POTLATCH AND TOTEM

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22250, 26 October 1935, Page 9 (Supplement)

POTLATCH AND TOTEM

AN AGENT'S RECOLLECTIONS The manners and customs of the Kwawkewlth Indians, a tribe inhabiting the northern end of Vancouver Island and the adjacent mainland, form the theme of a fascinating volume by W. M. Hallidav, who for .'sß years lived among these redskins with their secret societies, their strange custom of potlatch, their extraordinary marriage laws and their reverence tor totems. The first part of the book deals with an actual series of events in connection with the potlatch as it affected one section of the people, and the reader gets a clear insight into the superstitions and far reaching effects that attended this strange mixture of generosity, extravagance and boasting, leaving in its trail a tremendous burden of debt and jealousy, not only ior the chief concerned, but also for his unfortunate descendants. It was stamped out many years ago by the Indian Act, but the author brings home the patient fight necessary to quell it effectually. With it went the initiation ceremonies that involved the eating of dead and even living human flesh, the costly custom of redemption by which a wife obtained her independence and the shrewd bargaining by which a father could sell his daughter in marriage even when she had already been bought by some other man and had lived with him as his wife. Potlatch was essentially a ceremony of giving, in which a chief increased his prestige by the magnificence and number of his presents. To do so he was often compelled to borrow from his neighbours at a rate of interest that worked out at several hundreds per cent. At the same time those -who received from him were equally indebted. The meetings, which took many days, were the occasion for the settlement of various forms of difference, for the making of marriage contracts, for bouts of childish boasting and incidentally for the creation of much bad blood. Among these primitive people the author spent most of his working life and in a second part of his book he sketches the progress made in establishing the elements of the white man's civilisation, with its schools, its respect for established law and order and its medical benefits. The chapters on the folklore and superstitions of the people form a valuable contribution to a science that is given every encouragement by the Canadian Government. Above all the reader is given a peep into the significance of the totem system that plays such a vital part in the traditions of the coastal Indians of North America. "Potlatch and Totem" with its simple language and its historical truth is an unusual but nevertheless most enjoyable volume.

" Potlatch and Totem." by W. M. Halli day. (J. M. Dent and Sons).