

ogress stole

all

blinded by gluing their eyes with ones

who had

disappeared wept so

the way down to the ground; grew up, he left in search of a child was born out of it. When he his brothers, met a lady rooted to the ground (see p. 75), who told

him where

her nose

all

the ogress had hidden her heart in order to render

herself invulnerable.

The hero

killed the ogress

under the pretext

of improving her looks (pp. 74-75), but she came back to life immediately. He killed her for good at last, resurrected his brothers,

and rose

to heaven.

The

78

Way

of the Masks

on the island, the Nimkish have a myth relating to the descendants of the first man who lived on earth after the deluge. Still

His son succeeded in marrying the

he loved by overcoming

girl

a son

him by his future father-in-law. named Giant, master of the Dzonokwa masks, and

for a time, the

husband of the sun's daughter. Their son presides

the reputedly fatal trials set to

They had

over the eddies that agitate the ocean.

These myths of the island Kwakiutl have unmistakable

affinities

with those of their Nootka neighbors, some of whose more coher-

Among

ent versions have been collected. is

called Malahas. She stole

said,

and killed

by smoking them over the

a

their

fire;

these Indians, the ogress

woman's children, it is mother acquired another

son, born of her snot, and he set off in search of the ogress.

day,

when he had climbed

into a tree, the ogress saw his

in the water, fell in love with

decided to marry him.

it,

One

image

discovered his hiding place, and

More than

once, he killed her under the

pretext of improving her looks, but she revived each time, as long

he had not found and pierced her heart, which was lodged

as

The hero resurrected his brothers by urinating dead bodies. Then he rose to heaven to meet his father, Once there, he gave back their sight to two old women

outside her body.

on their he

said.

in

exchange

for

an itinerary, arrived at his destination, visited his

father for a while,

and came down again to earth to introduce

there and put the world in

good

order.

"place of the olachen (candlefish)," freed the imprisoned fish,

who warned him

He

landed

at

Dza'wade,

somewhere near Knight

and married the

The son-in-law by submitting him against her father.

local chief's

fish

Inlet,

daughter,

latter did, in fact, seek

to all sorts of tests. But young man got the better of him, killed his persecutor, and abandoned his wife to undertake a long peregrination in the course of which he triumphed over adversaries, transforming them into to kill his

the

various animals, and gave a normal

who were

anatomy

to a couple of

humans

incapable of procreating because they had their sexual

I

Dzonokwa Myths organs on their foreheads. Finally, he gave the breath of

some wooden

figurines,

and

this

is

79 life

to

the origin of present humanity.

For the student of comparative mythology, the interest of these strong versions fied

is all

the greater for being found, in barely modi-

form, in South America. Thus they seem to belong to a very

New

World. This

my

archaic layer of the

mythology of the

present concern,

being rather to justify the division of the Dzo-

it

is

not

weak those

ver-

sions that deal exclusively with the squabbles with the ogress,

and

nokwa myths

into

two groups.

I

have qualified

as strong those that follow this

up with

as

a visit of the hero in

heaven where, explicitly or implicitly, a conflict his father-in-law,

sun.

Whether

the

who is more myth states

sets

him

against

often than not identified with the it

or implies

it,

it

is,

in fact, in

order to marry the daughter of the sun that the hero undertakes

These versions, therefore, involve two female protagonists: first, the ogress, a chthonian creature or one that has an

his ascension.

affinity

with the subterranean world; then, the sun's daughter, a

whose home and ancestry all place her on the Granting this, my attention now turns to the already mentioned Tenaktak, who have a myth whose variants celestial

creature

side of daylight.

achieve a remarkable synthesis of the two aspects.

There was once a young boy who had scabs and sores

all

over

As his sickness was catching, his father, a village chief, decided to abandon him for the good of the other inhabitants. His grandmother took pity on him and left him a small fire and a few his body.

provisions.

The poor

fellow was

left

alone. Suddenly, a small child

came out of his stomach, revealed that he was the cause of his ailment, and asked his "father" to name him Scab. The miraculous child created fish out of hemlock needles gathered from his aunts' graves. But soon all the fish disappeared. Scab sat in ambush, saw the thief, who was none other than Dzonokwa. He shot arrows into her big hanging breasts, gave chase to her, met the ogress' little

daughter

who

led

him

to her abode.

Dzonokwa was

there,

80

The

Way

of the Masks

gravely wounded.

Having

first

tormented her, the hero agreed to

and cure her, and, in gratitude, he got the little girl as a magic water, and great wealth. Back at his village after an absence which he thought was short

care for

wife,

but which had, in of his father

fact, lasted four years,

who had

he found the bare bones

His Dzonokwa wife could not

since died.

them "because these creatures' eyes are deep set in the orbits," which renders them practically blind.* Thus she had to grope around to find the skeleton, which she resurrected upon touching. Scab soon grew tired of his wife; at his command, Charitonettae (buffle) ducks transported him to heaven. He arrived at the sun and the moon's place and they gave him their daughter in marsee

riage. Later,

he came back

rejoined his father and

her rival.

At

first,

down

first

with his

to earth

who,

wife,

celestial spouse,

naturally, was jealous of

women, then

discord reigned between the two

they reconciled. In spite of this, the hero wished to go back to

heaven with his second wife, but he

and

fell

to his death.

The

father

and

fell

asleep during the flight

his

Dzonokwa daughter-in-

law remained alone together on earth.

Two

other versions of this

myth

are

known,

also collected

by

Boas, from the same informant, but with an interval of thirty-two years.

According to the older version,

after the hero

had

fallen

from the sky and died, his Dzonokwa wife resuscitated him; they lived

on earth

sick child

as a good couple. In the other version, where the abandoned by its family is a girl (which makes it more

plausible that an offspring should

come out

two wives, who hated each other,

leave

of her entrails). Scab's

him.

He

killed himself

while attempting to rejoin his favorite in the sky. His father-in-

*That

is

the reason

ets or half-closed eyes.

why

the traditional

Dzonokwa

statues have hollow sock-

Present-day sculptors seem to have lost interest in this

essential characteristic of the ogress.

They represent her with wide-open

doubtless to accentuate her ferocious aspect.

^

eyes,

81

Dzonokwa Myths law, the sun, resurrected

with his

him and he resumed

his conjugal life

celestial spouse.

Thus, the problem of the impossible reconciliation of poles that are too far apart (represented, respectively, by the terrestrial and nocturnal spouse, and the celestial and luminous spouse)

is

re-

solved differently in each version. Ineffectual mediator, the hero finds

himself ultimately separated from the two poles he had

thought he could unite and he dies (version rates

1);

to the other,

which

according to the case, either the terrestrial

is,

pole (version 2) or the celestial pole (version

simultaneous union with wives other

or else, he sepa-

himself definitely from one of the poles and remains joined

in sharp contrast

is

woman, which

is

made

who

3).

The

are too distant

unrealizable

from one an-

with the marriage to a reasonably distant

possible, in the Salish

myths of the

Fraser,

by the Swaihwe masks that are given in dowry by her brother. This

successfial

tween siblings, entails

marriage ends an almost incestuous intimacy bejust as, in

one version here, the broken marriage

an almost incestuous intimacy between the father-in-law

and the daughter-in-law. I have emphasized elsewhere the analogy between the story of Scab and the Greek myth of Adonis, as reinterpreted by Marcel Detienne. But it is on another analogy, this one internal to the American myths, that

it

is

fitting to dwell

here. For in all those analyzed since the beginning of this book,

the stinking hero (characterized as covered with sores in the Fraser valley, as well as north of

ugly or lazy

—even

obedient youth, to place

—

slothfial

who

Knight

—

Inlet),

the crying child, the

adolescent, or else the lively

—

therefore

for reasons that vary

from place

proves insupportable to his family, are all one

same person. His appearance alone changes,

since the

but dis-

and the

myths con-

tent themselves with shifting his blemish (the inverted sign of his election)

from the physical

to the

moral plane.

