Primal Scream

by Michael Slade

  "Waterfront?" he said.

  Potlatch

  West Vancouver

  Tired from his ordeal last night and its aftermath today, Robert DeClercq returned home to his hearth and a finger of scotch. His home ablaze with the aromas of Katt's infamous six-alarm chili, his hearth ablaze with the cheeriest fire ever to warm bones, his stomach soon to be ablaze with the burn of Highland malt, he entered the front room, where Katt sat curled up in the Holmes chair with Napoleon and Catnip snoozing together on the rug. The floor space which yesterday had spread out the Headhunter file was littered with library books. The TV was on, picture only, across from her, sound replaced by Nirvana on the stereo. He killed the noise to pour the drink and sink deep into the Watson chair, thankful the dark ages were gone when he'd come home hungry to a cold, gray shell.

  "You're all over the tube," she said. "In Seattle, too."

  "Want to know what it's like to survive a shark attack?"

  "His fifteen minutes of fame, and Bob hates every second."

  Sipping the malt at room temperature, as it should be imbibed, he eyed the books and said, "Going for your Ph.D.? What's your thesis on?"

  "Gitxsan, Bob. My socials teacher wants a paper on something connected to what's happening up north. I picked the potlatch." "Good, then you can help me solve this case, too." He propped his feet up on the footstool. "What should I know?"

  The amateur thespian in her enjoyed nothing better than an audience, especially when given the stage for a subject made to act out, and what could be more actable than a potlatch before Captain Cook?

  Captain Hook, she called him.

  This Tinkerbell.

  "Return with me, Bob, to those thrilling times of yesteryear, before the Bad Guys ventured north in their sailing ships." Katt spread her arms in front of her to weave the spell. "We're on the Skeena. River of Mists. 'Xsan to natives. Git—people—of the 'Xsan. Gitxsan, get it?"

  "Got it," he said.

  "Every Gitxsan village fronts on the Skeena or a tributary. Lining the riverbank are totem poles"—her finger played leapfrog in the air—"backed by wooden lodges owned by families. Each family is called a House and led by a chief. The name of each House is the name of its chief. The Gitxsan have names like 'Bloody and frozen,' 'Step heavily, sinking in snow,' 'Like crazy man,' 'Outside noise,' and, my favorite, 'Rope dragging and always catching on something.' Every House belongs to one of four clans"—her hands dealt the Houses into groups like playing cards— "Eagle, Fireweed, Wolf, and Frog/Raven. A village usually has two clans. The Houses of each clan rank left or right in descending order of social status. And status is determined by the potlatch feast."

  DeClercq sniffed the air. "I smell it cooking. Is that eulachon grease?"

  "The four of us are Houses in a village, Bob. I'm lead Wolf, you're lead Frog, so we live side by side hi center on the riverbank. The lesser Wolf"—a finger at Napoleon—"and lesser Frog"—Catnip—"have lodges on our flanks. Sixty-three Gitxsan Houses are ranked this; way, with each village located in its hunting ground,? a vast tract of land stretching north that is subdivided! among Houses in the village. You, me, dog, and cat each have separate grounds, precisely denned by rivers; and markers like debarked trees. The chief of the' House is headhunter within his realm, and when he goes hunting he invites his household along, as well as other Houses hi his clan. A Frog cannot hunt on Wolf land, or a Wolf on Frog. Gitxsan law is you can't enter a House unless invited, so how we keep up to date on boundaries is the potlatch feast."

  "This feast sounds more important by the minute," said DeClercq.

  Katt stood up and paced, getting into it. "The big thing to remember, Bob, is Gitxsan have no writing, so everything is recorded in art, then passed down through oral histories called ada'ox. Each House can be traced back to a supernatural origin, when a spirit' or monster 'seen' by a family member during a magical event became a House crest. Other crests capture the adventures and conquests of warrior chiefs, or the deeds of those that brought disaster in their wakes. Crests and the legends behind them are owned by the House, along with names, songs, dances, and masks that act them out. Only those who inherit the right may interpret the crests, each of which is somehow tied to the land, so telling the myths behind them is like waving a deed. Deed waving is done at—"

  "Don't tell me," interjected DeClercq. "A pot-latch feast?"

