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

by J. A. Costello

In many of their race characteristics social customs, moral standards and traditions, they bear a striking resemblance to the inhabitants of Japan, and Tartary. Like them, they have great respect for the aged, whose advice in most matters has great weight. Some of the older women, even bondwomen in former times, attain great influence in the tribe as soothsayers, due as much to their venerable appearance as to any pretense they may make of working medicine charms. They are remarkably fond of and indulgent to their children, rarely chastising them. Between the sexes the rights of women are respected and the terms of equality on which the men and women live are very striking to most visitors of the region. Although marriage is essentially by purchase, and the question of morality of the wife solely one of sanction by the husband, yet even this restriction is centuries in advance of their Northern neighbors where promiscuity and the most bestial practices prevail. The early voyagers invariably mentioned Haidas as modest and reserved in bearing. The moral virtues of these people have faded considerably in the presence of the new civilization with its artificial needs of finery and luxuries. The vices of civilization have had a most demoralizing effect on the inhabitants of Queen Charlotte and the Prince of Wales islands. Like most savages they are inveterate gamblers and have a strong craving for tobacco and alcohol. In their disregard for the lives of slaves and in their practice of acquitting murderers or other criminals by exacting the payment of indemnity to the relatives of the injured, is seen simply the customs, the operations of which, with them, has the force of law. Murder, seduction, the refusal to marry a widow according to law, causes general war, but any wrong may be righted by the paying of an indemnity of the region. In writing of this subject Sir James Douglas, governor of British Columbia, during the administration of the Hudsons Bay company, says: “If unmarried women prove frail, the partner of their guilt is bound to make reparation to the parents, soothing their wounded honor with handsome presents. A failure to do this would cause the friends of the offending fair one to use force to back up their demands and to revenge the insult. It must not, however, be supposed they would be induced to act this part from any sense of reflected shame, or from any desire of discouraging vice by making a severe example of the vicious, or deem the girl the worse for the accident, or her character in any way blemished. Such are not their feelings, for the offender is simply regarded as a robber who has committed depredations on their merchandise, their only anxiety being to make the damages exacted as heavy as possible.”

HAIDA THUNDER-MASK

To such an extent was this question of indemnity carried, that when the Russians tried to interfere with the killing of slaves on ceremonial occasions, they were only successful in preventing it by ransoming the proposed victim. And many were the exactions of the Indians for damages on account of the accidental deaths in the employ of whites.

Along with the other artistic characteristics of these people, they are exceedingly fond of singing and dancing. Some of them have rich voices. Their rude, savage songs are not without melody and many of their weird dances, by the music of various shaped and boistrous drums, exhibit considerable art, especially of imitation. Their imitations of various birds and wild animals, darting in all directions, screaming like seagulls, howling like wolves and screeching like wild geese, imitating the fierce, harsh music of the brown bear, the cries of great eagles and ravens, are all worthy of special mention. They bathe frequently in the sea, but on the other hand, continually daub their faces, bodies and heads with grease and paint. However, this latter custom is largely disappearing except on ceremonial occasions. They were formerly indifferent to the stench of decaying animal matter, but have improved wonderfully in recent years. They are still indifferent to the sanitary laws of ventilation and betray a great fondness for putrid salmon and herring noses, and rancid fish and seal grease. A visit to many of the Haida houses where they have not come to using stoves is still quite a trying ordeal to the uninitiated.

Totemism governs the whole tribal organization of the Indians on Queen Charlotte and the Prince of Wales islands. The ceremonies at birth, initiation, naming, matrimony, feasting, dancing, funerals and all other social occasions, have for their object, in some way, the identity of the phratery, more than of the totem or the carved image of the animal chosen to represent him.

Birth-rights, such as property, rank wealth, etc., are received from the mother. The question as to who is the father of a child is of but little importance. The household is not the unit of the totem or of the phratery, as more than one totem is represented in each, the father belonging to one totem and the mother to another. Besides this, a brother and his wife may belong to the household, or a sister and her husband; thus numerous totems may be represented under one roof.

In the ordinary sense there is no absolute chieftainship. The family is the political unit. The richest head of a household or the one who has the greatest number of influential relations predominates over the rest and is nominally the chief of the village. His authority is shadowy and is dependent largely, aside from wealth and family influence, on personal prowess in time of war, or on an aggressive personality. In short the prominence of the chief is all that he can make it by the arts of assertion, bargain, intrigue, wealth, display and personal prowess. There are also petty chiefs who represent the principal clan totems or households. For each household is with them a subordinate government. The head chief merely overshadows in the extent of his influence, the petty chiefs. Often reverses of fortune turns the tables so that some decline in influence, while others rise in importance. Often the medicine men or shamens unite with the chiefs to strengthen each other in the fear and respect of the people. And bitter are many of the feuds arising from the rivalries of households struggling for power in the tribe.

As a rule a chief is not treated with any marked deference except upon ceremonial occasions when many marks of respect are shown him. When engaged in treaty-making it is common to see him carried on the shoulders of his attendants, as well as being made the central figure of many pompous ceremonies. Slavery was common among them up to the acquisition of Alaska by the United States government in 1867. The slaves did all the drudgery, fished and hunted for their master; and strengthened his forces in time of war. When they were too old to work they were for the most part killed and many of them were sacrificed on ceremonial occasions. They were never allowed to marry or hold property.

Councils were usually called only on occasions or necessity, there being no stated period for them. Women usually had as much to say in these meetings as men, especially on questions of trade, when their advice was always given whether it was sought or not. However, they usually kept mum on ceremonial occasions. In these deliberative bodies they sit in a squatting position with legs crossed and deliver formal speeches in turn which are heard with wrapt attention and approved by grunts and various other signs.