6 The Clue Among

the Southern Kwakiutl,

latches.

The

to the

Dzonokwa

Mystery

also appears in pot-

individual representing her carries a basket on his

back in which are stuffed decorated copper objects of a kind describe later (chap. as "coppers."

He

and

11),

which

to

I

shall refer

I

will

from now on

hands them over to the chief whenever the

latter

moment, the chief himself wears Geekumhl. Its carving is more carefully

needs them. At the most solemn a

Dzonokwa mask

called

done. Instead of her usual stupid face, the giantess firm and authoritative expression. incarnates

Dzonokwa; and thus

complete coppers, or

wood As

chisel

who

whose handle

a matter of fact,

all

first

it

given a very

she

them

into pieces with a hard-

is

cuts

is

who wears the mask who sells or gives away

The

chief

also represents her.

the

myths

relating to

Dzonokwa make

her the owner of fabulous riches, which she spontaneously offers to her proteges, or

which humans

her away. There

yet another

is

seize after killing her or chasing

way of obtaining them: Dzonokwa

has a baby who, she says, never cries (in contrast with the children she steals).

Anyone who succeeds

in surprising her

spring, and who, by pinching the latter, causes receive marvelous presents life,

82

and death bringer.

it

and her

off-

to cry,

may

from the ogress: magic canoe, water of

When

one

calls

on Dzonokwa unexpect-

The Clue

to the

Mystery

83

Above: Kwakiutl Dzonokwa mask, Geekumhl type {University

of British Columbia

modern

right:

totem

pole

Museum of Anthropology); of Dzonokwa with wide-

open eyes, holding infant {B.C. Provincial Museum, Victoria)

edly, one often finds her busy carving a canoe out of a tree trunk;

but, because of her blindness or bad sight, she invariably

hole in her unfinished piece. This clumsiness

is

given that this personage seems earthbound:

is

Dzonokwa it

is

takes

because she

deprived of water produce. As described in the myths,

her riches seem to have a terrestrial origin exclusively fiars,

a

not very surprising if

every opportunity to steal fish from the Indians, herself

makes

dressed skins, the grease and meat of quadrupeds

,

—

coppers,

dried ber-

84

The

Way

of the Masks

"Oh, how much property one saw there! But there was no rivers and streams ... as all she had to offer her

ries:

food from the

guests was dried meat." Yet, there

"Dzonokwa

is

sometimes a mention of

a

of the sea"; a ceremonial dish shows her next to three

other figures representing fish, in a house whose ancestral spirit,

which

is

mention

painted on

its

facade,

a "forest whale." In

is

a whale.

But the records

also

both cases, the paradoxical assigning

of a territorial or marine being to

opposed habitat seems to

its

refer less to the earth or the sea in the strict sense

terranean world whose entrance, as

we

shall see,

than to a sub-

opens in the ut-

termost depths of the ocean.

monumental sculptures in the likeness of Dzomore than seven meters high shows her with nokwa. A hands outstretched, ready to receive the property when the wife's There

exist

statue

family arrives to pay the marriage debt. the gigantic dishes or

more meters

,

carved out of the

tall,

who

is

have already mentioned

I

abdomen

of an ogress

,

two

represented lying on her back with

folded knees. Smaller dishes occupy the sites of the face, the breasts,

and the kneecaps. Thus,

all

these parts of the body,

normally convex, are turned into so

An

many

which

are

cavities (see p. 61).

admirable but seldom quoted text of Barrett's specifies that

guests were afraid to be served in such dishes.

When

they learned

of their hosts intention to use them, they prepared themselves for

any eventuality. They

all bedecked themselves with ornaments and body paintings that gave them a ferocious appearance, then they

sat

according to their individual ranks, and, with mixed feelings

of apprehension and some belligerency, watched out for the arrival of the dish.

Came

the

moment when

the

young men belonging

Dzonokwa with

outstretched

dian,

Historical Photography Collection,

vol.

Libraries)

10,

to

arms {from Curtis, The North American InUniversity of Washington

J:>'>

[

'*'$

I.

The Clue

to the

87

Mystery

the host's clan let out ritual shouts and lifted the dish, which was

hidden outside, and introduced

into the house; the head, with

it

neck, appeared in the door. Immedi-

the chief's son riding on

its

ately, the speaker for the

ranking visiting tribe ordered the bearers

Singing, he promised a

to stop.

feast:

we do

"This

head of the Tsonokwa facing towards us because we tribe."

Again the young men

in his turn, he, too,

repeated until

put

lifted the dish,

to

feast.

tribe stopped

them

The same incident was The dish was then

the invited tribes had spoken.

all

down with

was too poor

promising a

head

they advanced a short

and the speaker of the number two

distance,

to keep the are the

its

stern toward the door, unless one of the tribes

promise a

feast. In that case, the stern

was turned

to point in its direction. This precipitated a fight

between the host

and the one they had thus disgraced. The

silent ones tried

tribe to

throw some part of the dish into the

tried to jostle each other into the

since

main

or else the adversaries

dish: the

imposed eternal indignity on the one or

it

"washed

in

my

supreme

in carrying the dish

toward one of the

tribes, a

Finally, the big dish

behind the

this utensil

bit careless

and have the stern pointing, even warning was sounded.

not corrected immediately, the young

was

fire,

men were

insult,

who were

several

movements of young men be a

feasting dish." So, the

were anxiously watched. Should the

to say,

fire,

slightly,

If the error

was

roughly handled.

set to rest in the right position, that is

with

its

post of the back of the house.

head pointing toward the center

The

chief successively struck the

pieces of the service corresponding to the head, the right breast,

the

left breast,

the navel, the right knee, and the

plates were divided

among

left

knee.

The

the tribes according to the order of

precedence, and then ordinary dishes and ladles were brought out

Group of ceremonial lic

Museum

dishes representing Dzonokiva's body parts

of Milwaukee County)

{Milwaukee Pub-

Way

The

88

of the Masks

from the abdominal cavity.

to distribute the food served

An

offi-

"counter" took charge of the operations, deciding and an-

cial

nouncing the number of dishes assigned

group of guests.

to each

The guests ate very little on the spot, most of the food being meant to be taken home. Only seal, whale, grease, berries, and other vegetable products could be served in the ceremonial plates.

Land animals,

fish,

because they were served in

common

All these facts

and clams or other

common

shellfish

were not allowed

foods, acceptable at small feasts

and

dishes only.

show the

link between the character of

Dzonokwa

and accumulated or distributed wealth. There are other links to

which attention should

also be

drawn: thus, the connection estab-

myth between Dzonokwa and pubescent

lished in one

girls,

to

explain the fact that their ritual clothes imitate hers. These clothes

and narrow straps of woven goat's

consist of a piece of bark

hair,

which hug the young person's body tightly, precluding practically

movement.

all

time, she

is

A

text describes a princess in this condition; at this

name meaning

given a provisional

"Sitting-still-in-

the-house." Indeed, she crouches, immobile, with her knees pressed against her chest.