  "A House holds a potlatch feast when someone moves up in status, or status is jeopardized. Potlatch means 'to give' in Chinook jargon, the common trading tongue of West Coast tribes. A feast is held for any occasion requiring witnesses. Naming, piercing, and tattooing of kids. Marriage. Removing shame. And, primarily, to pass leadership.

  "Feasts take place in winter between freeze-up and thaw."

  Katt paddled an imaginary boat.

  "Messengers travel by canoe to invite guests. They gather by the thousands in the longhouse around which a village centers. There the host takes the name of the dead chief, and a totem pole is erected to the memory of the deceased. Hereditary rights are claimed through crests on the pole, the myths of which are acted out in word, dance, and song. The witnesses confirm their host owns the crests, and the land tied to them. As thanks the guests are fed and offered lavish gifts, for status of the House depends on pot-latch. The more given, the higher the rank."

  Katt gave DeClercq her Public Enemy CDs.

  "But the coolest part is what goes on before the feast. A potlatch meeting might last weeks. The Gitxsan have two secret societies, and they hold rituals in the days before the Big Eat.

  "Now listen closely, Bob. This is important. Anything connected with the supernatural is called nax-nox. Naxnox is power from the spirit world, which exists in monsters, animals, and humanoid beings impersonated by masks. Since masks are faces of power, we become naxnox through possession, and wearing masks at rituals called halait. Halait is any ritual manifestation of power. It is both the dancer and the dance. The person displaying power and the ritual in which it occurs. Naxnox is what is revealed in halait."

  "Personification of power?"

  "You got it, Bob. Halait occurs at meetings of two secret societies before the feast. They are the Dancers and the Dogeaters. The Dogeaters have rituals inherited by chiefs. These are for Destroyers and Cannibals. This is the creation myth."

  Katt performed her rendition of each dance as she came to it.

  "Four men from Kitamaat failed in their attempt to kill a lake monster. They followed it to the end of the lake and saw four houses with bright paint and cedar-bark rings hung over the doors emerge from the water. A man came out of the first house and danced as if he were lame. The man from the second house danced wilder than him, leaping and barking as if possessed by a dog. From the third house came a chief who destroyed things while he danced. The chief from the fourth house danced the weirdest of all, and sang in a language unknown to the four men. Suddenly, he sprang in the air and devoured a child in his grip. The witnesses to this were informed: Those of your people you thought dead are the ones you hear singing, and it is they who give these dances to you.' "

  DeClercq clapped his hands.

  Katt took a bow.

  "Halait initiation is a frenzied affair. The term is hilaxha, 'going to the heavens.' Each society makes a chief wihalait, a 'great dancer' who 'throws' naxnox into novices. They vanish out the smoke hole to acquire wisdom in heaven, then return naked in a wild, possessed state, dancing lame or as if eating dogs. Encountering heavenly spirits has overwhelmed them, and excess power makes each lame or crazy. Like a shaman curing illness, the wihalait sucks their backs and blows the excess out the smoke hole. When he hangs a cedar ring as in the myth around a neck, the 'made person' is halait in the society.

  "Chiefs who join the Dogeaters face stronger power in heaven. They return berserk to destroy property or, in the most feared state, to eat human flesh. While dancing a dance called the ulala, a cannibal feasts on the corpse of a slave."

  Katt scooped up Catnip and prete
nded to gobble his tummy.

  "Gitxsan had slaves?"

  "From outside their territory. How else could they amass the wealth for potlatch feasts?"

  "Life's a bitch, and then you're meat."

  "Tough times, Bob."

  Catnip hissed, so down he went, back to snoozing with dog, who was oblivious to the Dogeater performing onstage.

  "Halait rituals are staged by a council called the gitsontk. They make the masks and devices that manifest naxnox. Chance upon them preparing and the intruder is put to death."

  "Serious stuff," said DeClercq.

  "A spectacular halait presented by a high-ranking chief was the Crack of Heaven. It was dramatized with a transformation mask that opened to reveal another mask inside. Members of the society gathered in a lodge. The fourth time the mask opened caused the house to crack. Half the room slid backward from the other half, taking half the center fire and congregation with it. The roof split open as the beams moved; then the mask closed to bring the lodge slowly back together. That was a naxnox with power.

