compiled by Ruth Ludwin, University of Washington, Dept. of Earth and Space Sciences
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First Nations and Native American stories that could be about Cascadia megathrust earthquakes
compiled by Ruth Ludwin, University of Washington, Dept. of Earth and Space Sciences |
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Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 1982, The Way of the Masks, University of Washington Press, Seattle, WA., 228. pp.
1908- |
[10] ... through the years, my sentiment ... was undermined by a lingering uneasiness: this art posed a problem to me which I could not resolve. Certain masks, all of the same type, were disturbing because of the way they were made. Their stye, their shape was strange, their plastic justification escaped me....
[11-12]Much bigger than life-size, these masks are round at the top, but their sides, which curve inward at first, are then drawn together, becoming parallel or even oblique; the remaining third of the mask thus takes on the rough shape of a rectangle, or an upside down trapezium. At the lowest extremity, the small base is perfectly horizontal, as if the design had been sawn off in mid-course, representing a sagging lower jaw in the middle of which hangs a large tongue, which is either carved in bas-relief or painted red. The upper jaw protrudes about one third of the way up the mask. Immediately above this, the nose, which is sometimes indicated in rough outline or may even be absent, is most often replaced by a very prominent bird head with half-open or closed beak; two or three additional heads rise like horns on top of the mask. ...the general configuration remains the same, as does that of the eyes, consisting of two wood cylinders, either carved into the mass or added on and made to bulge powerfully out of the orbits.
Looking at these masks, I was ceaselessly asking myself the same questions. Why this unusual shape, so ill-adapted to their function? Of course, I was seeing them incomplete because in the old days they were topped by a crown of swan or golden eagle feathers (the former entirely white, the latter white-tipped) intermingled with some thin reeds adorned with "snowballs" of down that quivered with every movement of the wearer. Furthermore, the lower part of the mask rested on a big collarette made in earlier times of stiff plumes, and more recently, of embroidered cloth. But these trimmings, which may be seen in old photographs, rather accentuate the strangeness of the mask without shedding any light on its mysterious aspects: why the gaping mouth, the flabby lower jaw exhibiting an enormous tongue? Why the bird heads.which have no obvious connection with the rest and are most incongruously placed? Why the protruding eyes, which are the unvarying trait of all the types? Finally, why the quasi-demonic style resembling nothing else in the neighboring cultures, or even in the culture that gave it birth?
[Note aside 1: The mainland and Puget Sound stories concern people
afflicted with sores on their bodies "His body game out a stinking smell and even his close relatives ran away from him." (p. 22) "sores broke out all over his body" (p. 26).
In the Puget Sound "It was believed that any person who usurped the mask would get sores all over his face ... The spectators were not supposed to laugh at the sight of him, or else they too would become afflicted with sores on the body and the respiratory tract." (pp. 25-26)
The acquisition of the mask cures the affliction.]
[Note aside 2: In the Squamish version, the Sxaixi masked person makes a lot of noise by dancing on the roof of the house.]
Lévi-Strauss also draws a connection between Coppers and the Swaihwé mask; similar both in shape and mythic origin (Lilloet, p. 35)
[93] When, from one group to another, the plastic form is preserved, the semantic function is inverted. On the other hand, when the semantic funcion is retained, it is the plastic form that is inverted.
[125]... the plastic features of masks carrying the same message are inverted ... when they pass from one population to its neighbor....Conversely, when the plastic elements remain unchanged as between the Salish Swaihwé and the Kwakiutl imitation under the name Xwéxwé, it is the messages that are then inverted.
[146] Even assuming the best conditions - that is, a still-living culture, with well preserved beliefs and practices - the study of the internal correlations between its mythology or art and all the rest would constitute an absolutely necessary preliminary, but it would not be sufficient. Once these local resources have been tapped, further efforts are required of the analyst. For these myths are in opposition to other myths which they contradict or transform, and it would be impossible to understand one without reference to the others - in the same way that nay utterance is explained in the words which do not precisely figure in it, since those used by the speaker derive their meaning and importance from the fact that they were chosen in preference to others that he might have used, and to which, in commenting on the utterance, it is therefore quite in order to refer.
[147-148] Along a stretch of nearly three thousand kilometers, ideological structures were built up compatible with the inherent constraints of their mental nature and which, in agreement with those constraints, encoded, as we say today, the givens of the environment and of history. These ideological structures incorporate the information with pre-existing paradigms and also generate new ones in the shape of mythic beliefs, ritual practices, and plastic works. Over this immense territory, these beliefs, practices, and works remain mutually congruent when they imitate one another, and even, perhaps above all, when they seem to be contradictory. For in both cases they equilibrate each other beyond the linguistic, cultural, and political frontiers whose transparency was proved by my whole argument, unless their always relative closure sets up a logical as well as historical constraint and marks the points at which inversions take place.