Her

daily meal

is

limited to four small pieces of

dried salmon, dipped in a little oil, which the

who

looks after her slips between her lips; her drink consists of a

little

her

water, which she sucks

mouth

may swallow

weight; only then

is

(p.

74),

is

as little as possible,

four times only so as not to put on

As long

released from her straps, her eyebrows are pulled is

father

The shaman woman yew tree.

cut.

wool straps on the branches of a

owns

a copper,

places the

he places this precious

object on the right of his daughter so that she easily obtain

To keep and when

tube of bone.

she can wash only one day in four. After

and her hair

If the princess'

it

a

she allowed to eat, chewing slowly.

as her seclusion lasts,

one month, she

up through

must open

small, she

she drinks, she

out

shaman woman

may, subsequently,

the ones she will carry on her back to her ftjture

The Clue husband. The

"Be ready,

future suitors:

husbands; for

O

wife,

song of the pubescent

ritual

am

I

O

chiefs' sons

mistress

...

I,

to the

girl is

addressed to her

of the tribes! to be

come

mistress,

princes of the chiefs of the tribes!

89

Mystery

I

am

seated on coppers,

and have many names and privileges that will be given by father to

As

a

my

future husband.

matter of

Kwakiutl was

as

.

.

my

."

Boas has shown, marriage

among

the

on the same principles

a kind of purchase conducted

and by the same it

fact,

my

to be your

rules as those for a copper.

However, Boas adds,

should not be concluded that the husband buys only his wife.

The

latter's clan also

buys out

his right to the future children of

the couple, and whatever the son-in-law acquires

own

When

use, but for that of his successors.

wife's family offers the

than those

it

is

not for his

they are born, the

husband payments even more considerable

received at the time the bride was given away. These

counterdues are meant to "repurchase" the wife, so that

will and, so to speak, for nothing.

responds with a wife.

The

woman

a stick,

The

she free

son-in-law, therefore, often

to secure for himself a right to his

link between marriage transactions and copper transac-

tions also flows

the

new payment,

if

own

decides to remain with her husband, this will be of her

from the

strives to

which she

fact that before

and

amass coppers; she will

offers to her

after her tie

wedding,

four of

them on

husband.

These practices shed light on the reason why Dzonokwa gives pubescent

girls the ritual

The myths and

rites

costume that had

first

belonged to her.

have shown us two aspects of the personality

of the ogress. First of

all,

she

is

a kidnapper,

but she

is

holder and dispenser of the means for giving the potlatch, the most prized items of which are the coppers.

mask

in three parts,

An

also the

among

articulated

when pulled apart through manipulation of

the strings, reveals a copper background, which thus seems to

stand for the ogress' very essence.

But, upon reaching nubility (that

is,

marriageable age), the

Way

The

90

of the Masks

Kuakiutl Dzonokwa mask with copper base and hinged closed and open (facing

eyes

and jaw, shown

page) to reveal copper background {University ofBritish

Columbia Museum of Anthropology)

young

girl

becomes comparable to Dzonokwa, and

this

on two

counts. She offers the coppers to her future husband, and she steals

from him,

From as

if,

in advance, the children to be

born from their union.

the point of view of the bride's family, everything happens

indeed, the children should belong to the wife's group rather

than the husband's. Looked upon from a certain perspective, the

The Clue

opposition between the two roles

filled

to the

Mystery

91

by the ogress underlies her

unsociable character; but, from a different perspective, the young girl

would seem

to

fill

a social role

and an economic function that

upon entering the she behaves toward her own kin in the same fashion

give her the appearance of a tamed Dzonokwa:

conjugal state,

Dzonokwa, but favor. The ogress

as

reverses the direction of the exchanges in their steals

children from

humans and, willy nilly, young bride takes her

cedes the coppers to them; by contrast, the family's coppers

away from them, and brings the children

to

them.

Way

The

92

of the Masks facts explains the affinity, required

This presentation of the

by

the myths, between Dzonokwa and the young

girl of

age, but, by stressing the maternal right,

seems to contradict

it

marriageable

today's prevalent views on the social organization of the Kwakiutl.

Indeed, most writers estimate that these Indians had bilateral descent, inflected

by a quite pronounced patrilineal

bias.

believe,

I

however, that the true nature of Kwakiutl institutions has not been understood by observers and analysts, and that, within them, the matrilineal and patrilineal principles are in active competition at all levels.

The problem

too vast to be dealt with here, and

is

which

prefer to postpone its full discussion, ter 13 in Part II. If

my

interpretation

the object of chap-

is

correct,

is

her in-laws that the wife behaves like a true

rather toward

it is

Dzonokwa:

the future children from her husband, and giving material and immaterial wealth, of

I

him

which the coppers

stealing

in return

are at

once

the substance and the symbol. Similarly,

among

the Salish, the

Swaihwe masks, which

source and symbol of wealth, were transmitted by the her husband. the

mask

Valley

We

have seen (pp. 19—20; also

has spread in this the

all

way down

to

way from

Musqueam

cf.

are the

woman

the groups of the Fraser in the estuary,

then north

and south along the coast, and across the water to Vancouver land.

By

the

same device, the

to

pp. 160—61) that

island people transmitted

Is-

it

to the

riches,

which

Southern Kwakiutl.

On is

the other hand, the link between

Swaihwe and

among the Salish, is inverted by the Kwakiutl, who Xwexwe masks a diametrically opposed function. In-

so obvious

lend their

deed, the Kwakiutl masks are avaricious, and they prevent the spectators from enriching themselves instead of helping

do

them

to

As a consequence of the preceding considerawhich have allowed us to see in Dzonokwa the source of all

so (pp. 43, 49).

tions,

wealth, a correlational and oppositional relationship thus seems to exist

between the two types of masks and the functions respec-

Right: Cowichan Swaihwe mask

{courtesy

of

Museum

of the American Indian,

Heye Foundation); overleaf: Kwakiutl Dzonokwa mask {University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology, photograph by Johsel Namkung)

nS

The Clue tively assigned to

may be

ship

Mystery

to the

them. The canonical formula

93

for this relation-

stated as follows:

When, from

one group to another,

semantic function is inverted.

On

the plastic

form

when

the other hand,

is

preserved,

the

the semantic func-

tion is retained, it is the plastic form that is inverted.

Let

me

recapitulate. Except for stylistic differences, all the plas-

tic characteristics

Swaihwe masks

of the

masks of the Kwakiutl, but the generous, trast,

the

and, like

found

are

Xwexwe

being avaricious instead of

latter,

By

a function opposite to that of the former.

fill

Dzonokwa mask (which

dispenses riches like the

transfers its wealth

it,

con-

Swaihwe

from the wife's family to the

husband's) has plastic characteristics, which, details,

in the

down

constitute a systematic inversion of the

to the smallest

Swaihwe mask's

characteristics. I

have thus demonstrated that beings

as the Salish

as different in

appearance

Swaihwe and the Kwakiutl Dzonokwa, which no one

would have dreamed of comparing, cannot be interpreted each for itself and considered in isolation. They are parts of a system within which they transform each other. As is the case with myths, the masks (with their origin myths and the rites in which they appear) become intelligible only through the relationships that unite them.

The white color of the Swaihwe trimmings, the black Dzonokwa mask the protruding eyes of the one versus ,

eyes of the other, the lolling tongue

these traits

might

mean

less in

a

the concave

and the pursed mouth,

and of themselves than they do

say, diacritical signs.

or that supernatural being

color of the

is

The

as,

all

one

attribution of each feature to this

a function of the

way

in

which, within

pantheon, these beings are opposed to each other in order to

assume complementary

roles.

