Myth of Origin
Many years ago, so runs the story, a little girl about ten years of age was given a young otter for a pet, and this she kept and cared for until it was well grown. About this time she began to feel that she should keep him no longer, for she had come to realize that he was piʹlsŭⁿ, meaning “pure” or “sacred,” and, like all wild things, belonged to the Powers Above. The old people told her what she must do, so she took her otter down to the creek, and, first tying a little bag of tobacco on his neck, said to him: “Now I shall set you free. I have raised you and cared for you until now you are full grown. Go, then, and follow the ways of your kind.”
The otter disappeared into the waters, and the little girl returned to her home, feeling that she had done well. But before a year had passed, a sickness came upon her, which the Indian doctors told her was caused by her pet otter, which wanted something to eat. The only way for the child to get well, they said, was for her to have a hog killed and cooked, and then to invite a number of men to eat it all, in the name of the otter. This was done, and when the men finished eating the hog and the soup, they said that the girl would recover, and so she did. For this ceremony they took an otter-skin ([fig. 16, a]) to represent the girl’s pet, which was used every two years, and when the owner died was passed to the oldest survivor of the family which owned it, and kept in the belief that it would benefit the health of all of them. It was the only one of its kind in the tribe, and is called “Kunuⁿʹxäs.”
Fig. 16.—a, Regalia of otter-skin used in the Otter Rite; b, Regalia as worn. (Length of a, 56.5 in.)
The Ceremony
The exact details and order of the ceremony were not remembered by our informant, but it was certain that the family in question “fed the otter” every two years in the spring, that being the time of year when the little girl had been taken ill. Everyone was invited, men and women, and a man was selected to cook the hog, and another to supply wood and to cut the poles for swinging the kettle, both of whom were paid with a yard of wampum. The fire was kindled with a special flint-and-steel always kept with the outfit ([fig. 17]).
