Ceremonies of the Pomo Indians

by S. A. Barrett

Gū´ksū was impersonated by a number of dancers, while only a single one represented Ca´lnis. Those personating Gū´ksū were dressed as follows: They painted their entire bodies black, according to some informants; according to others, with horizontal red, white, and black stripes. The feet were painted black and the under side of the chin and the sides of the face were painted white. On their heads they wore either a "big-head" headdress (a very bulky type of feather bonnet) or a large feather tuft on top of the head, and a yellow-hammer feather forehead-band. The large nose of Gū´ksū was represented by one made of feathers and of such a size as completely to cover the nose and mouth of the dancer. When painted red, this was said to represent very well this characteristic of the deity as he existed in the imagination of the Indians. The connection with the proboscis of the gallinipper is especially apt. Each Gū´ksū-dancer carried a cakō´ik (E), or staff, about two inches in diameter and from six to eight feet in length, on the top of which was a feather tuft. The Gū´ksū-dancer, being supposedly a supernatural being, never spoke. The only sound made by him throughout this ceremony was produced by his whistle.

The Ca´lnis-dancer was painted entirely black and carried a black staff very much like that of the Gū´ksū, except that it was somewhat shorter and bore no feathers. On his head he wore an ordinary feather cape so drawn together that it formed an immense feather topknot which normally fell in all directions over his head. This was held in place by means of skewers passing through a headnet. Another point in which these two dancers differed was that while the Gū´ksū-dancer was provided with a double bone whistle the Ca´lnis-dancer had none.

The Gū´ksū ceremony itself, called gū´ksū xaikilga (E), gaxa´gaxaū xaixilga (E), kūksū haitcilaū (C), and djaka´djakaū (N), lasted for six days, during the first and the last two of which there was celebrated the special ceremony called gaxa´gaxa (E), in which the children of the village were scarified.

THE SCARIFYING CEREMONY

Two or three days before the time appointed for the scarifying ceremony the men of the village went into the woods and cut a pole, perhaps from thirty to forty feet in length, which they trimmed and peeled preparatory to its erection. A hole a foot or two deep and large enough to receive the pole was dug directly in front of, and a short distance from, the dance-house.

On the morning of the first ceremonial day a considerable number of men went out from the village dressed in a special ceremonial attire. This consisted of a body-painting either of black stripes or spots (no particular number being prescribed), and of a head decoration composed of a headnet, a down headnet, two trembler plumes, a yellow-hammer, feather forehead-band, and a small feather tuft.

They brought in the pole to the area directly in front of the dance-house, and here the following ceremony was performed: To the upper end of the pole a streamer was attached. The fastest runner among the participants took the end of this streamer, and the other men, arranged usually in the order of their ability as runners, grasped the pole at different points down to its butt. Behind this line certain women who participated formed a second line. The pole was then carried, at the top speed of the runners, four times around in a contra-clockwise direction, the pivotal point being the hole in which the pole was to rest, and over which its base was held. As they ran the runners swayed the pole up and down, and the women threw upon the men handfuls of a small, parched, black seed called gēhe´ (E).

Upon the completion of the fourth round some one of the runners shouted loudly "ha ... ū ..." and at this signal all lifted the pole vertically into place in the hole. The call was repeated as the pole was about half way up. When in place, the pole was fixed by tramping earth and stones about it.

Within a few minutes after the erection of the pole the Gū´ksū-dancers appeared and stopped about two or three hundred yards away from the dance-house. Some of the men had been attempting to climb the pole, both men and women meanwhile throwing at them balls, gala´l (E), of uncooked meal made of a certain grass seed.

As the Gū´ksū-dancers appeared in the distance the climbing ceased, and the children who were to be initiated were collected about the base of the pole. Boys who were to be thus initiated were called yō´mta (E), while girls were called masa´nta (E). They ranged in age from perhaps five to ten years. The dancers proceeded to the foot of the pole, took the children in hand, and performed the following ceremony, the object of which was to secure for the children good health and to make them grow rapidly. The children were first made to lie down upon the ground and were covered with blankets. Then, under the supervision of the dancers, each child had two cuts made with a broken shell across the small of its back and about an inch apart. The cutting was done by the gaxa´ xale (E), an old man selected for the purpose by the people of the village on account of his long life, good health, and particularly his good heartedness. This was one of the most important phases of the initiation, and upon it depended the effect upon the life of the child. The children were in each case covered completely with the blanket and were not permitted, under any consideration, to look up during this part of the ceremony. They might make any outcry they pleased, but if they attempted to look up from the ground they were threatened and even beaten with the staffs of the dancers. The cutting was done quite deeply, so that blood was always drawn. The children were also prohibited from looking up into a tree from under its branches until after these scarifications had completely healed, else the tree would bear no fruit.