THE KWAKIUTL INDIANS. 



343 



sion of wealth as the ability to give great festivals which makes wealth 

 a desirable object to the Indian. As the boy ac<iuires his second 

 name and man's estate by means of a distribution of property, which 

 in course of time will revert to him with interest, the man's name 

 acquires greater weight in the councils of the tribe and greater renown 

 among the whole people, as he is able to distribute more and more 

 property at each subsequent festival. Therefore boys and men are 

 vying with each other in the arrangement of great distributions of 

 property. Boys of different clans are pitted against each other by 

 their elders, and each is exhorted to do his utmost to outdo his rival. 

 And as the boys strive against each other, 

 so do the chiefs and the whole clans, and 

 the one object of the Indian is to outdo 

 his rival. Formerly feats of bravery 

 counted as well as distributions of prop- 

 erty, but nowadays, as the Indians say, 

 "rivals fight with property only." The 

 clans are thus perpetually pitted against 

 each other according to their rank. The 

 Kwakiutl tribes are counted as the high 

 est in the order given in the above list. 

 In intertribal rivalry they do not strive 

 against each other, but the 



Gue'tEla against the Ma'iiialeleqala. 

 Q'o'moyur against the Qotl'xsot'enox. 

 Q'o'mk'utis against the NE'niqic or LaO'koatx. 

 Wa'las Kwakintl against the taii'itslsor Ts'a'mas. 



I referred several times to the distribu- 

 tion of blankets. The recipient in such a 

 distribution is not at liberty to refuse the 

 gift, although according to what I have 

 said it is nothing but an interest-bearing 

 loan that must be refunded at some future 

 time with 1 00 per cent interest. This fes- 

 tival is called p'a'sa, literally, flattening 

 something (for instance, a basket). This 

 means that by the ajiiount of property given the name of the rival is 

 flattened. 



There is still another method of rising in the social scale, namely, by 

 showing one's self superior to the rival. This may be done by inviting 

 the rival and his clan or tribe to a festival and giving him a consider- 

 able number of blankets. He is compelled to accept these, but is not 

 allowed to do so unfil after he has placed an equal number of blankets 

 on top of the pile offered to him. This is called dripEutg-ala and the 

 blankets placed on top of the first pile are called da'pEno. Then he 

 receives the whole pile and becomes debtor to that amount, i. e., he 

 must repay the gift with 100 per cent interest. 



Fig. 3. 



COPPER PLATE. 



The painting ou this plate represents 

 the hawk. The xipper face shows the 

 hawk's head, and the lower face its 

 body. The three line.s on each side of 

 the body are probably the talons. 



Cnt. N.I. SmTS, V. S. N. M. 



