Supernatral Crystals of the Northwest Coast 1700’s AD
Nootka: Hei'na (ha'ina)
Kwakwaka'waka: Xwe'la
Haida: tlk'a k'a'tse
Kwakwaka'waka: Xwe'la
Haida: tlk'a k'a'tse
The Nuu-chah-nulth of Vancouver Island (BC, Canada) believed crystals formed on mountains, possessed the light from the genesis of the Earth, and were a gift from the wolf-people. Crystals possessed supernatural powers including:
* granting power to fly
*as offensive missiles
* ensuring success hunting sea otters
*enabling soul journeys
*disease cure, when crystal pieces mixed with saliva
Crystals were also used to invite people to potlatches.
This ha'ina was collected by Captain George Dixon, on Captain Cook’s 3rd voyage to the Northwest Coast (1776-80). This hexagonal quartz crystal has a pecked groove around the circumfrence of one end, perhaps for hafting to a handle or tool.
REFERENCES
* Drucker, P., The northern and central Nootk, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 144 (Washington, D.C. Smithsonian Institution, 1951)
*Gough, B.M. 'George Dixon' in Dictionary of Canadian Biograp, vol. 4 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981-91), pp. 217-19
* King, J.H.C., Artificial curiosities from the North West Coast of America (London, British Museum Publications, 1981)
*http://www.kringla.nu/kringla/objekt?referens=SMVK-EM/objekt/1068105
* granting power to fly
*as offensive missiles
* ensuring success hunting sea otters
*enabling soul journeys
*disease cure, when crystal pieces mixed with saliva
Crystals were also used to invite people to potlatches.
This ha'ina was collected by Captain George Dixon, on Captain Cook’s 3rd voyage to the Northwest Coast (1776-80). This hexagonal quartz crystal has a pecked groove around the circumfrence of one end, perhaps for hafting to a handle or tool.
REFERENCES
* Drucker, P., The northern and central Nootk, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 144 (Washington, D.C. Smithsonian Institution, 1951)
*Gough, B.M. 'George Dixon' in Dictionary of Canadian Biograp, vol. 4 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981-91), pp. 217-19
* King, J.H.C., Artificial curiosities from the North West Coast of America (London, British Museum Publications, 1981)
*http://www.kringla.nu/kringla/objekt?referens=SMVK-EM/objekt/1068105
Kwakwaka’wakw
Winilagalis Dancers: possessed a magical quartz crystal that:
-killed when thrown,
-controlled fire,
-granted the power to fly (like Matum dancer),
-made one invisibile, &
- could reanimate the dead with water of life
(Kwakiutl Art by Audrey Hawthorn)
Sisiutl’s eye may be employed as missile weapons- turning the emeny into stone. Occassionally this is signified by quartz crystals embedded in the sisiutl’s forehead.
(Totem Poles By Pat Kramer)
Winilagalis Dancers: possessed a magical quartz crystal that:
-killed when thrown,
-controlled fire,
-granted the power to fly (like Matum dancer),
-made one invisibile, &
- could reanimate the dead with water of life
(Kwakiutl Art by Audrey Hawthorn)
Sisiutl’s eye may be employed as missile weapons- turning the emeny into stone. Occassionally this is signified by quartz crystals embedded in the sisiutl’s forehead.
(Totem Poles By Pat Kramer)
Tsimshian (Gitxsan) Shaman Headdress
Frog shaman headdress made & used by Isaac Tens in Hazleton, BC. According to Tens, the hunter Kwomon trapped a goat, that transformed into this crystal while in the snare.
*Canadian Museum of Civilization
http://collections.civilisations.ca/public/pages/cmccpublic/alt-emupublic/Display.php?irn=62306&QueryPage=Query.php&lang=
Kwakwaka'wakw Ceremonial Sisiutl warclub with crystals
by Stan Hunt, Jr.
Kwakwak'wakw Story with Sisiutl and crystals
" Magician Who Was Killed by his Brothers"
Nahanagyilis said to his slave one day: "Slave, get into my canoe, for we will go to spear
hair-seals." So the slave pushed off the canoe, and they left the village
Hwutis. Passing an island, they saw something that seemed to be like fire
ploughing its way down the mountainside, carrying trees and boulders before it,
and eating its way through the solid rock. The whole mass plunged into the water
with a tremendous hissing.
