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Uwyd Copyrisrht 1909 Lownum A Hanfbrd Co. SEATTLE E^3 fe^i /J ACKNOWLEDGMENT is hereby ^^ made to the Smithsonian Trustees for use of illustrations and material from their reports :: :: :: :: :: :: :: Hoorts I. ttdn (kittik Hooyeh*- Keon( C.==== HMi 'TUtmKft III tids dah HmmmrmHu mniUtt KMtkll Ttckint KMta OOOrar The Message ~j ' 1 « Indian Relic In the centre of one of the main thorough- fares of the City of Seattle stands a verj peculiar and interesting object. It is so cu- nous and so striking that the eje of a guest or newcomer no sooner falls upon iv than his gaze IS riveted and his mind quickened into wondering attention. The object in question IS a wooden pillar, something like the trunk of a tree peeled of its bark and set upright in the square. The front is covered with sculp- tures of birds and animals, carved in crude and often grotesque fashion and painted in a variety of startling colors. The colum occupies a position so conspicuous, and is so unique a mark for the eye, that strangers rarely fail to pause to examine it more close- ly, and many are the inquiries as to its na- ture, or the opinions uttered by the unin- formed. "An old Indian idol," concludes some cas- ual spectator, and goes on his way with a pawing reflection upon the crude forms which religion wears among primitive races. But the reflection is hasty and the judgment would be unjust, for the column is not an idoi and it has nothing whatever to do with re- ligion. "Hideous image," exclaims another, and censures the taste that placed it there. Ask a citizen what it is, and he will probably re- spond that it is an Indian relic— a totem pole stolen from a native graveyard in South- eastern Alaska by a party of excursionists, and presented by them to the city. Such in- formation, however, contains more than a flavor of myth, for, while the first part of the statement relating to the character of the ob- ject is undoubtedly correct, it i» not true that the pole was the spoil of a nocturnal burff- lary, nor that it waa ravished from a grave- yard by sacrilegious hands. The history of ?wi -fe? its presence here is replete with the fascina- tions of romance, and perhaps the reader may spend an hour with profit in the eflfort to read the riddle and fathom the meaning of so striking an emblem. First, however, he must rid his mind of the delusion referred to that its transporta- tion hither involved any wilful violation of human rights. It was brought here by a party of prominent citizens who were return- ing homewards on the steamer City of Seat- tle in the month of August, 1898, after an excursion along the inside passage to Alaska. Informed on good authority that the Indian village of Fort Tongass had been deserted by its inhabitants — a thing of frequent occur- rence in that region— and that its relics were therefore the property of all the world, they went on shore when the boat arrived at the place in question, and brought away this pole. Later, when claimants appeared whose title to the possession of the article seemed to be well-founded, it was honorably pur- chased for presentation to the city and erected upon the site it occupies today. Any stories of theft or desecration are barnacles of myth and fable which have incrusted themselves around these simple facts to the obscuration of the truth. The authentic history of the Seattle totem pole as given to the writer by its original owner is, as has been said, tinged with rare hues of romance and pathos. It strikes a notp which makes the whole world kin, the note of home and aflfection. It suggests the thought that the root feelings of humanity are always and everywhere the same, in spite of distinctions of color, or race, or caste. The Indians of Southeastern Alaska are among the most interesting varieties of the origifia! inhabitants of this continent. Stu- dents of ethnology are not yet fully agreed as to their origin, although the weight of ar- gument semns to support the view that they are a branch of the Asiatic peoples, and are near of kin to the Japaoeae, whose cast of feature is strikingly reproduced, for instance, in the children seen by travelers in the In- dian village at Sitka. Whatever the theory of their ancestry, their art, their language and their manners and customs entitle them to sincere attention. They have developed a higher degree of civilization than any native tribes in the region. They were the last of the coast tribes with whom the Russians came into contact, and were never subju- gated by them. In 1804 Baranoff set upon tt section of them and drove them out of their stronghold at Sitka, of which he took posses- sion, but they were never fully vanquished. They are divided into two great races, the Haidas and the Tlingits. The Haidas are island-folk, having their home in the group of islands known as the Queen Charlotte Is- lands and the Prince of Wales Island, whose geographical position is to the