The Wolf Ritual of the Northwest Coast

By Alice Henson Ernst

This volume includes materials assembled from 1932-1942 along the Northwest Coast. The wolf ritual was isolated for study by the author as a major mask ritual deeply expressive of the region.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barakaldo Books
• Release date: Jun 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9781839745812

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Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

THE WOLF RITUAL OF THE NORTHWEST COAST

BY

ALICE HENSON ERNST

TABLE of Contents

Contents

TABLE of Contents 5

DEDICATION 6

PLATES 7

PREFACE 8

INTRODUCTION 10

CHAPTER I—THE MAKAH WOLF RITUAL 14

THE FOUR-DAY INITIATION KLUKWALLE (QUA-ECHʹ) 19

The First Day (Itakʹashit’l) 20

The Second Day (He-quatʹluck) 21

The Third Day (Chēchēciinʹikl) 26

Fourth Day (Dū-buk-beʹyees) 28

The Masked Procession 28

The Capturing of the Masks 32

Hē-hupʹe-dach 33

OTHER TYPES OF KLUKWALLE 37

The Healing Klukwalle 37

The Klūklūkwatʹkah (Night of Dancing) 37

The Dēsʹka-it’l 39

The Tsa-ēʹqua-quech 40

CHAPTER II—THE MAKAH WOLF RITUAL: ANOTHER VERSION 42

FIRST DAY 43

SECOND DAY 44

THIRD DAY 45

FOURTH DAY (DŪ-BUK-BEʹYEES) 46

THE KLUKWALLE MASKS 49

ORIGINS 55

CHAPTER III—THE QUILLAYUTE WOLF DANCE 60

THE INITIATION KLUKWALLE (KLUKWALLE-KWAHT) 62

First Day 64

Second Day 67

Third Day 68

Fourth Day 69

THE KLUKWALLE FOR RECEIVING THE SPIRIT (KLUKWALLE-TSIT′) 72

CHAPTER IV—THE NOOTKAN KLUKWANA 80

THE INITIATION KLUKWANA (KLŪKWAT′KA-SAK′KAH) 82

First Day 83

Second Day 86

Third Day 87

Fourth Day (Ma-ēē′ah) 88

Fifth Day (Oo-shin′nek-kin) 93

Sixth Day 96

Seventh and Eighth Days 97

Ninth Day 98

Tenth Day 100

Eleventh Day 101

THE HŌ-AHTʹSTŌP 104

THE SHORT KLUKWANA 105

CHAPTER V—AIM OF THE WOLF RITUAL 106

THE STORY OF HA-SASS, WHO WENT UP THE MOUNTAIN TO FIND THE CHE-TO’KH 108

HOW THE KLUKWANA BEGAN 113

FAMILY INHERITANCE OF MASKS AND OTHER RITUAL OBJECTS 116

POSSIBLE ORIGINS OF THE WOLF RITUAL: IN PLACE AND TIME 124

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 133

DEDICATION

To the many helpers

who have made this

record possible

PLATES

Frontispiece. Dance mask, with gray wolfskin and copper eyes. From Neah Bay

Plate I. The black animal-head mask, worn in the Crawling Wolf Dance. From Neah Bay

Plate II. The solid-type Wolf mask (Makah)

Plate III. Realistic Makah Wild Man mask

Plate IV. Stylized Makah Wild Man mask

Plate V. A Makah mask representing the Other Wild Man or The Destroyer

Plate VI. The Makah Dog mask

Plate VII. A small Makah festival Wolf mask

Plate VIII. Huge Makah festival Wolf mask

Plate IX. Eagle mask with nose adornment

Plate X. Ancient Quillayute Wild Man mask

Plate XI. Old Quillayute shaman’s wand

Plate XII. Quillayute Wolf mask

Plate XIII. Quillayute Wolf-head baton

Plate XIV. Rare mask, with human face, wearing the Wolf mask on the forehead

Plate XV. Nootkan Wild Man mask

Plate XVI. The Lightning Serpent or Belt of the Thunderbird mask (Clayoquot)

Plate XVII. Nootkan festival Wolf mask

Plate XVIII. Kwakiutl dancer with mask and accessories

Plate XIX. Nootkan dancer wearing the Huk-luk’sim mask and robe representing Thunderbird

PREFACE

THE material included in the present study was assembled during successive summers from 1932 to 1940, from field work along the Northwest Coast. The actual record began much earlier, with childhood impressions of scenes in the background of a pioneer family exchanging an eastern city for the frontier Olympic Peninsula. The migrant Clallams, moving between summer fishing grounds and winter villages, were familiar figures, and two coast Indian reservations (those of the Makahs and Quillayutes) horizon boundaries like mountain or sea. Beating drums and strange masks used in ritual dances etched an indelible question mark; and later, in the search for elusive meanings usually withheld, the timely aid of early teachers and childhood friends who had long worked among these peoples helped most materially in establishing the basis of confidence needed for transcription.

