a term applied to any assemblage of good cheer, although in its primary
sense it means a gift. A potlatch is given at the outset, or during the
progress of some important event, such as the building of a new house,
confirming of a sub-chief, or celebrating any good fortune, either of
peace or war. In this instance, a sub-chief was building a new house, and
the frame work was inclosed in rough boards with no floor laid. There is
never but one entrance to an Indian hut. This is in front, and elevated
several feet from the ground, so that you must go down from the door-sill
inside as well as out. No windows were yet in the building, and it was
really in a crude state. These grand festivities last five days, and this
was the second day of merry-making.
There are two tribes at Juneau, located at each extreme of the town. The
water was black with canoes coming to the feast and dance, bringing gifts
to the tyhee, who, in return, gives them gifts according to their wealth,
and a feast of boiled rice and raisins and dog-meat. The richest men of
the tribe dressed, in the rear of the building, in the wildest and most
fantastic garbs, some in skins of wild animals. There was a full panoply
of blankets, feathers, guns, swords, knives, and, as a last resort, an
old broom was covered with a scarlet case. Jingling pendant horns added
to their usual order, and the savage faces were painted with red and
black in hideous lines. Anything their minds could shape was rigged for a
head-dress, and finally, when all was ready, they ran with fiendish yells
toward the beach, some twenty yards, and there behind a canvas facing the
water they began their strange dance.
Only one squaw was with them, and she was the wife of the tyhee (chief)
giving the feast. The medicine man had a large bird with white breast,
called the loon. While dancing he picked the white feathers and scattered
them on the heads of the others. The other squaws were sitting on the
ground in long rows in front of the canoes reaching to the water's edge,
about 200 feet below.
Their music was a wild shout or croon by all the tribe, and the dancing
is a movement in any irregular way, or a swaying motion given to the time
given by the voices, and they only advanced a few inches in an hour's
time.
The tribe approaching in canoes had their representative men dressed in
the same styles, only gayer, if possible. When the canoes glided onto the
beach, four abreast, it was the signal to drop the canvas hiding the host
and party, and advance a little distance to meet them. Then they broke
ranks and made way for the visitors to approach the house with their
gifts of blankets or other valuables for the tyhee. Most of the Indians
convert their riches into blankets. These nations, seen by the tourist in
an ordinary trip to Alaska, seem very much the same in all points visited.
None of them are poor, all have some money, and many have