north of Van- couver Island. The first group is a British possession, while Prince of Wales Island is American territory. Up to fifty years ago the Haidas were the most powerful and war- like savages along the coast, pirates and free- booters, whose raids were the terror of the other aborigines from their ferocious cruelty. Their incursions onto the mainland left be- hind a waste of smoking villages and carcass- es of unburied victims for the birds of prey to feast upon, while their homeward return was accompanied by the wailing of captives destined, some for slavery, others for sacri- fice at the horrible orgies of banquets where it was whispered that cannibalism was a not infrequent feature of the devilish saturnalia. Even the whites feared them, and bloody les- sons were necessary to reduce these sons of the forest and the seashore to submission. The heroism and self-denial of Christian mis- sionaries who spent a lifetime among them was required to civilise them according to our standards, and nothing more than a per- ■unal visit is requisite to convince the mind of the valuable quality of their work. Throughout recent history the influence of Haida art and political organization has s^ f.''*'f overshadowed that of the races on the main- land, in spite of the difference in language. The Tlingit territory is on the mainland and runs along the coast in a northwester!/ direction from the boundary line to Yakutat Bay. It also includes the upper half of Prince of Wales Island, as well as the other islands to the immediate north. These, therefore, are the Indians to be found around such mining centres as Ketchikan, Juneau, Bkagway and the country around the Stick- een River. The race is at bottom one race, but broken up into half a dozen or more clans or septs, such as the Sitkas, Takutats, Takus, Hoonahs, Btickeeus, etc., all speaking dialects of one original tongue, and amidst much variety of detail preserving the sub- stantial features of the same system of gov- ernment. To the north of the boundary line is a branch of this race called the Indians of Fort Tongass. Their clan appellation is the same as their geographical. Their village is situated at the head of a lovely bay running some distance inland from the main high- way of navigation. The shore line makes a slight bend here, and along the crescent thus formed are arranged probably fifteen or twenty houses built of wood. They stand a little above the beach. In front are a great many of these totemic columns, which arrest the eye at once by their grotesque and yet artistic carving. In the midst of the houses stands that of the chieftain of the tribe, be- fore whose residence once stood the totem pole of which we write. In the middle of the last century, the wife of the then chief was an Indian princess named Bhawat.* She belonged to one of the most famous families on the coast. Iler father was the hereditary chief of the Skeena tribe, * Koto. — Aoeordinf to h«r frandMii, Itfr. 0«onr« Hunt, of rort Rnp«rt, B. C, h«r m>ldtn nam* wu DmiUm, or "■hlnlnv Faca of Copper." Aftor har marrtavt hor nam* was Tandan. or "OrMt Whala." After har BrM child waa bora aha racalvad a third iiama, Bhawat Aakawa, or "Chlaf Orar All Chlat Woman." Har father'* aam* waa Tahadatau, ar "Bvanrbody Loaka Up ta Hl«." whose habitat was close to the river o' the same name. He bore a name as remarkable in Indian history as that of Pharaoh in Jiigyptian— the name of a dynasty of chiefs who had ruled the tribe for generations. This name was Shakes. It was a sort of patent of nobility, identified with many mighty deeds, and honored far and near The marriage law of these native races resembles that of many civilized nations in forbidding royalty to marry with those of lower degree on pain of ostracism. The hus- band chosen for the Princess Shawat was therefore of her own class— a chief, the ruler of the Tongass tribe. With him she lived in contentment for years. One day the tidings came of her si.jter's dangerous illness at the home on the banks of the Naas River. The dis- tance was great, but she started for the bed- side of her sick relative without delay. The errand of love as it proved, was a fruitless one, for her sister died while she was still on the way, and to crown all misfortunes she herself lost her life while irossing the river fu^^i ^^^^ ^** "P^* '^^ an eddy in the mighj^ flood of waters, and the princess was swept away and drowned, dying as the result of her brave attempt to reach the deathbed of one she loved. Her children and brothers gave a large sum of money to raise a monu- ment to he- memory. It was erected in front of the house where she had lived at Port Tongass, and is the column which now stands mv. P"**"*' mn&re of the City of Seattle. This pole is not only a monument in hon- or of a brave woman, it is also the pictorial expression of a myth. The figures are not Chosen at haphazard, nor are they arranged In arbitrary fashion. There is a princi- ple underneath