This analysis could end here, since demonstration.

It

is,

it

had

as its sole object this

however, possible to extend the paradigm

and, by lengthening the search, attain an even wider system, within

which the one

I

have just outlined assumes

Overleaf: Kwakiutl

Xwexwe mask

place.

{University of British Columbia

of Anthropology, photograph by Bill Holm); type

its

left::

Museum

Dzonokwa mask, Geekumhl

{Milwaukee Public Museum of Milwaukee County)

7 In Search of Wealth Dzonokwa owns

the copper, and the

myths

tell

how humans

ob-

tained it from her and were thus able to give the first potlatches. But where does the precious metal come from? The question is

answered

in other

myths

that reveal the place that certain lucky

people were able to reach, where they received the copper, bringing

back to their fellow citizens without passing through the

it

intermediary of the ogress.

The Kwakiutl thought

of the ocean as an

immense stream run-

ning northward. Also in the North (other texts say in the West; in

any

high

case, in the

which the dead descend tide ebbs, the sea it.

Over

this at

seas),

to the

is

the

mouth

the underworld;

fills

of the earth through

country of the ghosts.

when

it

rises,

When it

the

empties

once aquatic and chthonian world, peopled with

monsters and marine animals, reigns a powerful divinity: Ko-

mogwa, master of all as

is

the furniture,

riches.

His palace

He

made

entirely of copper,

including a sofa on which he stretches his

corpulent body (most myths describe boat.

is

keeps loons

as

guards and

him

as a fat invalid),

seals as servants,

and

his

and he has

inexhaustible supplies of goods.

A

blind princess, lost at sea by her slaves, one day berthed

alongside his palace after a perilous journey afloat at the mercy of

94

In Search of Wealth

95

The god's son married her and gave her back her

the currents.

sight with a miracle water. Four sons were born to them. After

they grew up, they returned to their maternal family, traveling on

and other

a self-paddling copper canoe, laden with coppers

gifts.

According to another myth, a princess was given in marriage

by her parents to a stranger with to be a bear.

all,

a dignified air

who turned

out

prisoner of this Blue Beard warned the

must abstain from eating her husband's food, and,

princess: she

above

A woman

from giving herself to him. But one day sleepiness ov-

ertook her, and she allowed a kiss; at once she grew a beard that

reached

down

The unfortunate girl managed to esonly boat. The current carried her to the shore

to her chest.

cape in the ogre's

opposite where her abductor lived. There was a house there; she

entered

it.

A

who was

personage

lying on his back

married her, and rid her of her superfluous hair.

It

welcomed

her,

was Komogwa,

whose dwelling is called House-of-Happiness. Indeed, at first the young woman was happy there and she gave her husband four children, alternately boys and girls. But in the end she grew homesick;

Komogwa

feeling sorry for her,

lage with costly coppers,

all

sent her back to her vil-

kinds of provisions

and various presents. The Kwakiutl myths

Komogwa

by a hero who

powers, or else by a young

is

a

man

shaman

to the

has been

alone manages to heal.

made

He

is

of other visits to

in search of supernatural

lets

himself slide or be carried

bottom of the waters, and he

Komogwa, who

ceremonial dishes,

seeking death because he had been

humiliated. In both cases, the hero

away

,

tell

infirm by a

arrives at the

wound

house of

that the visitor

rewarded with riches and magic

gifts

and returns home. Let

me

return for a

moment

to the bearded princess of the sec-

ond myth. The adventure unfolds along a horizontal axis with, on side, the land of her bear husband, and on the other, the high seas where she is welcomed by the marine god. This story of a one

woman between two men

is

counterbalanced by another about a

96

The

Way

of the Masks

Above: Mask of Komogwas wife (University

Museum

of British

Columbia

of Anthropology); right:

mask

Kwakiutl

of

master of wealth,

Komogwa,

with aquatic

bird on his head {University of British Columbia

Museum

of An-

thropology)

man between two women:

this tale develops

between the earth (and even the sky since the chthonian world. a

The

it

along a vertical axis, features a bird)

and

chief of a coastal village one day caught

mysterious white swan, which gave out a strong smell of copper.

When

the bird changed itself into a

she refused to say

who

woman, he married her though came from. One

she was and where she

day, she lured her husband far inland, under the pretext that she

wanted

him marry a second wife, daughter of a chthonian Through the hole that he used to communicate with

to have

personage.

the outside world, the latter handed over to his visitor a baby and

In Search of Wealth a

chamber pot

97

with urine. The hero, taken aback by the

filled

prospect of having to carry this infantile fiancee for months on his back, politely declined the offer. That was too bad, because

if

only

he had sprinkled the baby with the pot's contents, the infant would

have grown quickly into a pretty young woman. The

rebuked her husband, but

in fact she

was

first

wife

concerned with ac-

less

quiring a co-wife than she was with securing possession of the

making up the dowry, which were quickly put in a safe place. She used them to transform her husband's boat into a submarine; this allowed her to escort her husband to Komogwa, who, it is then revealed, is her father. She brought him the terrestrial goods of which he is deprived: hemlock poles, roots, twigs of the cedar tree, and so on. For though Komogwa owns the dressed caribou skins

salmon, he does not have the ligneous materials needed to build fishing weirs.

The hero

stayed with his father-in-law for a while,

then went back to his people with his wife and son, laden with

sumptuous presents. Three aspects of these myths

are of special interest.

One

of the

made welcome by Komogwa was blind; and it is also ate human eyes, whose original owners, it can

princesses

Komogwa

said that

be assumed, were consequently deprived of sight. Pacific Coast

myths often speak of a supernatural child who, every night, tears out and eats the eyes of the inhabitants of the village where he finds

himself.

Kwakiutl,

this child

neighbors

was the son of a prince and of

The whole population,

divinity. sister,

According to the Tsimshian,

a lake-dwelling

save his father and his father's

perished as the result of his criminal operations. Crushed

by the reproaches of the prince, her husband, the lake promised to

make him

sister-in-law into

Lady Wealth, a character

soon;

of the

all

those, she said,

The brother and

sister

who

went

took up residence

of the

I

shall consider again

hear her child cry will

become

rich.

their separate ways, he to the north,

she to the south. As for the siren, she

woman

very rich, and she transformed her

woman

at the

of the lake, changed into a

bottom of the

seas.

— Way

The

98 It

known

is

of the Masks

Tanu, a copy of which to the British

was a Haida totem pole that stood

that there

(of native manufacture) adorns the entrance

Columbia Provincial Museum

other mythical figures,

in Victoria.

Among

represents a "sea chief" with dangling

it

eyes: every night, his eyes

would drop out of

would put them back

friends

at

their sockets; his

meal times so that he

in place at

could see what he was eating. As conceived by the sculptor, the useless eyes are decorated

with

ends of long stems, they drop

little faces,

down

and, hanging at the

to the feet of the figure.

Nothing could contrast better with the blazing eyes of the Swaihwe masks, which are solidly fixed on their cylindrical base as if to underline the fact that, unlike or the "sea chief's" eyes

human

which are

eyes

which can be torn out,

loose,

theirs are

immovable.