Pushed in part by a request from Theatre Arts for material explaining certain masks figuring in the Northwest regional dances, an initial sketch (Masks of the Northwest Coast) was completed for a special Theatre Arts issue devoted to the dramatic arts of the American Indian (Aug. 1933). Later, a mass of detail, from hitherto unrecorded territory, concerning various rituals, became the basis of an intensive study encouraged by support from the Research Council of the University of Oregon. From this mass, in the interest of clarity, one single ritual was isolated for more complete record—the major masked ritual of the lower coast country, and one most deeply expressive of that region. Since the method of approach was by direct observation and word-of-mouth transcription, successive visits to complete and check the record were made to key points within the matrix region: Neah Bay (Makah), where the tribal dances are still held, 1932 on; La Push (Quillayute), 1934-38; the west coast of Vancouver Island, mainly Alberni and Ucleulet (Nootkan), 1936 and 1938; and the Queen Charlotte Islands (Haida), 1940.

The strip of lower coast country stretching northward from Juan de Fuca Strait along the so-called west shore represented a gap in the accomplished work of various anthropologists—mainly in the labors of the late Dr. Franz Boas, whose massive studies of the life and beliefs of tribes to the north and east are well known. In assembling the material for the present record, and in its presentation, the guidance and advice of Dr. Boas were invaluable. His careful reading of the manuscript and detailed comment on its pages gave it direction; the use of the Frachtenberg notes, made at La Push in 1916, courteously loaned by the Bureau of American Ethnology, was at his suggestion. His expressed conviction that the new material from unrecorded territory was of value as source material spurred the completion of the study. And the example of a scholar, tireless in his study and interpretation of Northwest primitive culture, was itself an inspiration and stimulus. The debt is gratefully acknowledged.

Many of the masks used in the Northwest ritual dances were sent out, very early, by explorers or traders for safekeeping in the various museums. Following four seasons of field work, a further study was made of materials thus stored. In the task of checking recorded narrative against related artifacts, and in the matter of illustration, thanks are due Dr. Clark Wissler and Miss Bella Weitzner of the American Museum of Natural History, both for friendly aid and for numerous fine photographs. The generous cooperation of Dr. George G. Heye of the Museum of the American Indian has been constructive and unfailing throughout. The visual record thus made possible has been of prime importance in clearly establishing areas of agreement as to ritual procedure, and in confirming the narratives of informants. A similar search among the considerable body of Northwest material in the Field Museum and at the Smithsonian Institution was greatly assisted by clerical help by staff members and by photographs furnished.

Within the region, the cooperation of many unnamed persons furthered the original gathering of material—aside from the various informants whose names appear in the record. In establishing needed contacts with informants and in gaining foundation material concerning early days on the Olympic Peninsula, the late A. N. Taylor, for many years Indian agent at Jamestown, Washington, E. B. Webster of Port Angeles, Washington, naturalist, and Miss Hannah Draper of the same place, esteemed by the Makahs from early residence at Neah Bay, were very helpful. Farther to the north, a similar list might become encyclopaedic. The continued confidence and understanding of members of the several tribes opened many doors.

Background reading on the social organization and culture of the coast dwellers, carried on in part in the archives of the Provincial Museum, Victoria, B. C. and later in the Northwest collections at the University of Oregon, was assisted by skilled aid from the reference staffs of both these institutions. In the working out of two preliminary studies of the regional ritual dances for Theatre Arts (Northwest Coast Animal Dances, Sept. 1939, and Thunderbird Dance, Feb. 1945) the interest of its editor, Edith J. R. Isaacs, was dynamic. And, in the assembling and sorting of material for the present monograph and the checking of early manuscript drafts, the wide knowledge of William A. Newcombe of Victoria, B. C. was basically helpful; access to the unpublished notes made by his father, the late Dr. C. F. Newcombe, in his early journeys along the Northwest Coast has thrown needed light on dubious points. Without all such generous help this record could not have been completed.

The various line drawings were made by Clarice Ashworth. To the University of Oregon, special thanks are due for grants-in-aid to assist in journeys to out-of-the-way places. And, finally, it is with pleasure that acknowledgment is made of valued aid and counsel from George N. Belknap, University editor, in the preparation of the manuscript for the printed page.

In any present-day record of a vanishing belief, much detail is lost, part of its meaning forgotten; time lays rough hands on the folkways of a people. The relation of this study to the field of primitive theater will no doubt be obvious. If, in addition, it aids in understanding today’s less vocal neighbors on the American continent, the intent of the writer will be well served.