the work, a thought which gives unity to the entire composition. The attempt is made to represent In carving one of those extraordinary stoHes of the trans formation of human beings into animals and vice-verea with which the folk-lore of less civilized peoples abound. legends such as thoae that were clothed in Immortal vene 5% ■-. by the pan of Ovid for the Latin race, and which are cast into the form of wooden sculp- ture by the art of the races in question. Absurd and ridiculous as such stories appear to more cultivated minds, our estimate of their value should be governed, not by the standards of a more enlightened era, but by the mental stature and development of a much less advanced way of thinking about nature and man. The figures are six in num- ber and read upward. They are the raven, the whale, the frog, the mink, the man, the raven again. The substance of the descrip- tion by the original owner of the pole is to the following effect: Once upon a time there was a town at Kivdokgo, where a chief and chieftainess were living a happy life. The wife proved unfaithful to her husband, and in order to escape from him she pretended to die. The fraud was detected, and her lover was slain. When their son arrived at man's estate he decided to make a journey to the sky, in or- der to marry the daughter of the chief of that ragion. He and a young friend clothed themselves \,ith the skins of two wood- I«ckers, one red and the other black, and flew upward. The great chief of heaven al- ways killed those who wanted to get married to his daughters, so they were told by inhabi- tants of villages passed during their flight. At this time the world was always dark, there was no daylight. After a long time they came to a hole in the sky, where was a fire going up and down. They flew through this, although the fire sintjed their feathers, and then laying aside the woodpecker skins they were transformed into sandpipers, were caught by the chiefs daughters and carried into the house. The chief was indignant at finding them there and planned to roast them alive, but his cruel intention was frustrated by the cleverness of the young men. The chief then acknowledged them as his sons-in- law. The one who is hero of the story had a son who was dropped from the sky by hia parents on to a spot near his grandfather's borne, where one of the slaves found him and brought him to the house, when the old man recognized him at once. The child was Nasaku Yethi, the head chief of the Raven clan. He is the male figure near the top of the Seattle totem pole. He ate so much and so constantly that at last he was de- serted by his relatives and left to die, but was saved from starvation by an old woman who fed him with crab-apples. Afterwards he transformed himself into a raven— the first figure on the pole— and struck up a companionship with four young men in the guise of a squirrel, a crow, a robin and a blue jay, to whom was later joined a mink. They made up their minds (o travel, and just then a whale— second fig- are on the pole— arrived. The whale took them in his mouth and went out to sea. The raven made a fire inside of him and began to cut the fat off the whale's heart, until he cut a little too deep and the whale died. After a long t:me the raven felt the dead whale bumping on the beach. Some people came and cut a hole in the whale's side, and the raven and mmk came out shining all over, for they were oily. The mink went and rolled himself on rotten wood to dry himself. This is how he is brown and oily at the present day. He is the third figure on the pole. The place was Yakwan, a Haida village, where it is always dark, so the raven decided to get hold of a box in which the sun was kept by the chief. He married the chief's daughter and had a son by her. When the boy was partly grown he asked for the box, and the chief, who had a great love for his grandson, told the slaves to give it to him. The boy opened the box, took out the sun and rolled it on the floor, and ordered it to go out of the house and up to where it is now. It did so, and there has been light ever since. The boy changed himself into u raven and flew out of the house. He is the raven on the top of the totem pole. He soon eloped with the pretty daughter of the chief of a village at Eadokgo— the place of quick- u '...