Furthermore, the Swaihwe masks constitute a means for a brother

good match for his sister, that is, into a group that is foreign, but close.

to arrange a

suitably,

to

marry her

off

By contrast, all the myths directly or indirectly built around the theme of the villagers with the plucked-out eyes seem to refer to a marriage to someone too far away, be it the Komogwa who end of the world, or the

lives at the

at the

woman

of the lake

who

dwells

bottom of the waters. These risky marriages may turn out

to the advantage or the detriment of those

doubtless

,

we

are not the only ones

who

who

contract

conceive of Fortune as a

blind or blinding goddess. Even though this analogy

hazardous,

it

them

may seem

nonetheless remains that the inversion already noted

when one goes from

the Salish to the Kwakiutl,

between these two peoples when we view

it

from

is

maintained

a different angle:

exogamy and reasonable enrichment the Kwakiutl associate immoderate exogamy and

the Salish associate measured

with good sight,

extravagant accumulation of wealth with bad sight.

The other bear (which a

is

princess

is

not blind; but, from her marriage to a

another form of extreme exogamy), she earns a beard,

premonitory sign of her eventual transformation into a Dzo-

nokwa,

a character

noted for

its

hairiness.

When

her husband's

In Search of Wealth

boat moors, she cannot climb the bank because

then takes her on his back; this children she steals, but refuses to

do

it is

is

it is

too steep.

99

He

what Dzonokwa does with the

what the hero of the subsequent myth

for his infantile spouse.

Then

the bear husband, car-

rying his wife, pulls himself up along the strong root of a conifer,

which, uncovered by the gullying, reached

all

the

way down

to

the sea (whereas, in the other myth, roots are precisely what

is

Komogwa's riches). All these facts suggest that Komogwa, Dzonokwa, and humans form a system. Each term is delacking in

fined by ownership of

two types of wealth and the absence of

"Dzonokwa of the Sea," painting by Miingo Martin Museum, Victoria)

vincial

(British

a

Columbia Pro-

The

100

Way

of the Masks

third one.

Komogwa

Dzonokwa

has the

must

she

has copper and fish but not forest products.

and copper, but

last

is

deprived offish, which

from humans. Finally, humans have fish and forest it from Dzonokwa, they do not have

steal

products, but until they get copper.

Copper

Forest products

Fish

+ + —

— + +

+ ~ +

Komogwa Dzonokwa

Humans

This triangular system, which connects and opposes humanity

two types of supernatural beings, probably explains the affinione observes between Komogwa and Dzonokwa. Both are canni-

to

ties

There

bals.

a

is

Dzonokwa of

the sea, although this character

when

essentially terrestrial; but, even

is

she dwells at the top of a

in the company of Dzonokwa represents mainly a chthonian personage, and the same may be said of Komogwa, who is described as a spirit residing at the bottom of the sea but who

mountain, she

sea

lions

and

sometimes,

lives in a very

like

a great statue of

deep lake there

truth,

Dzonokwa,

Dzonokwa

posts support carved

whom

In

otters.

lives

deep

in the

Komogwa

mask and of Dzonokwa;

To

an Indian

gives, before sending

him away, made in

sea lions.

coppers, plus a

receptacle, both of

the likeness

or,

tem pole with Let

me go

ter to

which

are

according to another version, a to-

a representation of

Dzonokwa

in its

lower portion.

further into the last of the three aspects

A myth

above.

that

Komogwa

I

fact,

stands in front of his house, where

beams representing

he has received,

mountains. In

mentioned

have already summarized attributes

(p. 97): a princess

who

appears

first in

a

daugh-

the shape

of a copper-smelling swan, and who, later, having reassumed her

human The

form, gives birth to twins of opposite sex. little girl

dies in infancy,

and the boy exudes the same odor

In Search of Wealth

mother.

as his

one

as the

It is difficult

to ascertain if this princess

Komogwa

daughter given to

whether she

is

the same or not, her

is

101

the

same

by other traditions. But

name

is

Kominaga, wife and

accomphce of Baxbakwalanuxsiwae, "Cannibal-who-lives-at-the-

By

north-end-of- the- world."

the virtue of this, she plays an im-

portant role during initiation into the Cannibal secret society,

which

is, it

remembered, the highest ranking

will be

secret society

of the Kwakiutl.

The smell of copper, distinguishing ter

and grandson of Komogwa,

term which reminds

me

is

is

called kilpala

in

Kwakiutl, a

also applied to the smell of salmon. This sidelight

of the relationship of equivalence between copper and

salmon already there

is

daugh-

characteristic of the

more

in evidence in the Salish

to this connection.

myths

(pp.

The Swaihwe masks'

35—38), but origin

myths

of the island Salish compare the characteristic smell of one of the protagonists to the noise of the rattle he carries: indeed, according

might scare away myths of the mainland Salish of the

to the different versions, the smell or the noise

the salmon (p. 20).

As

for the

Fraser and the coast, they have as hero a boy afflicted with a mal-

odorous leprosy.

He

catches a salmon that turns into a frog; in his

predicament, this proves to be the

from

disease itself that escapes

his

Or

last straw.

body

whereas the Kwakiutl, in a very similar

tale,

it

37).'

the

Here, then,

close relationship

everywhere as hard to bear, even when

nates from such a sought-after material as copper:

Komogwa's son-in-law

is

introduce a she-toad

who is both healer and dispenser of copper (p. we have a quadripartite system that brings into a smell (described

else,

in the shape of frogs;

it

is

it

ema-

said of

that "he could not endure the strong smell

of the boy, for he smelled very strong of copper"), the copper itself, frogs,

and salmon.

Whether Kominaga

is

I

will return to this connection.

the same daughter of

ures elsewhere, or whether she

is

another one,

Komogwa who

it

fig-

must be admitted

that little Bella,

Way

The

102

is

who

name and

woman

of the Masks

known about

this

Rich Lady. The Heiltsuq, or Bella

are close kin of the are a little

more

Kwakiutl, called her by the same

They recount that a young dung of a bear. Disgusted, she

explicit.

one day stepped on the

The

hurled insults at the animal.

latter

immediately appeared, and

asked her what kind of excrement she herself produced to dare criticize his.

She coolly replied that hers were mother-of-pearl and

copper. Challenged to prove defecate,

it,

she crouched

down, pretended to her. The

and slipped one of her bracelets underneath

enraptured bear married her, and took her to his residence where the carved posts represented Thunderbird perched on the head of a

Kawaka

Soon, the

(the Bella Bella equivalent of

woman

Dzonokwa,

see p.

77).

gave birth to a bear cub. Later, her brothers

succeeded in releasing her and in taking possession of the accessories pertaining to the

"dance of the cannibal bear." Back

village, the eldest brother

and the

sister

at the

disappeared soon

after;

then they came back, he as the cannibal dancer, she as Kominaga.

The marriage of

a supernatural

woman and Cannibal-who-liveshuman and a bear, are ex-

at-the-north-end-of- the- world, or of a

amples of different degrees of immoderate exogamy. The Tlingit,

who have known to

the all

same myth

as the Bella Bella (in fact, the tale is

the coastal peoples), add, in the

that ever since then,

when women

way of commentary,

see the bear's spoor, they

shower

it and beg the bear not to ravish them. To this example of extreme exogamy is opposed what one may consider as

praise

its

upon

lowest limit: the too-close association between a brother and a

sister,

which the Bella Bella

of their myth.

