442 THK TLINGIT INDIANS [eth. ann. lV, 



guests SO that they would feel happy." ^^'lu'!l the guests came they 

 said to them, '"Up to the rear of the house. You will sit on my 

 mother," etc. Auj- property that the man had left by his dead broth- 

 ers, uncles, or mother he took out before the people. If he had 

 nephews, nieces, etc., he Ijrought them out also at that time. The 

 chief himself also wore the earrings and other tilings he had received 

 from deatl members of the clan, which he wanted to let the people 

 see. They said that "he spent so much money to let the people see 

 them." It is said that Yelgu'xo at tiiis potlatch gave away $ti,UO0 

 worth of property, and Yelxa'k $5,000 worth, besides the usual sums 

 brougiit in for previous distribution by other members of their clan. 



On the second night, just before they started the song for the host 

 when he was about to give his things out, the people were served with 

 food of the finest kinds. (The people sometimes sat in the potlatch 

 hou.se for two days steadily.) A long cloth was stretched out across 

 one end of the house and YeJgu'xo came out behind it wearing a hat 

 named Ku'cta-xoste'yi-(ia (Man-that-became-a-land-otter). In olden 

 times his uncles and grandmothers had used it, and for that reason lie 

 "killed" 16,000 of his property when he brougiit it out. He had the 

 property that he was going to give in return for what his wife had 

 gotten in Sitka all placed out first, and it was just double what she had 

 received. 



This was the custom when people sang. If one did not know how 

 to start a song lie would ask someliody in the rear of the house to do 

 so, and pay him fifteen or twenty blankets or the same number of 

 dollars. While the other property was being gotten out they paid 

 the principal guests one or two hundred dollars apiece just for danc- 

 ing. Sometimes a man felt dissatisfied with what he had received and 

 started to walk out. Then the host went in front of him " with a dead 

 man's name" (i. e., mentioning the name of a dead relative), made him 

 sit down, and doubled the amount of propert}^ given to him. It took 

 four days to give out the blankets. As a man's name was called 

 out he would answer "Hade'" ("this waj'"), equivalent to English 

 "here." At such times the host brought out his brother-in-law or his 

 child and put him on the property before it was distributed. This 

 was to make him high caste, for it would be afterwards said of him 

 that so many blankets "were lost to see him." 



Tiie last feast, the one which takes place after giving out the 

 blankets, is called Anwu'wu ("town food" or "food-that-keeps-the- 

 town-alive"), because what they then eat is the home food. Berries, 

 grease, dried eulachon, dried salmon, all kinds of berries, boxes of 

 crackers, oranges, apples, figs, etc., were bi'ought out. 



Finall3' the guests "left a dance" in that place, to show respect for 



nin olden times they used to kill slaves just as the guests came into the house. 