-ill? 4 s I •il sand— and her name was Gadak. Her father was frantic over her loss. Four years went by, and late one evening the chief saw a frog coming into his house. The thought of his lost daughter at once came into his mind. The chief said to the frog, "Whose child are you?" The frog answered, "Gadak Gadak," mentioning the name of the missing girl. The chief knew then that he must be his grandson transformed into a frog. He bade him go forth and bring the mother and her husband. The frog went behind the house and jumped into a pond. Early the next morning the chiefs lost daughter came into her father's house carrying a young frog in her arms, and behind her came a large frog. The chief spread a mat for them to sit on. But at last he became ashamed of the matter and ordered his people to kill the bull frog and the young one. The woman stayed with her father after that. She, in her frog form, is the figure remaining. This ends the story. Such a story is the sheerest nonsense to us, but to the Indian imagination it was science and fairytale in one. It represented his crude a^J amusing speculation about the world of animated nature in its relations to man. But are we to rest content with such ridiculous ideas? Has such a relic no deeper meaning than the native himself could read upon the surface? Surely it is incumbent upon us to gain some understanding of the larger interpretation of this column— the ex- planation of its connection with the whole life of this savage race. Scientific study has taught us that there ia an intimate relation between the simplest and most primitive facts and the greatest beliefs of the human mind, making us realize the variety of life's expression of itself in forms of culture the most diverse, barbarous as well as civilized, and yet the essential unity of life's concep- tion of itself under all these manifestations. Perhaps, then, a little thought and investi- gation may open up to us a vision of noble 11 to" m ^„"'* *^' 'P'»«°* grot«,.erie »f . I. First of all, then, the totem doIa i. m example of primitive ar\ TWa^^siS simp est and most obvious va ue it fs in inferior grade of the samp clasa «« iL l^ sculptures of Nineveh, th^e scirlls^y'E'gJp" higher d anp thin ii. • ^^°°^ °° * '^t^er «'rf ^^^^^^^^ Tis^,^ telhgence than they. To the artistic eve ?t appears a performance crude, but-whin af th ngs are taken into account-very wonder ful In technique, if not in subjSand sptri &riJte LT^f" *^'^^ ^'^^^^ «pecimensTf '^ypriote and Etruscan art now on exhibition m our great Metropolitan Muleum ItsShinS'^''' *"* ^""^^ ^^* ^8 °ow reviving. lahonship between civilized mSn .^j ^ inferior brethren. To St ^Srt ^h,H^' With contempt or ridicnie S'fSh'Tto Bj'inpatny. Interesting as to the naw f +1.0, £™f^,*rrtSfeSS »cr«i.isigrntrx"n^^ ?CS,:a^i''''»"™"'»»SateTli: to I^nStt^Snl^ X^/l?;v"S =£:,is^^--HiH ^;ii'it^brere*tr4-s;£ ■k f?^ It I 'Ulij If r. , - 1 m Tadn skiliik intOu/ Itl tadidih I Stijt Tidiiikjlijk, Skamtliwin Tschin* JMino L SLATS TOTBH. lu general outline, but distinguished by cer- tain minor points of difference. The brown hear is usually known by his protruding tongue; the black bear by his two regular II r«,T « 1,**®?' ?® **°^^'* *>y *^« corrugated tail or his two long front teeth. The icolf and bear look the same except that as a rule THUNDBB BIBD. ^LZZ^^ '"''^ir^ ^^^^'^ «' *"«k on each side of the jaw. The whale-killer is recoe- nized by is huge dor. I fin ; the raven ETv Us sharp beak; the eagle b.y its curved Eak- riS rJ'h* "^ *^'; •'*»^«'' ^«"^« are in thei; natural shape and can be easily recognized. iw, u V .'■® ^^' however, a deeper meaninj? ZZ' T^^^"'*' *^?° ^^^^^'^ Artistic signTfl^ ITt .K ° ^'^^''^ ''.*''*'• «*^«« o' development, art IS the expression of thought; it is the instrument ^orough which thi m'ind Trans lates the wealth of its ideas and images into visible form. The totem pole also is fo mere grotesquerie, but is full of the mythology and the feroping thought of the race^from which whTS- ?r"»^y«tate in one terse phrise what the totem pole seems to us most to Everyone who has become at all familiar 14 vi Ik .i.-i^S9 With the manners and customs of the wild men of the woods and prairie must often have been led to reflect upon the f,tranee practice prevailing among them under the name of totemism. It consists in the choice or some fish, bird or animal as the badge of the tribe or the crest of the clan, or family, or individual. The ceremonies attendant upon such a selection are most curious and interesting. Let us su; se, for examp'a, that some young brave of the Haida race wishes to celebrate his coming of age in the tribe. He is first led before the shaman or medicme-man of the clan to which he be- longs. From him he receives an enormous ^P,'^°^^"«« eagle, the beaver ?h„. Jk^ ?^: " ' ^'"^"S t^e«e Indians that the art of carving such objects, and es- pecially of grouping them together on the basis of some intelligent idea in the form of pillars or heraldic c umns, has been brought to a perfection unknown elsewhere. Ind^d. it is claimed that the only other race of sav- ages in existence which carves totem poles wh.-nif .^*T> ™ce of New Zealand, a fact which has led some scholars to argue that ine Haidas are a boulder people, driven !^Z },"} ''^""^fy ^^ ^^^^'^ conquerors at some distant point in the dark backward and abysm of time. 1/ IH? '60- INDIAN OKAVHS AND TOTEM! . ALASKA. Hi>K( IMKNS ,n MORTI AKV IOIK>| loiK^H ■i^'A-i ^.