The

illustrate in the

Bella Coola,

who

concluding episode

are a Salish people isolated

between the Kwakiutl and the Bella Bella, have

a variant that

confirms this interpretation. According to them, the bear's wife

changed herself into a she-bear who murdered her whole family except her brother and sister, who, in turn,

managed

and became an incestuous couple. In pursuit of

my

to kill her

investigation,

I

In Search of Wealth

103

^^ ji Left:

of a

Kwakiutl

copper-cutting stand in the

form

bear {University of British Columbia

Mu-

seum of Anthropology); above: Haida ceremonial hat showing the children of Property

Woman

as

frogs abandoning the Queen Charlotte Islands

{Museum

I

thus always

fall

back on the same theme: that of arbitrating

between marriage that

While

fiir Volkerkunde, Berlin)

is

too near and marriage that

a certain mist envelops

is

too distant.

Komogwa's daughter or the "Rich is more forthcoming on Lady

Lady" of the Kwakiutl, information

Wealth, her equivalent among their Haida and Tlingit neighbors. The former call her Djilaqons, the leading supernatural creature among those that haunt the headsprings of coastal rivers and are mistresses of the fish. The Eagle clan of the Haida trace their

— The

104

Way

of the Masks

origin to an ancestor 96).

p.

A

good time

skinned frog in the it,

but

captured Djilaqons and married her (see fishermen one day found a copper-

later,

they tortured

river;

who

was they

it

who

ing a cane. As the Kwakuitl say of thus she was

afflicted

it,

tried in vain to

burn

perished. Djilaqons then appeared, carry-

Dzonokwa, she stammered:

with a problem of acoustical communication,

problem of visual communication (or redoubling it Dzonokwa) implied by defective vision (see pp. 62, 80). Djilaqons caused a fiery rain to fall, which destroyed the culprits' village and all its inhabitants. Her daughter, the only one spared, gathered quantities of coppers in the ashes*; this rich dowry allowed her to marry a prince, with whom she went to settle in Tsimshian country (on the mainland, facing the Queen Charlotte Islands where the Haida live). Thus, while it is true that she marparallel to the

in the case of

ried in a foreign country,

it

was

Djilaqons also bears the

which

at a reasonable distance,

the kind of marriage noble families sought in real

name

Skil-dja'a-dai,

is

life.

"Lady of Proper-

and, in addition, the word sktl designates a supernatural

ties,"

No

bird.

one has ever seen her, but whoever hears her sound, like

the sound of bells or of metal sheets being slapped against each other,

becomes

rich.

Djilaqons, especially

mantle, or

if

Wealth

is

also

promised to those who see

one succeeds in seizing a

if

being pinched, though seems, therefore, that tional attributes of easily

*h the

is

word

is

its

is

mother claims that

among

made it

to

weep by

never weeps.

It

these Indians, several of the tradi-

Lady Wealth are taken over by Dzonokwa

dub her

she not a giantess

Rich Lady

from her

one hears her child crying. The Kwakiutl say the

same thing about Dzonokwa, when her child

one could

flap

—and

a

Lady Wealth on

a smaller scale

were

that the lesser importance they give to

explained by this

fact.

notable that, in the Salish (Halkomelem) dialects of the lower Fraser, for

copper

is

squal

,

whose root means "cooked"

or "burnt."

In Search of Wealth

105

Painted panel in a Haida house, representing Qonoqada {from Swanton, Contributions to the Ethnology of the Haida)

The Haida and

Wasgo by

Haida

the

ings:

it

designates

first

who

a

marine monster called

status of the

although, like Gonaqadet, he

less clear,

is

dies trapped in a split tree.

riches for those

Komogwa

the Tlingit have an equivalent of

(Qonoqada or Gonaqadet). The

The word Gonaqadet

has two mean-

marine monster who procures immense

catch sight of

it,

and whose daughters (the

equivalents of the Haida Djilaqons) are, according to the Tlingit, mistresses of coastal rivers.

Kwakiutl, Kominaga (Rich Lady) ter.

On

among the be Komogwa's daugh-

will be recalled that,

It

may

also

whom

the other hand, the Tlingit call outsiders

they have

invited to a feast, Gonaqadet. For they will soon have to return

the invitation in an even

more

that of Gonaqadet, announces

me

tion reminds

lavish way,

all

and their

sorts of bounties.

of the great statue of

visit,

like

This correla-

Dzonokwa photographed

by Curtis in Kwakiutl country, whose outstretched arms greet the anticipated gifts due from the wife's family in return for those already given by the husband's family (see p. 85).

The Lady Wealth plot which

cited (p. 97).

who was

of the Tlingit, Lenaxxidek,

One

featured in a

myth

already

day, an Indian stole a baby girl from her mother,

an aquatic divinity. But, every night, the baby dug out

and ate the eyes of everybody in the isolated

is

very similar to that of a Tsimshian

is

woman, with

village.

her child, escaped from the

Only little

a sick

ogre

and

whom

The

106

Way

of the Masks

Haida Lady became Lenaxxidek. Whoever hears her

she killed with her walking stick (an attribute of the

Wealth, see

p.

104). She

child cry and carries

exchange

it

away should consent

with her copper fingernails and

become

alert

him

it

only in

to the fact that if he

wounds, which

gives anyone a scab from his that person will

to return

owns. She will scratch the kidnapper

for the coppers she

rich,

which

will be slow to heal,

in fact

is

what did happen.

Moreover, Lady Wealth leaves a trace of her passage: she has the curious habit of arranging shells, from the mussels she eats, in regular order inside one another.

A

Kwakiutl ceremonial cane,

trimmed with small superimposed coppers, about

shells that

coppers. In other

illustrates

a legend

have been gathered on a beach and changed into

myths of the region, scabs from

sores, or snot,

placed in shells of gradually increasing size, grew and became a child destined to great things.

As

for the Tlingit, they prohibited

the gathering of shells abandoned on beaches.

To contravene

this

interdiction

would provoke

empty

have a mystical value, perhaps because they look like

shells

a tempest.

the natural counterparts of the coppers

It

seems, therefore, that

whose anatomical equiva-

lents,

according to the myths, are the scabs from sores themselves.

More

specifically,

by

a

empty

shells, scabs,

semble the coppers, and the scabs are metonymical, insofar a

and coppers, seem united

double relationship: metaphorical, since the empty shells

as the

myths

like a person's shells;

treat the shells

re-

and

and the scabs

as

means of procuring the coppers.

4

—

8 The Origin of Copper Supernatural beings equipped with a weepy baby or one that must

be

made

to

weep, or beings

dren, are very

common

who

in the

themselves cry like small chil-

Americas, and

it

can be assumed

theme since they have spread throughout the Western Hemisphere. The ancient Mexicans saw a malefic incarnation of the god Tlaloc in the otter auitzol in Nahuatl and lent it a cry similar to that of a weeping child; but woe unto the one who goes, full of compassion, in search of him: that they constitute a quite archaic

—

he will be captured and drowned. This belief teresting to

me

in as

much

as

is

all

the

more

in-

the Kwakiutl inverted the value

attributed to otters by the Mexicans, from the negative to the positive. Indeed, they

made

Consequently, for them, the

sea otters the dispensers of great riches. otters'

fimction duplicates that of Lady

Wealth. For their Tsimshian neighbors,

who

presented her

human

it

was an aquatic creature

garment of wealth";

sister-in-law with "a

and, according to the Haida and the Tlingit, Lady Wealth enriches those

who

hear her baby cry.

From

Similar beliefs are found in South America. to

the

Amazon, one

hears of water

children.

One

beautiful

woman who murders

spirits

who

the

cry

Guyanas

like

small

of these spirits appears in the shape of a marvelously

the boys she seduces.

The Arawak 107

The

108 of

Way

of the

Masks

Guyana come even

closer to the Indians of the

North

Pacific

Water" who, upon

Coast, since they believe in a "Spirit of the

being surprised by a human, abandons her silver

comb on

the river

bank.

