CHAPTER VI: 1896-96 PREPARING THE BOOK
From Hunt’s Manuscripts to Publication
Page from a Hunt manuscript, ca. 1895–97. Franz Boas Papers, American Philosophical Society Library.
Highlighted passage corresponds to Hunt’s manuscript, left.
Between 1895 and 1897, George Hunt recorded a large number of historical tales, genealogies, and charter narratives that accompany hereditary dance prerogatives featured in the book. Here, Hunt presents a story explaining the original acquisition of the Winter Ceremonials by one subdivision of the neighboring Heiltsuk people. In the tale, an ancestral woman gives birth to four dogs who later, in human form, encounter the supernatural beings that bestow the first dancing rights.
In his 1920s notes, Hunt connected this story to a distinctive Hamat̕sa headdress with canine features, collected by Jacobsen for Berlin and published elsewhere in Franz Boas’s book unconnected to the story. Hunt explained how the rights to this story and headdress were transferred through marriage from the Heiltsuk to the ’Nak̓waxda’xw band of the Kwakwaka’wakw.
Figure 68 from Boas’s 1897 book.
Headdress, Kwakwaka’wakw, collected by Johan Adrian Jacobsen (1853–1947). Red and yellow cedar wood. Courtesy of U’mista Cultural Centre and bpk Bildagentur / Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen, Berlin / Art Resource, NY.
Hunt’s 1920s notes on figure 68:
gēkāᵋnāgᴇmł ts!äqēᵋwē
all teeth mask of Bax·bākwā´lāᵋnoxsewe
this mask of the Hāᵋmāts!ā came
from Balla Bāllā. or Hēstaᵋē´dox of the
Hełdzā´qw. the Front mask is a Dog
Head. if you look into ts!ᴇm´qwāᵋlā-
gās story where she Had Dog childrens
and one of these Dog after there mother
found them all toke off there Dog skins
and Had them hangeing up. and there
mother came into the House and throw
there Dog skins into the fire. and now
there are all Boys now except one of
them still a Dog. and one of these Boys
went into the wood. Purified himself
By washing. and after four Days he
found the House of Bax·bakwalanox-
seᵋwe and this is the Head Ring of
Bax·bakwalanoxseᵋwe. with the four
Human sculls on it. and after he
used this Head Ring. he thought that
he Better to ade onto it his own Dog
Head. so this gēkāᵋnāg̩ᴇmł ts!äqewe
came to the nᴇmemot of the gexsᴇm
of the nak!wax·dax By marriage.