Then said Nahanagyilis, "Slave, that is what I have been looking for!" He drew his
knife and began to cut his tongue and spit blood on the water. To the slave he
said, "Paddle, for we must catch up with it!" So the slave paddled vigorously
after the thing, which was moving through the water across the channel. At the
tail of the creature the water was boiling.
Gradually the canoe came up behind it, and then went ahead, and Nalanagyilis landed at the
place for which the sisiutl was headed. Hespit four curving parallel lines of blood about the place
where it would land,both ends of the lines touching the water's edge. The sisiutl swiftly rushed
out upon the shore and dashed against the four barriers, but though it broke
through three of them it was stopped by the fourth, and there it lay trembling on the rock.
Nahlnagyilis stood and thought, "What shall I do?" He knew that he dare not turn his eyes
away, for if one sees a sisiutl and turns away, the power of the sisiutl will
cause him to remain fixed in that position. When the sisiutl found it impossible
to cross the fourth line of blood, it turned itself into a paint-bag, but could
do no better. Then it became a great canoe, but still it could not pass.
Nahanagyilis stood there and stared. And now the sisiutl
assumed the real form of sisiutl with two snake heads at the ends and a man's
face in the middle. And this man's face was that of the father of
Nahanagyilis. As soon as he saw his dead father's face, it came to his mind
what he should do. "Oh," he said, "this is like the song my father used to
sing!" He put his hand behind him four times, and the fourth time a club was
placed in it.
In the distance a voice cried: "Wa! Strike it once!" Four times the voice was
heard, and the fourth time Nahianagyilis made a motion as if striking his
father's head. Three times he did this, and then he really struck it, and the
sisiutl fell into a mass of hwela [quartz crystal]. With his eyes still fastened on the hiwela, he reached for a
flat stone, and with another he scraped some of the hiwela upon it. But
immediately with a loud report the stone was blown to pieces by the power of the sisiutl.
Then he remembered something his father had told him. Still looking intently at the
crystal, he made his way backward from the bushes, and feeling about he found a
salmonberry bush. He broke off four shoots and returned to the crystal,
where he put them into the ground at the four corners of the pile. He tore some
bark from his blanket, and tied the strips on the tips of the shoots. This
counteracted the power of the hwela, and he was free to look away. He now
obtained some bark from a cedar in the woods, wrapped a piece of the crystal in
it, and placed it in his bosom. The rest he wrapped in another piece of bark
and carried into the woods, where he tied it to the trunk of a strong spruce.
But he had not gone far toward the beach when the tree came crashing down.
Fearful that his treasure was lost, he went back, but found that though the
tree had broken off squarely at the level where he had hung the hwela, the
package still hung on the stump. Then he tied it to a hemlock, but this also
was broken off by the power of the hwela; and a fir was no better. But when he
hung it on a red cedar, the tree stood firm.
Nahanagyilis now returned to the canoe and found the dead body of his slave, fearfully
contorted. For a man who sees sisiutl without cutting his tongue and spitting
blood dies in convulsions. He drew the crystal from his bosom, held it near the
slave's left side, and moved it across the chest to the right side. After he had
done this four times, the man came to life. "Go home," said Nahanagyilis, "and
tell my brothers what I have found. In four days bring them." When the slave had
gone, Nahanagyilis felt drowsy and fell asleep.
Suddenly he awoke with a start, to find himself on the side of a steep mountain in a
little niche with the rock falling away below him in a perpendicular cliff,
while above him it sloped outward and projected over him. He looked about and
said to himself, "Now you have made a mess of it!" For he had taken too much of
the hwela, and the power of it had flown away with him. Again he became sleepy,
and again he awoke suddenly. He found himself carried across the channel to a
similar niche on a mountainside. "Oh," he said, "that is the way you are going
to be treated by your tlugwi!" Once more he fell asleep, and now he was carried
nearly to the top of another mountain, where he heard trees and rocks rolling
down above him. "This is the death of me!" he exclaimed. But he took out his
hwela and held it above him, and the rushing mass of trees, earth, and rocks
divided and went past him on each side.