<[40-43] "The Kwakiutl linked the Xwéxwé masks with earthquakes. Their dance, wrote Boas, "is believed to shake the ground and to be a certain means of bringing back the hamatsa," that is, the new initiate to the highest ranking secret society, the Cannibals. During initiation, the novice became ferocious and wild and ran in the woods: the objective was to bring him back to reintegrate him in the village community. This association of the Xwéxwér; (or Swaihwé) with earthquakes... throws a curious light on the symbolism of the sistrums carried by the dancers... I draw attention to the way Plutarch explained the role of sistrums among the ancient Egyptians: "The sistrum ... makes it clear that all things in existence need to be shaken, or rattled about, and never to cease from motion but, as it were , to be waked up and agitated when they grow drowsy and torpid."
[43-45]
XXXX
[46-47 (see also 44-45) reference cited: Boas and Hunt, 1902-5, Kwakiutl texts, Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History, v. 5. 236-239; Boas 1935a, 27-32, Kwakiutl Tales; New Series, Columbia University Contributions to Anthropology, vol. 26; 44-45
A third story features, apart from the Comox, two Kwakiutl groups related my marriage: the island Nimkish and just across from them on the mainland, the Koeksotenok. The Nimkish chief lived in Xulk, on the east coast of the island. One day, he started a discussion with his son-in-lay on the "good dance" of the Comox, that is the Swaihwé. This son-in-law had a brother whom he persuaded to wage war against the Comox in order to take possession of the dance. The young man embarked with one hundred vigorous warriors. When they arrived in sight of the Comox country, they heard the sound of thunder: it was the strangers who "were singing form the Xwéxwé." The troop disembarked at the other extremity of the bay, from which could be seen the dancers and clouds of eagle's down rising as high as the sky. After the dance, half of the ship's crew approached and the Comox sat them down and treated them to a feast. Again there was a roar of thunder and four masked dancers appeared, painted with ochre, covered with feathers, and in their hands holding rattles made of threaded scallop shells. The Comox chief harangued his visitors and granted them the right to perform the dance, and he also gave them a chest containing the masks with their accessories.
Between the island Salish and the Kwakiutl (of both the island and the mainland) there existed, therefore, a network of ambiguous relationships which could include everything from matrimonial alliance to war. In both cases, the masks and privileges attached to them were the objects of rivalries and trade, on the same basis as women, proper names, and foodstuffs. The Swaihwé or Xwéxwé mask in these tales, being excluded from the sacred winter rites, passes from the Salish to the Kwakiutl on the occasion of a warring expedition or a marriage; in this latter case, the transfer is made in the same direction as that of the bride. By contrast, as in integral part of the winter rites the Sisiutl mask goes in the reverse direction, from the Kwakiutl to the Comox, which is also what the young Comox bridegroom does when he settles down with his in-laws. Such stories undoubtedly originate from customs which once existed. Others obviously pertain to mythology.
[50] RSL Paraphrase: "A myth of the Tsmishian (northern neighbors of the mainland Kwakiutl) links the red scorpaenid to the origin of copper." i.e. riches
[54] "The Squamish (of the mainland coast, north of the Fraser)" .... "The hero managed to foil all the traps and he tronsformed the house into an enchnated rock within which he imprisoned his father-in-law. This rock exists: if one insults it, a storm breaks out and the culprit sinks with his boat."
...Here again, therefore, a hero, who elsewhere is the provider of the copper and who announces himself through his sunlike and metallic dazzle, is put in correlation with and opposition to the scorpaenids."...
...These partial and fragmentary indications, however, are not sufficient to understand that the Swaihwé masks, as I have observed, are brought by the Salish into direct relation with the acquisition of wealth; wheras, among the Kwakiutl directly and among the Tsimshian indirectly, the red scorpaenids - associated with the masks of the Kwakiutl -- fill an opposite function. And this, in spite of the fact that wherever the masks exist, their plastic characteristics remain the same, and the same affinity can be observed between them and earthquakes."
A slave left to reconnoiter, found the captive's cell but failed to get her to react; she behaved like an imbecile. Then he made himself temporarily invisible and entered the abductors' dwelling. The converstaions he overheard revealed to him that they were a canibal people and that the sovereign would return her sanity to the young woman only in exchange for the precious hat.
