13

career—his birth, adolescence, first success in hunting, assump-
tion of titles, marriage, and death. Rival chiefs and their
retainers toiled for years to outdo each other in elaborate feasts
or ‘“‘potlatches,’’ to which they invited guests from distances

Prate VII

71405

Coffin of a Vancouver Indian.

exceeding 100 miles. First they entertained the multitude with
speeches, dances, dramatic performances, and games, then
climaxed the festival with a grand distribution of furs, robes,
and other goods, most of them not straight gifts, but rather
investments to be redeemed with or without interest at some
future date. There were feasts, again, whenever a new house
was erected, or a new totem-pole set in place; and, in addition
to these secular entertainments, numberless religious rites and
dances that occupied the Indians most of the winter.