Then Nahanagyilis came down the mountainside. When he was near the water he saw a
canoe containing three men with black painted foreheads. The one in the bow
carried a long spear. Nahanagyilis remained very quiet, and they paddled past.
Just then a great bird appeared from he knew not where. Its wing-feathers were
hwela, and so heavy that apparently it could not fly. Intending to catch it, he
ran toward it, but it rushed over the ground and kept just ahead of him. When he
was so close that he was about to grasp it, a rock wall opened and the bird
dashed into it with Nahanagyilis just behind it. Then the bird spoke: "Yo! Here
he comes!" Nahanagyilis saw the three men who had passed in the canoe, cutting
up a seal. One of them said: "Let us talk about the thing for which we invited
our friend. We will give him our spear, our hair-seal spear. He will need four
canoes to carry what it will kill in a single day."
Now to himself NaManagyilis said, "But what is that compared with what I already
have?" Wutlakaahlit, one of the three, spoke: "Our friend says, 'What is that
compared with what I already have?"' Another said, "We will let him have my
canoe-building tools, so that he will put four canoes into the water daily."
Again Nahanagyilis thought, "What good is that compared with what I already
have?" And Wutlakaahlit read his thoughts as before. Now the man who had been
sitting in the bow of the canoe became angry and leaped to his feet. He went to
his box and took something out of it, and turning to Nahanagyilis said, "Open
your mouth!" Nahanagyilis obeyed, and the man rubbed his finger on the tongue of
Nalinagyilis, saying: "That is the life-bringer. Although a man is long dead,
your urine will now bring life to him. Go now from this place!" They were rather
angry at his persistence.
So Nahanagyilis went out from the rock and sat down. He found himself sleepy, and
when he awoke he was in the place where he had killed the sisiutl. This was on
the fourth day. Now Nahanagyilis saw a canoe approaching with many people, and
he was taken to the village and into a house. But he walked straight through the
house and back into the woods, and when the next morning the slave followed him,
Nahanagyilis said, "Go and bring my brothers, that I may tell them the news."
Very soon came the brothers, and Nahanagyilis directed them where to sit, and
said: "I thank you for coming to see me, my brothers. I am going to show you my
tlugwi. I will dance for you. I wish one of you would get a rattle and a piece
of board, and a wallet basket." When these things were provided, he blew into
the wallet, while the others in silence watched him closely. He put it down, and
it became a great box. But they sat there thoughtfully, looking rather morose,
for they were envious. He shook the box and set it down, and it became a small
basket. Then he blew on the edge of the piece of board, and it grew upward into
a very long plank. He shook it, and it became a small piece. He shook the
rattle, and it split into two pieces, which he continued to shake until each
piece took the form of a raven. He put their beaks together and tossed them
away, and they fought together on the ground. He pulled them apart and threw
them into the air, and they flew over the village, returned and perched before
him, and under his touch became once more a rattle.
The brothers had watched Nahlnagyilis without a word, speechless with jealous anger.
Now one of them spoke: "Yo! My brothers, what do you think of this? Do you not
think it is too much for one man to carry? Should one man have the power to
bring life and death? We had better kill him before he kills us!" So they leaped
upon him and killed him, and started home. But Nahanagyilis stood up and
called: "Wait, brothers, do not go yet! I have not finished!" Then they
returned and killed him again, cutting him limb from limb and scattering the
pieces. Such was the end of Nahianagyilis.
" Magician Who Was Killed by his Brothers"
Nahanagyilis said to his slave one day: "Slave, get into my canoe, for we will go to spear
hair-seals." So the slave pushed off the canoe, and they left the village
Hwutis. Passing an island, they saw something that seemed to be like fire
ploughing its way down the mountainside, carrying trees and boulders before it,
and eating its way through the solid rock. The whole mass plunged into the water
with a tremendous hissing.
Then said Nahanagyilis, "Slave, that is what I have been looking for!" He drew his
knife and began to cut his tongue and spit blood on the water. To the slave he
said, "Paddle, for we must catch up with it!" So the slave paddled vigorously
after the thing, which was moving through the water across the channel. At the
tail of the creature the water was boiling.