The two visitors made their presence known; they were feted, then they returned to their country and related their adventures. It was decided to orgainize an expedition to liberate the captive, but at the time of departure, the latter's two brothers disappeared. They soon came back, married: the eldest to Mouse Woman (the customary intermediary, in the myths of this region, between the terrestrial world and the beyond), and the younger one to a creature who impressed in spite of her short stature: she was too powerful to look at, she was a woman who "goes by contraries." Let by Mouse Woman, the expedition reached its destination safely. The travellers were given a showy welcome, and they hastened to fill the house up to the very roof with shells. They had brought enormous quantities of shellls as spoons and that at the sight of new shells they were transported with admiration and covetousness. Finally, the magic headdress, main object of the dispute, was deposited on top of the shell heap.
They went to fetch the king of the country. The ground shook as he approached. His appearance was wonderful as he stood there, and his wide-open eyes were too powerful to look at. The ground started to shake again with each step he took. The younger son's wife was the only one who had enough magic power to sustain his glare. Thus foiled, the frightening personage merely retrieved his hat. The shalls were parcelled out, and the cured captive was returned to her parents. The king then started to dance, fell, and broke himself in two at the waist. Eagle feathers escaped from his buttocks and trunk; then, alternatively from each half of his body, were seen coming out his daughter-in-law's retinure whom he had devoured.
The next day, as they were saying goodbye, the king secretly confided to his daughter-in-law that he intended to be born again from her. As soon as she had given birth to him, sh should settle him in a cradle decorated with cumulous clouds. Back at the village, the young woman, indeed, did deliver an extrordinary chold"Something flat stuck out from his eyelids." He was placed in a cradle decorated with clouds, and he was abandoned in the high seas. The cradle and its content changed into a rocky reef. Since then, whenever the latter was seen in the morning surrounded by clouds, food would be plentiful; but if it was visible (meaning, probably, free of clouds) this would be an omen announcing that sickness was about to break out."
[240] Lévi-Strauss intended to prove in his writings that primitive people think in as sophisticated a manner and have as elaborate thought processes as civilized men. He did this by illustrating the universals underlying the structures with which all humans classify the component parts of the world about them and invent models to interpret reality. Humans, according to Lévi-Strauss, have invented a wide range of means to classify and understand their universe, including the creation of art. For him, the process of art production is one method of thinking, abstractly and philosophically about the world.
[226-227]One point seems certain. All the mythology, as well as traditional legends going back to a relatively recent past, attest that, under the name and appearance of the Xwéxwé mask, the Southern Kwakiutl received the Swaihwé from their Salish neighbors. But this entire investigation leads me to the conclusion that the Salish did not invent the Swaihwé out of nohtingness. From one end of a vast cultural area to the ohter lie the scattered pieces of a system to which, by articulating them, the Salish contributed only a coherence of their own vintage: monsters or spirits associated with water, endowed with a large face, with eyes so big and perhaps already bulging that their gaze is unsustainable, with a tongue constituting such a remarakble feature of their physiognomy that their vanquishers keep this organ as a trophy .... These monsters have a power over the elements that translates itself into maelstroms, tempests, or earthquakes: upheavals to which the myths oppose the, one might say, peaceful atmospheric phenomena of the lunar or solar halo and the rainbow. Finallly, everywhere, there emerges a parallelism between these natural disorders and those which attack familial and social life.[RSL e.g. incest]
THEMES
dangerous hoop [222]
copper/shit - like Japanese story [128]
Haida/Tlingit:Djilaqons=Lady Wealth [103]=Lady of Properties, daughter of Gonaqadet, mistresses of coastal rivers/Kwakiutl: Komagwa's daughter=Lady Wealth/Dzonokwa [223] [101-102] Bella Bella (Hiltsuq) Rich Lady; copper shit
Bella Coola Komagwa; Haida King of the Beyond/Gondqadet; Tsimshian Jealous Spirit [223]
Tsimshian marine monster Hakulaq [222]
scallop shell rattles - broad geographic distribution [222, 17]
girl's puberty rites[223]
Tsimsian/Haida/Tlingit incestuous siblings [223]
incest/rejection of procreation/antisocial behavior ...
bird/fish theme [222]
monsters exterminated by heroes Tsimshian Naguna'ks [204,, Lakitcina (XXsp), Haida king of the beyond
dividing in half Tsimshian/Haida [218]
Tsimshian Weeneel/Thunderbird [208] "The informants stress the resemblance between the creature called Weneel and the Thunderbird"
Tsimshian (Gitskan) Weneel/Haida King of other world [208] adversaries inprisoned under rocks or in a cave, break in half at waist.
Feather association, water association ----Weneel parallel to Tsimshian Hakulaq; Haida Qing.
