The Potlatch*

["Potlatch” is a Chinook word meaning “a gift.”  Among the Indian tribes of British Columbia it is used as the accepted name of a great feast, which some Indian, who is exceedingly well off, gives to scores of guests.  He entertains them for days, sometimes for weeks, together, presenting them with innumerable blankets and much money, for it is part of the Indian code of honor that, which one has great possessions, he must divide them with his less fortunate tribesmen.  The gifts of money usually take the form of ten-dollar bank notes, and are bestowed broadcast upon any man, woman or child who pleases the host by either dancing the tribal dances very beautifully, or else originates an attractive dance of their own.]

Young Ta-la-pus sat on the highest point of rock that lifted itself on the coast at the edge of his father’s Reserve.  At his feet stretched the Straits of Georgia, and far across the mists of the salt Pacific waters he watched the sun rise seemingly out of the mainland that someone had told him stretched eastward thousands of miles, where another ocean, called the Atlantic, washed its far-off shore, for Ta-la-pus lived on Vancouver Island, and all his little life had been spent in wishing and longing to set his small, moccasined feet on that vast mainland that the old men talked of, and the young men visited year in and year out.  But never yet had he been taken across the wide, blue Straits, for he was only eleven years old, and he had two very big brothers who always accompanied their father, old chief Mowitch, on his journeyings, for they were good fishermen, and could help in the salmon catch, and bring good chicamin (money) home to buy supplies for the winter.  Sometimes these big brothers would tease him and say, “What can you expect?  Your name is Ta-la-pus, which means a prairie wolf.  What has a prairie wolf to do with crossing great waters?  He cannot swim, as some other animals can.  Our parents gave us better names, ‘Chet-woot,’ the bear, who swims well, and ‘Lapool,’ the water fowl, whose home is on the waters, whose feet are webbed, and who floats even while he sleeps.  No, our young brother, Ta-la-pus, the prairie wolf, was never meant to cross the great salt Straits.”

Then little Ta-la-pus would creep away to his lonely rock, trying to still the ache in his heart and forcing back the tears from his eyes.  Prairie wolves must not cry like little girl babies—­and sometimes when his heart was sorest, a clear, dazzlingly bright day would dawn, and far, far off he could see the blur of the mainland coast, resting on the sea like an enormous island.  Then he would tell himself that, no matter what his name was, some day he would cross to that great, far country, whose snow-crowned mountain peaks he could just see merging into the distant clouds.

Then, late in the summer, there came one marvellous night, when his father and brother returned from the sockeye salmon fishing, with news that set the entire Indian village talking far into the early morning.  A great Squamish chief on the mainland was going to give a Potlatch.  He had been preparing for it for weeks.  He had enjoyed a very fortunate fishing season, was a generous-hearted man, and was prepared to spend ten thousand dollars* in gifts and entertainment for his friends and all the poor of the various neighboring tribes.