Gradually the canoe came up behind it, and then went ahead, and Nalanagyilis landed at the
place for which the sisiutl was headed. Hespit four curving parallel lines of blood about the place
where it would land,both ends of the lines touching the water's edge. The sisiutl swiftly rushed
out upon the shore and dashed against the four barriers, but though it broke
through three of them it was stopped by the fourth, and there it lay trembling on the rock.
Nahlnagyilis stood and thought, "What shall I do?" He knew that he dare not turn his eyes
away, for if one sees a sisiutl and turns away, the power of the sisiutl will
cause him to remain fixed in that position. When the sisiutl found it impossible
to cross the fourth line of blood, it turned itself into a paint-bag, but could
do no better. Then it became a great canoe, but still it could not pass.
Nahanagyilis stood there and stared. And now the sisiutl
assumed the real form of sisiutl with two snake heads at the ends and a man's
face in the middle. And this man's face was that of the father of
Nahanagyilis. As soon as he saw his dead father's face, it came to his mind
what he should do. "Oh," he said, "this is like the song my father used to
sing!" He put his hand behind him four times, and the fourth time a club was
placed in it.
In the distance a voice cried: "Wa! Strike it once!" Four times the voice was
heard, and the fourth time Nahianagyilis made a motion as if striking his
father's head. Three times he did this, and then he really struck it, and the
sisiutl fell into a mass of hwela [quartz crystal]. With his eyes still fastened on the hiwela, he reached for a
flat stone, and with another he scraped some of the hiwela upon it. But
immediately with a loud report the stone was blown to pieces by the power of the sisiutl.
Then he remembered something his father had told him. Still looking intently at the
crystal, he made his way backward from the bushes, and feeling about he found a
salmonberry bush. He broke off four shoots and returned to the crystal,
where he put them into the ground at the four corners of the pile. He tore some
bark from his blanket, and tied the strips on the tips of the shoots. This
counteracted the power of the hwela, and he was free to look away. He now
obtained some bark from a cedar in the woods, wrapped a piece of the crystal in
it, and placed it in his bosom. The rest he wrapped in another piece of bark
and carried into the woods, where he tied it to the trunk of a strong spruce.
But he had not gone far toward the beach when the tree came crashing down.
Fearful that his treasure was lost, he went back, but found that though the
tree had broken off squarely at the level where he had hung the hwela, the
package still hung on the stump. Then he tied it to a hemlock, but this also
was broken off by the power of the hwela; and a fir was no better. But when he
hung it on a red cedar, the tree stood firm.
Nahanagyilis now returned to the canoe and found the dead body of his slave, fearfully
contorted. For a man who sees sisiutl without cutting his tongue and spitting
blood dies in convulsions. He drew the crystal from his bosom, held it near the
slave's left side, and moved it across the chest to the right side. After he had
done this four times, the man came to life. "Go home," said Nahanagyilis, "and
tell my brothers what I have found. In four days bring them." When the slave had
gone, Nahanagyilis felt drowsy and fell asleep.
Suddenly he awoke with a start, to find himself on the side of a steep mountain in a
little niche with the rock falling away below him in a perpendicular cliff,
while above him it sloped outward and projected over him. He looked about and
said to himself, "Now you have made a mess of it!" For he had taken too much of
the hwela, and the power of it had flown away with him. Again he became sleepy,
and again he awoke suddenly. He found himself carried across the channel to a
similar niche on a mountainside. "Oh," he said, "that is the way you are going
to be treated by your tlugwi!" Once more he fell asleep, and now he was carried
nearly to the top of another mountain, where he heard trees and rocks rolling
down above him. "This is the death of me!" he exclaimed. But he took out his
hwela and held it above him, and the rushing mass of trees, earth, and rocks
divided and went past him on each side.
Then Nahanagyilis came down the mountainside. When he was near the water he saw a
canoe containing three men with black painted foreheads. The one in the bow
carried a long spear. Nahanagyilis remained very quiet, and they paddled past.
