Now about all that the Indians of this region of Alaska do, outside of trapping and hunting, is to eat, drink and be merry, provided of course, they have the food and hootchenoo to do it with, for lacking these integers the resultant product, that is, unalloyed joy, could not be had. Among the Indians who were going to the potlatch was a half-breed boy who spoke English a little having learned it from Bull Moose Joe and other white hunters and trappers, and Jack promptly annexed him with the gift of a knife.
When Jack asked the lad his name he said that the white men called him Kloshsky, but that his right name was Montegnard. Now Klosh in Chinook means good but where the sky came from was not so easy to guess, unless he was nicknamed by some one of Semitic persuasion.
Kloshsky told the boys that the potlatch was a hi-yu feast with hyas fun, and that it was going to be given by a big man of the Yikyak tribe who wanted to be chief. The word potlatch, he explained, really means gift and that after much feasting, drinking, dancing and wrestling the man-who-would-be-chief and whose name was Montegnais, would give away everything he owned to his guests.
“Let’s declare ourselves in on this potlatch thing,” said Bill.
“Not a bad idea at all,” admitted Jack. And so they followed the crowd.
Friends and relatives of the man-who-would-be-chief came from miles and miles around and the journey finally ended at an Indian village in the center of which was a big log house nearly as large as that of the Grand Palace Hotel back at Circle. Into it the visitors made their way and Jack and Bill went with them.
Talk about the decorations for a Halloween party! why, boy, nothing a white mind ever conceived of could begin to come up to the embellishments of this great hall. In the middle there was a wonderful bird that reached from the floor to the ceiling, nearly, and the like of which nature had never made in all her seven million years of experience. From the ceiling there hung curiously shapen birds, beasts and human beings that for fearsomeness outdid anything the boys had ever seen. As Bill said, “it was enough to scare a fellow half-to-death.”
On poles, which were arranged in a circle around the giant bird, the finest blankets, the costliest furs and other articles prized by the Indians were displayed and these, Kloshsky told the boys, were the presents which the man-who-would-be-chief was to give away.
When all had assembled the potlatch came to order. The big man was gorgeously dressed in ceremonial clothes and carried a long wand. Around him gathered his lieutenants (they would be so called down under) and they were also outfitted in ceremonial clothes.
Then came the orchestra which consisted of half-a-dozen men with their tom-toms. Finally followed the guests who moved about talking among themselves like society folks at a church fair. From the man-who-would-be-chief on down to the poorest Indian, all wore the richest kind of furs, some of them made of the silver fox, and they were ornamented with various decorations and natural jewelry. Many of the men and women wore necklaces and belts formed of gold nuggets as large as hickory nuts and these at once caught the eyes of the boys. Lo! the poor Indian!