THE POTLATCH.
A potlatch among the tribes of the Northwest means a feast at which some
wealthy Indian gives away to his own people or to a friendly tribe all
that he has. For this generosity he becomes a councilor or wise man, or
judge, an attendant on the chief in public affairs, and is held in
especial honor during the rest of his life.
To attain this honor of chief man or councilor, many an ambitious young
Indian labors for years to amass wampum, blankets, and canoes. The feast
at which he exchanges these for political honors is very dramatic and
picturesque. It is usually held at the time of the full moon, and lasts
for several days and nights. One of the principal features is the
_Tamanous_, or Spirit-dance, which takes place at night amid blazing
torches and deafening drums.
A chief rarely gives a Potlatch; he has no need of honors. But Umatilla
desired to close his long and beneficent chieftainship with a gift-feast.
He loved his people, and there seemed to him something noble in giving
away all his private possessions to them, and trusting the care of his old
age to their hearts. His chief men had done this, and had gained by it an
influence which neither power nor riches can attain. This supreme
influence over the hearts of his people he desired to possess. The
gift-feast was held to be the noblest service that an Indian could render
his race.
At the great Potlatch he would not only give away his private goods, but
would take leave of the chieftainship which he had held for half a
century. It was his cherished desire to see Benjamin made chief. His heart
had gone into the young heart of the boy, and he longed to see The Light
of the Eagle's Plume, sitting in his place amid the councilors of the
nation and so beginning a new history of the ancient people.
[Illustration: _At the Cascades of the Columbia_.]
The full moon of October is a night sun in the empires of the Columbia and
the Puget Sea. No nights in the world can be more clear, lustrous, and
splendid than those of the mellowing autumn in the valleys of Mount Saint
Helens, Mount Hood, and the Columbia. The moon rises over the crystal
peaks and domes like a living glory, and mounts the deep sky amid the pale
stars like a royal torch-bearer of the sun. The Columbia is a rolling
flood of silver, and the gigantic trees of the centuries become a ghostly
and shadowy splendor. There is a deep and reverent silence everywhere,
save the cry of the water-fowl in the high air and the plash of the
Cascades. Even the Chinook winds cease to blow, and the pine-tops to
murmur.
It was such a night that the Potlatch began. On an open plateau
overlooking the Columbia the old chief had caused a large platform to be
built, and on this were piled all his canoes, his stores of blankets, his
wampum, and his regal ornaments and implements of war. Around the plateau
were high heaps of pine-boughs to be lighted during the Spirit-dance so as
to roll a dark cloud of smoke under the bright light of the high moon, and
cause a weird and dusky atmosphere.
The sun set; the shadows of night began to fall, but the plateau was
silent. Not a human form was to be seen anywhere, not even on the river.
Stars came out like lamps set in celestial windows, and sprinkled their
rays on the crimson curtains of the evening.
The glaciers on Mount Hood began to kindle as with silver fires. The east
seemed like a lifting gate of light. The great moon was rising.
Hark! At the first ray of the moon there are heard low, mysterious sounds
everywhere. The forests are full of them--calls, like the coyote's bark,
or bird-calls, or secret signals. They are human voices. They answer each
other. There are thousands of voices calling and answering.
The full moon now hangs low over the forests, golden as the morning sun in
the mists of the calm sea. There is a piercing cry and a roll of
war-drums, and suddenly the edges of the forest are full of leaping and
dancing forms. The plateau is alive as with an army. Pipes play, shells
rattle, and drums roll, and the fantastic forms with grotesque motions
pass and repass each other.
Up the Columbia comes a fleet of canoes like a cloud passing over the
silvery ripples. The river is all alive with human forms, and airy paddles
and the prows of tilting boats.
The plateau swarms. It is covered with waving blankets and dancing plumes.
All is gayety and mirth.
There is another roll of drums, and then silence.
The circling blankets and plumes become motionless. The chief of the
Cascades is coming, and with him is Benjamin and his young bride, and
Gretchen.
The royal party mount the platform, and in honor of the event the
torch-dance begins. A single torch flashes upon the air; another is
lighted from it, another and another. A hundred are lighted--a thousand.
They begin to dance and to whirl; the plateau is a dazzling scene of
circling fire. Gretchen recalled the old _fêtes_ amid the vineyards of the
Rhine in her childhood.
Hither and thither the circles move--round and round. There is poetry in
this fire-motion; and the great army of fire-dancers become excited under
it, and prepared for the frenzy of the Spirit-dance that is to follow.
The torches go out. The moon turns the smoke into wannish clouds of white
and yellow, which slowly rise, break, and disappear.
There is another roll of drums. Wild cries are heard in the forests. The
"biters" are beginning their hunt.
Who are the biters? They are Indians in hides of bears and wolves, who run
on their hands and feet, uttering terrible cries, and are followed by
women, who, to make the scene more fearful, pretend to hold them back, and
restrain them from violence. The Spirit-dance is held to be a sacred
frenzy, and before it begins the biters are charged to hunt the woods for
any who have not joined the army of dancers, and, if such are found, to
bite them and tear their flesh with their teeth. They also guard the dance
like sentinels, and fly at one who attempts to leave it before it is done.
The frenzied shrieks of these human animals, and of the women who follow
them, produce a wonderful nervous effect upon the listening multitudes.
All feel that they are about to enter into the ecstatic spiritual
condition of departed souls, and are to be joined by the shades of the
dead heroes and warriors of tradition and story.
Each dancer has a masque. It may be an owl's head with mother-of-pearl
eyes, or a wooden pelican's beak, or a wolf's head. It may be a wooden
animal's face, which can be pulled apart by a string, and reveal under it
an effigy of a human face, the first masque changing into great ears. The
museum at Ottawa, Canada, contains a great number of such masques, and
some missionaries in the Northwest make curious collections of them.