  "A chief 'going to the heavens' asked the gitsontk to prepare his return on a mechanical whale. Made from sea-lion skins, the whale was designed to swim and dive by means of ropes pulled by men hidden onshore. So the whale would spout, hot stones inside boiled water until steam billowed out the blow hole. During this halait a hot rock burned through the whale's skin, causing it to sink. Those involved in the failure committed suicide, knowing they'd be put to death." Katt drew a finger across her throat.

  "Fantasy must be perfect. Reality never is," said DeClercq.

  "Each naxnox has a mask, song, and name. These are owned by the Houses and are inherited. After carving by artists of the gitsontk, naxnox masks become beings of power themselves. Each mask has a 'breath' sung when it is worn, and a whistle to represent the voice of the spirit. When a Gitxsan 'takes the name,' he dramatizes it by wearing the mask. From then on, the names of the naxnox mask and the person are the same. 'We become our names,' Gitxsan say. Since power resides in the masks, they are kept strictly hidden from those not allowed to use them, and are only exposed at halait rituals before the feast. Naxnox names dramatized for and by guests in the secret societies transform members into naxnox like these."

  Katt's toe touched photos of masks in books on the floor. "Corpse of Ghost," with strips of leather and string sealing the mouth. "Hagawhlamanawn: He Uses His Hands to Cut With," including a cedar knife to slash at guests. "Hermaphrodite," "Skeleton," and "Spotted Face" marked by smallpox. "Mother of Rat," "Grizzly Man," and "Land Otter Woman," a: skull face that stole souls from the drowned . . .

  "You grasp what halait is, don't you, Katt? Halait before a potlatch creates opposing rituals to remind the Gitxsan of the need to live within social boundaries. A naxnox mask allows the person inside to revel in sacred games of power release and boundary transgression. Such chaos and destruction require the subsequent balance of order and structure in the feast. The same participants meet for both and, after wanton abandon in halait, hide away their naxnox to celebrate the boundaries of rank, lineage, culture, and peaceful coexistence. But they do so with the knowledge that under Apollonian pomp lurks Dionysus."

  Katt bristled at this interruption from the peanut gallery. Some ham was trying to elbow onstage.

  "Very deep, Bob."

  "Take it down. That's the sort of insight teachers love."

  "It's a lot of hooey. Maybe them dudes just liked to party."

  "Another perspective."

  "Then the party poopers arrived."

  "Captain Hook and his ilk?"

  "Captain Vancouver, Bob. He sailed up the coast in 1798, and the next century the missionaries came. They got a peek at the potlatch and crapped themselves. Appalled priests ran to politicians for a ban, demanding it as a precondition to civilizing the heathens. How could they lead productive and moral lives if they gave away all possessions in a vainglorious pursuit of social esteem? Listen to this," Katt said, grabbing notes she held out like a town crier:

  "During these gatherings they lose months of time, waste their substance, contract all kinds of diseases, and generally unfit themselves for being British subjects in the proper sense of the word."

  "Hallelujah!" said DeClercq.

  "So, on January 1, 1885, the potlatch was banned by a law that lasted until 1951. Priests forced natives to burn or surrender sacred halait art to God, and some—like this guy—sold naxnox for profit to collectors in Europe and the States."

  She passed him a photo of a Catholic priest, taken standing in a church with loot at his feet. Hundreds of naxnox masks and halait treasures like headdresses and rattles and neck rings and blankets and whistles and clubs and canes. The priest was bony and bushy-bearded, with spiked eyebrows.

  Rector Luke Noel.

  "They thought totems were idols Indians worshiped, Bob. They didn't grasp the potlatch was the foundation of native society, and outlawing it would bring their history, leaders, economy, and religion crashing down. The potlatch was banned because they didn't understand it."

  "Or because they understood it only too well."

  "We're the bad guys."

  "That we are."

  "Isn't it ... Isn't it . . ."

  "Yes, it is, Katt."

  She left the stage and slumped back in the Holmes chair. "The news on Totem Lake did this roving reporter bit. All these whites bitched about Indians wanting the moon. How can they be so blind, knowing what we did to them?"

  "It's called dissociation. It's a mental illness, Katt."

  She made a note.

  "I'll use that, Bob."

  "When's your paper due?"

  "Next Tuesday."

  "Illustrations?"

  "Show and tell."

  "Tomorrow I fly to Gunanoot. I'll take a camera to snap some shots."

