Native American Architecture by Peter Nabokov & Robert Easton

Author:Peter Nabokov & Robert Easton [Nabokov, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 1988-11-30T23:00:00+00:00

Upon completion of the building a participating Kwakiutl headman announced to his host: “The great house is finished for all the different tribes. My tribe has treated you as a chief, with split boards for your feasting house. Go and sing in the house tomorrow evening, and let the inviting canoes go to all the different tribes that they may come.”

The place of honor was in the middle rear of the building, and in descending order ranking family members occupied the right side, left side, and door side. Slaves slept around the fire. Dried olachen fish, so oily that they burned like candles if a wick was run through them, might be burned for additional illumination. The finest cedar boards were owned by the higher-ranking occupants and walled their inner sleeping alcoves, which occasionally had their own gable roofs; other compartments were merely pole frames hung with mats for privacy. Owners of the most prestigious Kwakiutl houses boasted that “one did not hear the rain, the house was so high.” Such houses increased in stature with each generation. Franz Boas recorded the speech of one Kwakiutl chief to his guests: “This is the house of my great-great-grandfather Mahwa who invited you here. This is the house of my great-grandfather Mahwa who invited you to Sandy Beach. This is the house of my grandfather Mahwa who invited you at Crooked Beach. This is the feasting house of my father who invited you at Tide Beach. Now I have taken the place of my father. I invited you, tribes, that you should come and see my house here.”

In summer, the secular time of year, Kwakiutl households followed the Northwest Indians’ seasonal pattern of moving to family-owned hunting and foraging grounds. In autumn, when everyone returned to the coastal settlements, the houses were cleaned and interior hanging mats were replaced. For special ritual performances, house screens of thin painted planks or hide hangings formed an interior backdrop and converted the center of the house into an arena. Drummers pounded on the long hollow-log drums in front of the screen and spectators thronged on all three sides.

Prestigious houses

Houses with prominent poles or paintings were the property of high-ranking chiefs, who increased their status by holding periodic feasts, or “potlatches,” at which they gave presents to the guests. Blankets were the primary gift, as can be seen in the photograph (left) of a potlatch in progress. The Kwakiutl village of Xumtaspi-Nawittl (below), on Hope Island, ca. 1884, had totem poles, a painting of a “displayed figure” crouching over a doorway, and signs with advertising to attract Anglo-American seamen. One reads, “CHEAP. The home of the head chief of all tribes in this country. Whiteman can gaet (sic) information.” The other says, “BOSTON. He is true and honest. He don’t give no trouble to no white man.”

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