Just then a great bird appeared from he knew not where. Its wing-feathers were
hwela, and so heavy that apparently it could not fly. Intending to catch it, he
ran toward it, but it rushed over the ground and kept just ahead of him. When he
was so close that he was about to grasp it, a rock wall opened and the bird
dashed into it with Nahanagyilis just behind it. Then the bird spoke: "Yo! Here
he comes!" Nahanagyilis saw the three men who had passed in the canoe, cutting
up a seal. One of them said: "Let us talk about the thing for which we invited
our friend. We will give him our spear, our hair-seal spear. He will need four
canoes to carry what it will kill in a single day."
Now to himself NaManagyilis said, "But what is that compared with what I already
have?" Wutlakaahlit, one of the three, spoke: "Our friend says, 'What is that
compared with what I already have?"' Another said, "We will let him have my
canoe-building tools, so that he will put four canoes into the water daily."
Again Nahanagyilis thought, "What good is that compared with what I already
have?" And Wutlakaahlit read his thoughts as before. Now the man who had been
sitting in the bow of the canoe became angry and leaped to his feet. He went to
his box and took something out of it, and turning to Nahanagyilis said, "Open
your mouth!" Nahanagyilis obeyed, and the man rubbed his finger on the tongue of
Nalinagyilis, saying: "That is the life-bringer. Although a man is long dead,
your urine will now bring life to him. Go now from this place!" They were rather
angry at his persistence.
So Nahanagyilis went out from the rock and sat down. He found himself sleepy, and
when he awoke he was in the place where he had killed the sisiutl. This was on
the fourth day. Now Nahanagyilis saw a canoe approaching with many people, and
he was taken to the village and into a house. But he walked straight through the
house and back into the woods, and when the next morning the slave followed him,
Nahanagyilis said, "Go and bring my brothers, that I may tell them the news."
Very soon came the brothers, and Nahanagyilis directed them where to sit, and
said: "I thank you for coming to see me, my brothers. I am going to show you my
tlugwi. I will dance for you. I wish one of you would get a rattle and a piece
of board, and a wallet basket." When these things were provided, he blew into
the wallet, while the others in silence watched him closely. He put it down, and
it became a great box. But they sat there thoughtfully, looking rather morose,
for they were envious. He shook the box and set it down, and it became a small
basket. Then he blew on the edge of the piece of board, and it grew upward into
a very long plank. He shook it, and it became a small piece. He shook the
rattle, and it split into two pieces, which he continued to shake until each
piece took the form of a raven. He put their beaks together and tossed them
away, and they fought together on the ground. He pulled them apart and threw
them into the air, and they flew over the village, returned and perched before
him, and under his touch became once more a rattle.
The brothers had watched Nahlnagyilis without a word, speechless with jealous anger.
Now one of them spoke: "Yo! My brothers, what do you think of this? Do you not
think it is too much for one man to carry? Should one man have the power to
bring life and death? We had better kill him before he kills us!" So they leaped
upon him and killed him, and started home. But Nahanagyilis stood up and
called: "Wait, brothers, do not go yet! I have not finished!" Then they
returned and killed him again, cutting him limb from limb and scattering the
pieces. Such was the end of Nahianagyilis.
TSIMSHIAN CRYSTAL STORY
“There was a young prince at Metlakatla who… began to play at being a… medicine man ... He fell back as if… in a trance;
he spoke in a strange language, as if to some invisible person whom they could not see. After the second day the Prince ...
said to his companions, ‘I am now very different. In my visions I learned I would be a shaman [halaeit] and that I would be helped by
a supernatural crane. ...’ ... They saw a huge crane standing at the water’s edge. As they drew near, the crane
flew up and excreted something shiny. They went to the spot where the crane had stood. There they found a shiny
crystal. ‘This,’ said the Prince, picking up the crystal, ‘Was the crane I saw in my visions. The crane told me that it would give
me a crystal for an amulet’ ...
He saw a goose in the distance, he addressed [the
crystal] saying, ‘Go at once you supernatural being [naxnox]
and strike the goose down.’ The crystal darted
from his hand and struck down the goose in its flight...
Soon they saw... a chief… ‘Try your powers on
this man. Should he become ill, you can cure him’… The crystal flew from his
hand and struck the man’s foot.
The man fell and cried in agony…
The young man took his apron which he now had made of moose hide and frilled with
deer hoofs and puffin bills. He put on a crown of bear claws and his rattle shaped as a crane...