The Tagish, who are contiguous to the Tlingit in the north and east, also knew a Lady Wealth whom they depicted in the form of a she-frog. Any man or woman who heard her child weeping and

managed frog

to capture

it

must

refuse to give

back until the she-

it

had excreted gold: further south, we have noticed this asso-

ciation of frogs

with precious metals

101). Indeed, according to

(p.

the Kwakiutl, the frog can see what

lies

water, and this natural aptitude allowed rich dwelling.

As

it

at

the bottom of the

to discover

Komogwa's

a reward, she received the privilege of cutting

copper with her teeth. The Salish are even more distant from the Tagish, yet they echo them with their belief in a supernatural

Whoever found home would surely

being that looks like a frog and cries like a baby. it,

enveloped

become

rich.

it

and kept

in a blanket,

This

spirit

it

at

(Komakwe) may be the same

as

the

Kwakiutl marine god Komogwa, distributor of wealth. According to the

Comox, Komokoae

the shape of a grizzly bear.

on the summit of

lives

He

a

mountain

in

has a great metal strongbox where

he keeps his copper sheets, earrings, and other treasures. The Salish belief also

of a stocky

reminds one of the Haida magic charm in the form

little

personage.

Its

possession guaranteed an abun-

dance of blankets and coppers to whoever stole

it

and stuffed

it

with pieces of valuable stolen objects.

The Tagish

are

Dene, members of the Athapaskan linguistic

family, which, starting from roughly the 50th parallel, peopled

the entire northwest of North America, but to the interior, behind the coastal tribes to which

I

have given

my

attention until now.

Yet, the Dene too have myths about a Lady Wealth whose

was

fittingly rendered

by a French missionary of the

name

latter half of

the nineteenth century, Emile Petitot; he used the expression "La

,^^;^^^-

109

The Origin of Copper

Y

Haida charm,

dispenser

of riches

Contributions to

{from Swanton,

the Ethnology of the Haida)

femme aux metaux" understood

literally.

or the "Mistress of Metals,"

Indeed,

Indians attribute

which must be

the discovery of

copper to this no longer divine, but human, woman.

On

the other

hand, while the Lady Wealth of the Tlingit and the Haida has a whimpering child, the Mistress of Metals has a voracious son (another

way of showing insubordination)

for

an offspring.

The myth of the Mistress of Metals is known to us through numerous variants. Their general framework is the same, except on one point: sometimes the myth explains why copper has become difficult to extract; sometimes why the Europeans, and not the Indians,

aim

is

ried.

day.

the metals today. In both cases, therefore, the

to account for a loss, a relative loss in one case, an absolute

the other. But, everywhere, the heroine

loss in

whom

own

an Eskimo hunter carried

A

off,

took

far

is

a

Dene woman

northward, and mar-

son was born to them; the wife ran away with

With

him one

an awl fixed to the tip of a stick, she succeeded in

which she cooked. The child threw himself on the meat with such voracity that the woman took fright and dekilling a caribou,

1

The

10

Way

of the Masks

serted him.

She resumed her journey southward alone; she saw

some bright

lights

fires:

it

beating

on the way, which she took

at first for

camp-

was the glare of an unknown substance from which, by it,

The woman resumed

she fashioned a knife for herself.

her walk, arrived

home,

told the people about her discovery. She

agreed to accompany the

men

to the copper

on condition that they

men had manufactured all abused her. The woman refused

promise to respect her. But, when the the metal tools they needed, they

home with them and, instead, sat on the mine. On their trip, the men found her in the same place, but she had sunk

to return

next

up

to her waist in the ground; the copper, too,

was half buried.

men and

ordered them to

accompany the

Again, she refused to

bring her back some meat on their next trip. the

woman and

there.

A

the copper had disappeared.

When

they returned,

The men

left

the meat

year later, they found her changed into copper that was

too hard or too soft according to whether

it

came from

the liver

Other versions say only that the copper disappeared

or the lungs.

underground. In another book,

I

put two images in opposition, that of the

canoe and that of the floating island, proposing to see in them two

moving bodies on the

surface of the water,

but one connoting

The myth of the Mistress of Metals The fiagitive woman perceives in the

culture and the other, nature.

confirms this interpretation.

distance a herd of caribou, which she mistakes at island; and, in at least

in the

mud,

the

first for

a floating

one version, every night, with a pole driven

woman moors

She bivouacs on the shallow

which she is escaping. and her immobile boat becomes

the vessel in

sea,

Nothing could better indicate (and even do so twice) that, breaking a conjugal bond, the woman's flight is the opposite of a canoe trip even though it too is m^ade by water. As a matter of fact, in other American myths, the canoe trip symbolizes the her house.

quest for a wife at a good distance away, as opposed to the carried off

by an Eskimo

in

woman

the present myth, whose marriage took

— 111

The Origin of Copper

place "very far away, on the other side of the sea of ice," thus at

too great a distance for

to have a chance to last. This too-distant

it

union, to an enemy and under duress, equally immoderate behavior

of the heroine's kin,

—

though

who commit

is

in contrast

with the

in the opposite direction

at least social incest

by raping

her, a mistake that causes either the loss of the copper or traction to

become

difficult

its

ex-

from then on.

This reading of the Dene myth in terms of a sociological code is

corroborated by the symmetrical Tlingit myth.

brother and bird

who

in the

is

had to

sister

part.

An

The brother became

incestuous

the Thunder-

Once a year, The latter, Hayicanak in more recent

responsible for hurricanes and tempests.

stormy season, he comes back to

named Agischanak

visit his sister.

in the old sources,

ones, went underground at the top of a mountain. Since then, she

has supported the column on which the earth

mans who make

a fire to

warm

rests;

she likes hu-

her, because each time she gets

hungry, the ground shakes and the humans burn grease to feed

According to other versions, the quakes occur when she fights off Raven, the trickster, who, to destroy men, jostles her and tries to make her lose her grip on the column supporting the earth. If

her.

myth on the origin of earthquakes is in symmetrical relation to the Dene myth, it must follow from this that the movement by which the heroine of this latter myth digs herself into the this

ground with the copper

is

an inverted earthquake: in one case the closes in

on

itself.

For the moment, two other details will hold

my

attention. In

earth opens itself up, in the other,

it

I

shall

return to this point.

the recent versions of the Tlingit myth, the brother and sister guilty of a too-close union are the offspring of a marriage between a

woman and

a dog, that

reestablishes the

is

to say, of a too-distant union,

framework of the Dene and other myths

already examined. Furthermore, before

incestuous young

man

performs

many

making

which I

his mistake,

have the

meritorious acts. Notably,

The

112

Way

of the Masks

with the help of his brothers, he

from the great bear

steals

a dan-

gerous "shiny ring with a sharp edge." Broken in two pieces and

thrown

in the sky, this ring later

becomes the rainbow.

We

meet this hoop again further south among the Salish, first myth of the Squamish group, which concerns the origin of copper. Through the intermediary of the Tlingit version, therefore, this myth brings me back to the Dene myth devoted to the same theme. Two brothers had six sons each. The youngest son of in a

one of the brothers was

One day

side of his stomach.

top of a mountain.

with a large protuberance on one

afflicted

He was

the twelve boys saw a

rolhng

down

man on

the

the slope a big copper

and he made it The twelve succeeded in stealing the ring, and passed it from hand to hand among themselves; but the owner, a wizard, gave chase and killed them ring,

which glinted and shone

come back

off

one

to

him by drawing

in the sunlight,

in his breath.

after another, except for the

stomach lump

at his adversary: a

deformed one who threw

his

dense fog arose, thanks to which

he escaped. Desperate because of the death of their children, his father

and uncle jumped into the flames of a

fire.

out like sparks, the right eyes went north, the

Immediately the fog

lifted.