  Katt lit up. "Can I come?"

  "Certainly not."

  "Why, party pooper?"

  "You saw the news. Enough said."

  "But that's nowhere near Gunanoot. Totem Lake's a light-year away. And that guy you're hunting is north in the bush."

  "No!"

  "Going alone?"

  "Yes," he said.

  "Then it's safe. Come on, Bob. It'll be a boon to have me along. I'll win the Gitxsan over. They'll think you're cool. You've got to cut me slack. I want to be a Mountie. It's the opportunity of a lifetime for a great mark. You don't know which crests to snap pictures of. It's not good parenting to cripple a kid's education. I need encouragement to—"

  "Enough, Katt."

  "Nax nox."

  She rapped the air.

  He looked puzzled.

  "Nax nox. Get it?" She rapped again.

  "Who's there?"

  "Halait."

  "Halait who?"

  "Ha lait will you let me stay up and dance at the potlatch, Bob?"

  Gunamoot

  The North

  Thursday, January 11

  "There," said Dodd, above the monotonous drone of the Beaver's engine.

  Katt followed his finger to Stii Kyo Din—"Stands Alone"—renamed Rocher Deboule—"Tumbling Rock"—by whites, where the frozen 'Xsan met the frozen Wa Dzun Kwuh, renamed the Skeena and Bulkley by the map-making crew. The solitary mountain stood alone in a sea of peaks, runneled with melt-water channels and hoary with January ice, jutting eight thousand feet above Gitanmaax, renamed Ha-zelton by rewrite historians. Arced northwest within forty miles of where the rivers joined, all seven Gitxsan villages could see the magic peak.

  The teenager turned in the copilot's seat to shout back at DeClercq. "Halaits say power is embedded in the mountain. Naxnox manifests as tumbling rocks. The rocks tumble shortly before death of a high chief, or deaths of three people in a row.

  Suddenly, an avalanche came down the peak.

  Prophesy?

  Not a cloud to mar the sky, they could see forever out the cockpit window. Two hundred miles west lay the Pacific coast. From its mouth at the tip of the Alaska panha
ndle, the Skeena angled northeast for one hundred miles to Terrace, where Herb McCall, erstwhile "owner" of Totem Lake, lived and logged.

  This side of Terrace, Kitselas Canyon, hemmed in by the Hazelton Mountains, had marked where Gitxsan territories began, before Ottawa imprisoned the Houses on reserves. It was another one hundred miles upriver to Hazelton, past Kitwanga, where Nekt had built his ta'awdzep fort.

  "Gunanoot," said Dodd, pointing true north.

  The Beaver passed over road, rail, and river. Come spring, logging trucks would haul timber clear-cut from Gitxsan Houses west down the Yellowhead Highway to port at Prince Rupert. Beneath the plane the CNR snaked the Skeena today, lugging a mile-long train with a hundred-odd cars: tanker cars, and wheat pool cars, and boxcars hiding their cargoes. Past the white river and mythical site of Tarn Lax Aamid— "Land of Plenty"—a long-lost city so populous it was said Gitxsan could yell loud enough to stun geese passing overhead, and so vast that where the birds fell was still the city, Dodd worked levers to drop the Beaver into the snowy valley of a Skeena tributary. A spine of mountains in between, the feeder ran parallel to the north-south upper reaches of the River of Mists, where the Skeena came down the Kispiox Valley to veer west at Hazelton.

  East, beyond the Upper Skeena, lay Totem Lake.

  The first thing Katt saw was the cross. High atop the spire of the Catholic church, it lorded over lesser buildings clustered around, giving the impression of a European parish. In its shadow stood the band office, a cedar square for leaders elected under the Indian Act, a system whites imposed to undermine the authority of hereditary chiefs. The new community was set back from the riverbank, where the ancient village centered around its longhouse for potlatch feasts. The lodges of the Houses flanked it left and right, in front of which loomed a line of crooked totem poles weathered silver by age, raised as testimony to a history extending back not centuries, but millennia.

  The ancient village was rotting away.

  Over the mountains to the west was Gitanyow. Over the mountains to the east was Kispiox. Nestled in this valley between was Gunanoot, most isolated of the seven Gitxsan villages and the last forced to bow to priests. The only way in or out by land was a gravel road, which Dodd used as a landing strip.