He concealed the crystal… he… held the crystal near the injured man’s foot… [saying] ‘cure
the injured foot, so the chief may get up… fully cured….
He would send his supernatural crystal out to cause an injury to
some distant person… different halaeits were called in but unable to find what
was the trouble… Then the young Prince was called in and he would cure the
injured person. ..
He took the crystal and rubbed the Princess’s injured leg ... . She was cured ... .
The young Prince now took the Princess as his wife ... now
there came… great famine… The Prince said… ‘we will go hunt seals’…The crystal
flew out of the Prince’s hand, and the seal lay on his back dead ... . Soon they
saw another sea and killed it in the same manner. This they did all day ... .
Next day they went out and, as they had done with the seals, they soon
filled the canoe with sea lions. ... At once the crystal flew out of the young
man’s hand and struck the whale and killed it. ... .
[The Prince cured the] chief of the Baegwes;
these were supernatural people, but they were very dangerous. They went about
influencing people, and they became crazy and then died. In order to overcome
their supernatural power, the young halaeit and his companions used to bathe
themselves every morning with urine ... . [The canoe provided by the chief of
the Baegwes to transport the Prince-halaeit and his companions on their
return-voyage] was a huge whale. [Having returned,] Things
seemed different, and while he had counted that they were away only six days,
they had been away six years. “
Marius Barbeau, “Medicine Men of the North Pacific Coast.” Dept. of Northern Affairs & Nat. Resources. (1973). pp. 67-74.
“There was a young prince at Metlakatla who… began to play at being a… medicine man ... He fell back as if… in a trance;
he spoke in a strange language, as if to some invisible person whom they could not see. After the second day the Prince ...
said to his companions, ‘I am now very different. In my visions I learned I would be a shaman [halaeit] and that I would be helped by
a supernatural crane. ...’ ... They saw a huge crane standing at the water’s edge. As they drew near, the crane
flew up and excreted something shiny. They went to the spot where the crane had stood. There they found a shiny
crystal. ‘This,’ said the Prince, picking up the crystal, ‘Was the crane I saw in my visions. The crane told me that it would give
me a crystal for an amulet’ ...
He saw a goose in the distance, he addressed [the
crystal] saying, ‘Go at once you supernatural being [naxnox]
and strike the goose down.’ The crystal darted
from his hand and struck down the goose in its flight...
Soon they saw... a chief… ‘Try your powers on
this man. Should he become ill, you can cure him’… The crystal flew from his
hand and struck the man’s foot.
The man fell and cried in agony…
The young man took his apron which he now had made of moose hide and frilled with
deer hoofs and puffin bills. He put on a crown of bear claws and his rattle shaped as a crane...
He concealed the crystal… he… held the crystal near the injured man’s foot… [saying] ‘cure
the injured foot, so the chief may get up… fully cured….
He would send his supernatural crystal out to cause an injury to
some distant person… different halaeits were called in but unable to find what
was the trouble… Then the young Prince was called in and he would cure the
injured person. ..
He took the crystal and rubbed the Princess’s injured leg ... . She was cured ... .
The young Prince now took the Princess as his wife ... now
there came… great famine… The Prince said… ‘we will go hunt seals’…The crystal
flew out of the Prince’s hand, and the seal lay on his back dead ... . Soon they
saw another sea and killed it in the same manner. This they did all day ... .
Next day they went out and, as they had done with the seals, they soon
filled the canoe with sea lions. ... At once the crystal flew out of the young
man’s hand and struck the whale and killed it. ... .
[The Prince cured the] chief of the Baegwes;
these were supernatural people, but they were very dangerous. They went about
influencing people, and they became crazy and then died. In order to overcome
their supernatural power, the young halaeit and his companions used to bathe
themselves every morning with urine ... . [The canoe provided by the chief of
the Baegwes to transport the Prince-halaeit and his companions on their
return-voyage] was a huge whale. [Having returned,] Things
seemed different, and while he had counted that they were away only six days,
they had been away six years. “
Marius Barbeau, “Medicine Men of the North Pacific Coast.” Dept. of Northern Affairs & Nat. Resources. (1973). pp. 67-74.