Red Scorpaenid (red snapper, red cod, like Japanese stories [128])
Tlingit son of Red Snapper, killed his children by pressing them against spiny shirt, picured on totem pole at Wrangell wearing a hat and the red snapper coat, thunderbird at bottom [197]
Tlingit monster-slayer ripping apart a whale [197]
floating child
earthquake/swamp association p. 160 [Salish]
protruding eyes = penetrating vision/way to look at unbearable things; rolled up leaves, cylinders [132-133]
Dzonokwa "makes the roof shake" [126] by lifting roof to steal fish [71,73]
Synthesis - RSL 8/28/2000[14- ] This type of mask is called Swaihwé, and is particular to a dozen groups Indians of Salish linguistic family, who occupied areas around the mouth of the Fraser River estuary on the mainland, and on the eastern part of Vancouver Island across the Strait of Georgia. In the Puget Sound region, the word sqwéqwé designates the potlatch. The costume associated with the mask was predominantly white, and the masked dancers used a special sistrum (rattle) made of scallop shells strung on a wooden ring. The masks and the right to wear them were a ceremonial properties of certain lineages. The masks were considered to bring luck and facilitate the acquisition of wealth. Vancouver Island and Puget Sound stories about the origin of the mask contained elements of rumbling or shaking of the earth. In the Fraser River delta, the story of the mask is related to a cure for convulsions.
Boas compares the Vancouver Island versions of the stories and masks
[Ref cited. Boas 1891-95,23-27,85-86 (Indianishe Sagen von der
Nord-Pacifischen Kuste Amerikas. Berlin, A Asher; Curtis 1907-20, The
North American Indian:IX,37-39] with mainland and Puget Sound versions
(Lumni Sxoaxi). Through his study of the flow of plot elements within
the texts, Lévi-Strauss ??? that the stories originated
on the mainland, near the vicinity of Hope and Yale. Lévi-Strauss further finds a symbolic linkage (metaphorical affinity p. 34), which is expressed by the similarity between the protruding tongue of the mask and fish.
[48-49] RSL Paraphrase: Red Codfish story; reference to stinginess means the opposite, "among the Salish, the Swaihwé masks have an opposite nature, they enrich those who own them or who have secured their service." Borrowed mask shows inversion of story.
[p. 111; Tlingit myth see also 195] An incestuous brother and sister had to part. The brother became the Thunderbird who is responsible for hurricanes and tempests. Once a year, in the stormy season, he comes back to visit his sister. The latter... wnet underground at the top of a mountain. Since then, she has supported the column un which the earth rests; she like humans who make a fire to warm her, because each time she gets hungry, the ground shakes and humans burn grease to feed her. According to other versions, the quakes occur when she fights off Raven, the trickster, who to destroy men, jostels her and tries to make her lose her grip on the column supporting the earth.
[161] "The available native testimonials on the diffusion of the Swaihwé all suggest that the mask, staring from the middle Fraser, arrived on the coast in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. The various chronologies converge, but should one give them full credit?" ... [p. 227] It is more cautious to admit that the first origin of the Swaihwé and even its evolution in the recent past remain obscure.
[p. 201; Haida, Swanton 1905b: Haida Texts and Myths p. 150-159; 1909 Tlingit Texts and Myths p. 25]
There was once a village by the sea. One day, some mysterious visitors came ashore; they had a magic broad hat thanks to whihc they could, at will, unleash marine cataclysms. Terrorized, the local population had to surrender a princess whom the chief wanted to marry. The travelers, with their prisoner, took to the open sea for an unknown desitnation. The young girl's parents were disonsolate, and the nother decided to set off in search of her daughter, accompanied by her husband's chief slave. For years, the ventured over the water, facing great perils, and they finally reached the outer confines of the ocean. They slipped under the rim of a celestial dome that was rising and falling in an incessant movement, and after clearing this last obstacle, they landed on the shoures of the beyond. There they met Property Woman carrying her child; she explained that the country's king had sequestered the young worman in a cave, and made her lose her mind. As a matter of fact, he was furious because his son had given his parents-in-law, as a wedding gift the magic headdress which he prized above all things. ...
[p. 208; Gitskan, (Tsimshian)] The informants stresss the resemblance between the creature called Weneel and the Thunderbird.
Claude Levi-Strauss 1908- Link to short biography of Claude Lévi-Strauss
Jonaitis, Aldona, 1988, From the Land of the Totem Poles; The Northwest Coast Indian Art Collection at the American Museum of Natural History, American Museum of Natural History, New York, University of Washington Press, Seattle. 269 pp.
other masks Thompson Tsatsa'kwé; Lilloet Sa..inux [p. 220]
earth/water/air duality - Yurok air/earth (ie tbird Equake) companionship [217]
inverted air/water duality in Swaihwe/XweXwe myth, bird/fish aspects of masks