After giving

mourning, the survivor's uncle undertook

which he made into

a copper cloth.

left

way to

Their eyes flew

to

ones, south. this

hammer

show of the ring,

Thus protected and armed

with wild sheep horns, he killed his sons' murderer, retrieved their

undamaged place,

them back in The uncle then molded the copper

hearts from the wizard's stomach, put

and resurrected the boys.

cloth into the figure of a boy to

The boy grew

into a powerfijl

whom

he gave the breath of

man. Made of copper, he was

life.

in-

vulnerable and became a mighty chief and a great huntsman.

A

Kwakiutl belief throws light on the protuberant stomach

theme. According to these Indians, settle in

your stomach.

You

will

if

you touch

become

afflicted

a toad,

it

will

with an insatia-

ble hunger, your skin will turn green like the toad's

and your eyes

The Origin of Copper will bulge.

You

will

grow

go from house

The toad

will

will die.

Greedy children

to house,

large in your stomach;

it

113

begging

for food.

will swell

and you

who have

are said to be like people

a

toad in their stomach.

This

is

comment, because it allows me Dene myth with the young

a valuable

the voracious child of the

to connect

Salish hero

endowed with a protuberant stomach. It undoubtedly is the same character, whose value, however, is inverted from one group to the other. Much forther south, the Wasco (who are Chinook of the lower Columbia) speak in their myths of a weepy child, only one year old, who knows the past and can predict the foture, and whose big stomach is sonorous like a bell when it is struck. One day, the mother suggested to another son that he step on his young brother's

stomach to make

came out of

it

smaller; snakes, lizards, and frogs

two boys killed the sun whose heat was unbearable to humans. The eldest took the place of the sun and the younger one became the moon. Ever since then, the sun was less

it.

Later, the

hot and the heavenly bodies alternated regularly in the sky.

Clearly, these

myths

translate into terms of a cosmological code

the problem of "setting

up

a

good distance," which was formu-

lated in sociological terms by those

the brother and sister

who

I

was examining

earlier.

part forever in the Tsimshian

97), the eyes of the

two

one could say, into

stars) split to the

Like

myth

(p.

myth (now changed, north and south. The Chi-

fathers in the Salish

nook boy with the big stomach that rings metallically becomes the moon and his brother, the sun, keeping a good distance between each other and a good distance from the earth, too. Again, the

Thompson, who

copper

—who

is

are inland Salish,

singularly

Squamish neighbors

—

like

a character dressed in

one in the myth of their

the son of the sun; for this reason, they call

a beetle of a bright bronze color I

the

make

"son of the sun."

have just mentioned the Thompson. These Indians share with

1

Way

The

14

of the Masks

Shuswap neighbors

their

myth

a

much like that of the two men who are called

very

Squamish, except that the sons of the Coyote and Antelope {Antilocapra)

—

—

not a copper hoop, but

steal,

a glittering ball of gold or copper (according to the versions) filled

with excrement. Coyote only surviving son

seizes the ball

own

(all his

an elk whose body

self into

He

envelope of the

ball.

nephews, but

killed in

is

brought back by Antelope's

sons being dead) and changes him-

covered by the armor-like metallic

is

confronts the murderer of his sons and

combat because one spot on

body has

his

remained vulnerable. Other versions say that the children of Coyote and Antelope married each other; these

mixed unions were the

reason for the different colorings in skin and hair

we

see

among

Indians today. Elsewhere, these differences are explained by Coy-

marriage to two

ote's

women

tively; or else, again, the

with red and white skin, respec-

myths account

for the present distance

between the two animal families that gave their names to the hefathers.

roes'

Thus, here the code changes from cosmological or

sociological to anatomical or zoological; but the

the same: Let take a

me

how

to arbitrate

stop a

new

turn.

between distinctive

moment with The inland

problem remains

features.

the cosmological code and see

it

Salish have this explanation for the

existence of the rainbow or the sun: in the beginning, a copper

ring was stolen by a boy

who

is

either

lame (and thus

afflicted

with a periodically abnormal gait) or dirty and covered with sores,

who, of course, reminds us of the hero (chap. 2).

A

version of the

in the

Skokomish group

Swaihwe origin myth specifies that, at

one

time, the shining hoop was the plaything of the rich, while the

poor had nothing with which to amuse themselves. The theft of the hoop put an end to this injustice.

Whether

becomes the sun (Cowlitz version) or whether

the copper ring

its

theft

cidental cause of the appearance of the rainbow, as the say,

from now on, these heavenly bodies will shine

without distinction of

social

rank or wealth.

for

is

the in-

Skokomish everybody,

The Origin of Copper

By in

whom

returning with these myths to the Salish, with

started this book,

we have come

But

full circle.

this

115 I

also true

is

another sense: in the Skokomish myth, the copper, democra-

tized so to speak, rises into the sky,

from which, according to the

island Salish, it had first come down in aristocratic form: as the Swaihwe mask, privilege of a few noble lineages who, through it,

hold the magic means of becoming rich. True, the Swaihwe mask is

not the copper, but

down by

it

does

make

possible

its

acquisition.

hereditary right or through marriage, this

ting rich remains in the hands of the privileged,

from those who wish to use

where the mask it

exists, the

remain subordinated

it.

Handed

means of

who

get-

extract rent

This proves that, in the groups

mythical representations pertaining to

to the socio-economic infrastructure: they

could not claim to create

it if

they did not

first reflect it.

myths hypostasizing copper in the shape of heavenly bodies came from the Salish groups whose social organization was no more egalitarian, it is true, than that It is

therefore significant that the

of their neighbors

who

did not have the mask. Deprived of this

method of sanctioning and perpetuating

inequality

through a

magical and ritual instrument, they could treat themselves, at lesser cost, to the luxury of is

an ideology that, in a metaphorical way

true (because the rainbow and the sun,

like

which shine

in the sky

copper, in this context have only a metaphorical value), con-

cedes the enjoyment of copper to the greatest In fact, this enjoyment promised by the it

it

myths

number is

of people.

an illusion, since

concerns celestial bodies which dispense their spectacle and ben-

efactions to all

men, and

since the

myths add only

a

symbolic

value to these gratuitous advantages: the symbol of material riches,

which, in blest.

real life, are

only parsimoniously allotted to the

hum-

9 Coppers,

The Dene myth which Indians in

first

rough

I

Women,

and

have just analyzed recounts

Frogs

how

the

obtained copper, in the concrete form of pieces found

state

on the surface of the ground. To obtain copper,

had been necessary

for a

woman

ravished by an

Eskimo enemy

it

to

break up the exogamous but too greatly distanced union that he

had imposed on her, and then, leaving her husband her

own

family,

to reveal

to

them

the existence of the copper

found along the way:

—J. r

116

to journey to

copper

•>

^

Coppers,

Women, and Frogs

117

This journey inverts the one by which the Kwakiutl want to bring about the transfer of the

woman and

coppers to the in-laws,

except that these coppers are not pieces of native metal, but are richly decorated objects

whose function

Swaihwe masks among the Salish. In pers circulate in the same direction:

is

equivalent to that of the

fact, the

1"^

A = 5 ^-