The Siwash, Their Life, Legends, and Tales: Puget Sound and Pacfic Northwest

by J. A. Costello

The sick ta-mahn-a-wis was only practiced for the healing of the sick, and was often a severe and taxing ordeal for the patient if he were really sick. This ceremony was always conducted by the ta-mahn-a-wis men assisted by the friends and relatives of the sick in an effort to drive out the spirit of one that was supposed to have taken possession of the body of the sick.

The red ta-mahn-a-wis was a winter pastime and was a common arrangement, a proceeding, so far as its being a part of a religious belief, a kind of a camp-meeting. The red, or pill ta-mahn-a-wis, was an assembling together, an invocation, in short, of the spirits for a good season the following summer. It generally lasted three or four days and consisted of singing, dancing, the beating of tom-toms, drums and the decoration of the face and limbs and body invariably with streaks and spots of red paint. From this it was given the name of the red ta-mahn-a-wis, pill meaning red.

The black, or klail ta-mahn-a-wis, was the free masonry of the Twanas and was without doubt the one great religion of all religious practices among them. It was a secret society to a very large extent, and none but the initiated were ever permitted to have anything to do with it. It was a very severe initiation that candidates had to undergo to get acquainted with it, and little was ever learned of its mysteries by the whites. It was practiced at Skokomish as late as 1876, but after that time it was never seen. At that time it was given out by the participants that it was to be dead after that. It is said that it is still slightly followed by the Clallam Indians to this day. No doubt but that among the residents of the Skokomish reservation there are many Indians who were initiated into its dreadful mysteries, but their number is probably too few to revive it. Both men and women were initiated into the practice and mysteries of the black ta-mahn-a-wis. The significance of this ceremony, from the secretiveness of the Indians, was never clearly learned by the old residents, who had most to do with the Indians, and it probably will never be understood, at least as it was believed in by the various tribes.

In the practice of it, however, the Indians invariably painted themselves very hideously with black paint, daubing and streaking the face and limbs, and while going through the ceremony of initiation were without clothing. Masks made in rude imitation of the wolf head were used, and these were called shway-at-sho-sin. The mask was adopted by the Twanas from the Clallam tribe, as was the name and hence the word is the same in both languages. The Twanas seem to have imported their masks from the Clallam country in most part, very few of their own make having ever been found, and these of a less degree of artistic appearance. To a certain extent the ceremony of the black ta-mahn-a-wis was a public one and many of the old-timers have witnessed that portion of it. The more important and probably much more severe part was the private ceremony confined to the initiated. The public ceremony was a long drawn out affair of dancing, singing, beating of drums and tom-toms, rattles, etc. During the progress of the affair the candidates for whose special benefit the ta-mahn-a-wis was given, were stripped and painted and put through all manner of gyrations and exercises, the while wearing the wolf mask, that in the least resemble the antics of the animals they were trying to imitate. While this was going on the candidates were tied about the middle with a long rope, the loose end of which was held by other Indians in order to keep the candidate from running away or from doing harm to any spectator, for he was supposed to do just like a ferocious and enraged wolf in all things. The other exercises which are supposed to put on the finishing touches to the great event, were always carried on in secret rooms made of their blankets or tents and were never permitted to be witnessed.

The practice of the spirit land ta-mahn-a-wis was associated with or founded on a very pretty myth believed in by the old Twanas to the effect that a year or two perhaps before an Indian died he or she lost his or her spirit. Spirits from other places, always from below, would visit the Indian and, quite unaware to the person would take and carry off the spirit and sail with it to their abiding place, there to hold it in captivity unless released by spirits from this life. Whenever an Indian lost his spirit in this way there would always be a little left him which would be sufficient to last him until he died, by which time every particle of it was absorbed, vanished, gone. To elaborate the fanciful theory, there were always living Indians who professed to be able to go to the spirit land, down below, and see what was going on and recognize spirits taken from Indians of his own tribe and village. These trips may be made to the spirit regions at the will of the Indians, sometimes when off in the hills hunting, or when out on the salt water chasing the whale or the seal. After a journey of such a character the Indian’s word was never doubted by his tribe’s people, when he on returning informed them that he had been on a journey below and had seen the captured spirits of this or that relative or friend. The next question was as to the recovery of the spirit, and there were always willing hands ready to assist.

There was always great ceremony, great care and at times extreme caution to be maintained in this undertaking. The Indians had to make the journey down below, cross their death river, their river Styx, and perform various other and wonderful feats, the entire ceremony lasting three or four days.

The first ceremony, accompanied by a great beating of drums, of rattles, tom-toms, dancing, singing, chanting and yelling, is that of breaking the ground to effect an entrance below. This was done by digging a little hole in the dirt floor of the house where the ceremony was taking place. This accomplished, other mythical performances were gone through with, the more important one being “cooning” across the Styx river in a long procession, where the greatest caution was observed, for the warrior who should fall off while going over was doomed to die before long. A bridge was constructed of boards in the house by having two of the boards resting obliquely against the ends of a third board, which is elevated to near the roof of the building. The army on the chase for the lost spirit “cooned it” across this improvised bridge, and were then over the river Styx into spirit land. They searched for and with great noise and hubbub found the departed spirit, took possession of it amidst a great and imaginary battle, and returned to the land of the living. They would tear about the room during this performance, rant and roar, run out of and around the house, tear the roof off in their frenzy, which was truly a genuine article, and then, after having reached the limit of their strength and exertion, would find the spirit, sometimes in the form of a rag doll or some other object just as ridiculous, and carry it in triumph to the Indian who had lost his spirit. This individual, so fortunate in recovering his spirit, and therefore a new lease of life, is overjoyed at the thought and laughs and cries alternately, and concluded the performance by a great manifestation of joy in every conceivable style.

At this ceremony the Indians had an idol which exercised a great power, in their overwrought imaginations, in the success of the undertaking. This idol was a very sacred being, and was always kept hid away in the mountains and never brought out only on such ceremonies. It was never given up to the whites, and there is probably not now one of these strange things to be found anywhere. The only one known to have been seen among the Twana tribe was about four feet long, of very rude carving, in imitation of a person without arms or feet. In place of feet the idol ended in a stick, so made that it could be fastened firmly in the ground. It was raised in the center of the room, and around it the weird and uncanny ceremony progressed. This idol the Indians named Sh-but-ta-dahk, but just what its peculiar properties were probably is not known.

Several of the more intelligent and younger men on the reservation were talked to about this idol or totem, but they did not know anything about its history or supposed properties. One of the men said that about three years ago, while going through the woods about three miles back of the reservation, he came across a cache where there were two of these idols hid away. They were time-worn and considerably decayed, and as he stated, had “been there long, long time.” He placed them under an old tree, but never returned to get them. They had men’s faces carved upon them, and were undoubtedly genuine Sh-but-ta-dahks.