A. H. E.

INTRODUCTION

WHERE, in the stormy Northwest Coast country, arose the shadowy first outlines of that dramatic ceremonial known as the Klukwalle, or Wolf ritual? At what remote day? There are questions now to be answered only by conjecture. Blurred by time and the impact of frequent regional borrowings, the original structure of the ritual of the Wolves (granting there was once a master pattern) has by now weathered down into an enigma for students of primitive culture. Enigmatic must have been even its inception; shrouded well in that heavy veil of silence concealing the secret ritual of a people innately silent. And, since its creators possess no written language, there exists no written record whatever as to its procedure among those people who gave it being, even among those stubborn living groups who still revere its ancient rites. A possible primal pattern thus becomes deeply elusive. Such records as we have, made by uninitiates and at later stages of its growth, faithfully retain fragments of its arresting outer form; but in even the best and most careful of these transcriptions by early travelers or interested observers of primitive folkways, important detail is missing, and the hidden core of intention has somehow always escaped—and perhaps always will. The present study, therefore, aims not so much to reconstruct by theory a fugitive first outline of the ritual, alluring as such an attempt might be, as to record at first hand certain present-day customs in its observance among those tribes still or recently practicing its rites, before these quite vanish in the rapidly flowing wash of time.

Rooted in the social structure of a so-called geographic region of the country, among endless minor ceremonials growing from the customs and life peculiar to that district, may be found also, stained with the color and vibrant with the movement of its background, some one major ritual which gathers into itself the dominant spirit of its time and place. The Sun Dance of the Sioux, the Hopi Snake Dance of the Southwest, the solemn and impressive Night Chant of the mountain-dwelling Navajos are such major ceremonials. Within their ancient traditional patterns are preserved—and handed down to such indifferent hands as may receive them—the basic emotional urges, the dominant, half-formulated beliefs of the peoples from whom they spring; for ritual, roughly, may be defined as a pattern of folk belief, crystallized into appropriate symbolic action. Such a ritual, revealing and dramatic, is the Klukwalle of the Nootkans—and their neighbors along the Northwest Coast, since some recognizable variation of its striking characteristic base may be found among all the neighbor tribes from the Alaskan boundary south into Washington and farther. Other ceremonials, diverse in nature, more dominant among certain tribes, are here to be found as well, woven deeply into the background of regional life and belief; for the ritual pattern of the Northwest is a complex web of brilliant color and shifting motion, distinctive, even disturbing in its design. But these, in the interest of clarity, we are content to leave aside, since the present study finds ample scope in a record of existing ceremonial customs in the one ritual mentioned, among certain of the tribes to whom it was dominant, and in whose consciousness it still remains alive.

Even the name of the Wolf ritual, often called simply the winter ceremonial along the lower coast from the season of its observance, offers endless variation in form and spelling among these different tribes. It is the Nootkan tluʹkwana, the Kyoquot tluʹğani, the Makah tluʹqali or Klukwalle,{1} from a probable Kwakiutl base tluʹgwala. It is also written tlokoala and otherwise. The spelling here adopted, (Klukwalle) is that most generally used by ethnologists,{2} and offers possibly the closest lingual representation of the name as used today by the tribes whose recent customs in its observance are here recorded. The traditional patterns of procedure also vary widely, from elaborate and complex secret rites to a much simpler public adaptation of its general form. But the recognizable base, wherever found, is that which causes it to be known from north to the south as the Wolf Dance or Wolf ritual. The core of its movement centers always about the active I dramatization of a legend which enacts the capture of a number of people (initiates) by Wolves, their recovery by certain other people already initiated (members of the secret society or fraternity known as Klukwalle) after they have received certain powers or instructions from the Wolves, and the exorcising of the Wolf spirit that possessed them.

As to the name itself, one of its variations—and, as stated, its probable original base, the Kwakiutl tluʹgwala—meant to find a treasure—specifically, to obtain special powers and privileges from a spirit. Beneath its bizarre outer form, one finds immediate undertones of ghostly—or spiritual—meaning. Basically, the ceremonial included formal adoption of a spirit helper—not necessarily individual in this case, but social or tribal in force. By the initiation Klukwalle, one of the several types of the ritual, the novice gained the right, among those tribes studied, to share henceforth in the collective tribal dances or ceremonials during the sacred winter season. All persons, young or old; were expressly forbidden participation in the group performances of the tribe without such initiation, ostensibly by the Wolf spirit. The ceremony was, therefore, fundamental, and marked the induction of the initiate into a substantial body of tribal tradition, though special initiations into other secret societies were also needed. Although the ritual was not necessarily connected with the finding of an individual manitou, or ghostly helper, this occasionally coincided with one of the phases of the ritual; for, following the secret ceremonies set aside for the Wolf (a group tamanʹawas), the initiate also chose and