>: v.h^oh?u "^u^l^""^^ ^'°^« <*' *otem poles, of which the chief are three- mortuary, his- torical, and commemorative. The mortuary consists of a bare, upright trunk of wood surmounted by the crest of the chieftain to whose memory it is erected. Sometimes his J^S^V^rn^J^** **""®'l ^° a hollow dug OUt ^^ll\ These poles are almost or entirely destitute of figures carved upon the front. The historical pole, as its name indicates, stands as a reminder of some event in the history of the tribe or clan, some conflict or experience which marks a new point of de- parture, as, for example, in the poles where the frog IS portrayed in the beak of the ra- 11^^ representation of the famous battle between the raven clan and the frog clan former ""^^ ""^'"^^ crushed VThe The commemorative pole is a memorial of some important feature of the life of the chieftain who erects it— such as his mar- riage, his victory over his enemies, or the source of his wealth. The writer has in his possession a small wooden example, carved with a beaver at the foot, a halibut in the center, and a man at the top, as an emblem of the fact that the owner had become rich by trading in halibut and beaver skins Of this last class, the large column referred to at the beginning forms an interesting speci- men It is, as has been said, a monument erected in honor of an Indian princess who perished in her journey to the bedside of her dying sister. f« f^-^i"?"!"'' ^""'^ *« ^^^ relationship held hnf i'l '''^? P^^'P'® *^' different tribes but of the same totem. Among the Tlincits the group of Indian tribes dwelling along the Sutlt'Sai'L'^'^^'^''^ "''« no?thwar^d to r:hiw ""^l ^^ ^^""^ *«*emic divisions, or phratries, exist-that of the Wolf and that of the Raven. Between members of these two classes marnnge is absolutely prohib- it ited. No matter how close or how distant the ties of blood, such unions are accounted an indelible disgrace, and the contracting parties become outcasts. The cross-relation- ship thus introduced into Indian life some- times creates situations of much interest and perplexity. The ability to erect these poles implies prominence, as regards both wealth and po- sition. They are the admirations of our copper-visaged brethren, and to have achieved rank and fortune adequate to their erection is one of the great ambitions of any career. Their cost is often very heavy. It IS no uncommon thing for a chief to spend two or three thousand dollars upon a pole and upon the potlatch, or distribution of gifts, which forms one of its accompani- ments. The rings sometimes carved on the tadn-skillik or hat at the summit of a pole give the number of potlatches given by the chief. To have given oi^e, is distinction; but to have given several, is to have shown one s self a veritable Maecenas of the tribe • it is to have covered himself and his descen- dants with deathless fame. These potlatches are very interestin g affairs. The writer has had the good for .me to studv one of them as an eye-witness. It was held in the Au- gust of 1908 at Alert Bay, near the northern- most extremity of Vancouver Island. The Aimpkish Indians have their home at this 8iK)t, and were assembled for the purpose of celebrating the virtues and exploits of a chief who had just died. They presented a picture.sque and lively spectacle as they sat around on the beach, the squaws in their scarlet blankets and the men in their gala apparel, the piles of gifts here and there, and the rows of totem poles in tne back- ground of the scene. A fine-looking Indian was standing in the centre delivering an oration, as we were informed by an inter preter, setting forth the mightv deeds of the JfParted chieftain. It was the daughter of The deceased, a young maiden of sixteen years, who was giving the potlatch as a to I IIIKK ^H.\KK-!S T OTK.M. SC: f i[W tebute to her father's memory, and certainly flhal piety cannot be a virtue wanting to the Indmn heart, for the expense was said to be m the neighborhood of six thousand aolJars. It is no uncommon thing for an Indian to beggar himself by his potlatches, but he has no need to fear starvation, for every other member of the tribe is bound live^ support him as long as he Here, then, from this maze of forms- rude and hideous in our eyes— emerge the traditions, the folk-lore, the nursery tales, of a primitive people. Here our modern scien- tific doctrine of evolution shows itself in the rough effort to utter man's sense of kinship with the kingdoms of nature below him w^ *"* *'^° '^ *^® syu^^'ol of a brother- hood of man apart from ties of blood or race, educating those who profess it into a broader sympathy and a larger view of human inter- S£' .^?e circles of human existence, otherwise barbarian to each otLar, come into contact and learn their essential kinship. When next we glance at this pillar, so grotesque and yet so significant in its line of braided sculptures, let ridicule be tem- pered with respect. Let the civilized man dismiss his disdain as he remembers the Ideas for which it dimly stands, ideas all- powerful among us in this twentieth century —Art, Nature, Evolution, Fraternity. n 'f aK*s*.i:«fc