The whirling begins. Everywhere are whirling circles--round and round they
go. The sight of it all would make a spectator dizzy. Cries arise, each
more and more fearful; the whole multitude are at last shrieking with
dizzy heads and wildly beating pulses. The cries become deafening; an
almost superhuman frenzy passes over all; they seem to be no longer
mortal--the armies of the dead are believed to be about them; they think
that they are reveling in the joys of the heroes' paradise. One by one
they drop down, until the whole assembly is exhausted.
At midnight the great fires are kindled, and throw their lights and
shadows over the frenzied sleepers. Such was the _Tamanous_-dance, and so
ended the first night of the feast.
On the second night the old chief gave away his private possessions, and
on the third the wedding ceremony was performed.
The wild and inhuman Death-dance, which the tribe demanded, was expected
to end the festival at the going down of the shadowy moon. Could it be
prevented after the traditions of unknown centuries, and at a time when
the historical pride of the warriors was awakened to celebrate the
barbarous deeds of their ancestors?
The wedding was simple. It consisted chiefly in gifts to the bride,
Multoona. The girl was fantastically dressed, with ornaments of shells and
feathers, and she followed the young prince demurely. After the ceremony
of the bridal gifts came the Fire-fly dance, in which light-torches
gleamed out in vanishing spirals here and there, and over all the plain.
Then followed the _Tamanous_ or Spirit dance, in which a peculiar kind of
frenzy is excited, as has been described. The excitement was somewhat less
than usual this night, on account of the great orgies which were expected
to follow.
The third and great night of the Potlatch came. It was the night of the
full October moon. The sun had no sooner gone down in the crimson
cloud-seas among the mountains, than the moon, like another sun, broad and
glorious, lifted its arch in the distant blue of the serene horizon.
The Indians gathered on the glimmering plain in the early shadows of
evening, besmeared with yellow ochre and war-paint. Every head was plumed.
There was a savagery in their looks that had not been seen before.
The wild dancers began their motions. The Spirit or _Tamanous_ dance
awakened a frenzy, and all were now impatient for the dance of the Evil
Spirits to begin.
The moon hung low over the plateau and the river. The fires were kindled,
and the smoke presently gave a clouded gold color to the air.
The biters were out, running hither and thither after their manner, and
filling the air with hideous cries.
All was expectation, when the old chief of the Cascades stepped upon the
platform, and said:
"Listen, my children--listen, O sons of the warriors of old. Twice four
times sixty seasons, according to the notch-sticks, have the wings of wild
geese cleaved the sky, and all these years I have lived in peace. My last
moon has arisen--I have seen the smile of the Great Spirit, and I know
that the last moon hangs over my head.
"Warriors, listen! You have always obeyed me. Obey me once more. Dance not
the dance of the Evil Spirits to-night. Let me die in peace. Let not blood
stain my last days. I want you to remember the days of Umatilla as the
days of corn and maize and the pipes of peace. I have given you all I
have--my days are done. You will respect me."
There were mutterings everywhere, suppressed cries of rage, and sharp
words of chagrin and disappointment. The old chief saw the general
dissatisfaction, and felt it like a crushing weight upon his soul.
"I am going to light the pipe of peace," said he, "and smoke it now before
you. As many of you as love Umatilla, light the pipes of peace."
Not a light glimmered in the smoky air. There were words of hate and
suppressed cries everywhere. A circle was forming, it widened, and it
seemed as though the dreaded dance was about to begin in spite of the
command of the old chief.
Suddenly a form in white stood beside Umatilla. It was Gretchen. A white
arm was raised, and the martial strain of the "Wild Hunt of Lutzow"
marched out like invisible horsemen, and caused every Indian to listen.
Then there were a few sharp, discordant strains, and then the _Traumerei_
lifted its spirit-wings of music on the air.
[Music: Tranmerei.
BY ROBERT SCHUMANN, SIMPLIFIED BY F. BRANDEIS.]
[Music]
[Music]
The murmurs ceased. The plain grew still. "Romance" followed, and then the
haunting strain of the _Traumerei_ rose again. It ceased. Lights began to
glimmer here and there. Peace-pipes were being lighted.
"You have saved your people," said Umatilla. "Play it again."
Again and again the dream-music drifted out on the air. The plain was now
filled with peace-pipes. When the last blended tones died away, the whole
tribe were seated on the long plateau, and every old warrior was smoking a
pipe of peace.
Gretchen saw that her spirit, through the violin, had calmed the sea. She
was sure now that she had rightly read her mission in life. Amid the scene
of glimmering peace-pipes, a heavenly presence seemed near her. She had
broken the traditions of centuries by the sympathetic thrill of four
simple strings. She felt that Von Weber was there in spirit, and Schumann.
She felt that her father's soul was near her; but, more than all, she felt
that she was doing the work of the Great Commission. She bowed her head on
the instrument, thought of poor, terrorized Mrs. Woods in her lonely home,
and wept.
A seen and unseen world had come to her--real life. She saw her power;
the gates of that mysterious kingdom, in which the reborn soul is a new
creation, had been opened to her. Her spirit seemed to rise as on
new-created wings, and the world to sink beneath her. She had spiritual
sight, ears, and senses--a new consciousness of Divine happiness. Her
purpose became strong to live for the soul alone, and she sung, over and
over again, amid the silence of the peace-pipes and the rising of those
puffs of smoke in the silver illumination of the high moon--
"In the deserts let me labor,
On the mountains let me tell."