The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1888-02-04 00:00:00

81% ABll "POT-LATCHES."

The people in Victoria are apt to talk about the
Siwash very much as the people of the plains talk
about the Indians there, saying that they are a lazy
and dirty and vicious lot, poisoned by the vices and
diseases of the whites, and all the rest, but the
Victorians would be very proud of the Siwash could
they but compare them with the Indians of the
interior. The Siwash actually live in houses like
white men, wear the garb of white men and women,
work hard at numerous employments, such as salmon
fishing, salmon canning, smuggling Chinamen into
the United States, carrying passengers about in
their boats, and doing odd jobs as well as many
steady ones. Many of the Siwash are Christianised,
and support very creditable mission chapels, and,
finally, one of the prettiest and most ladylike of tin
passengers on the train that took me to Vancouvez
was a Siwash maiden. The most curious thing about
the Siwash, says the New York Sun, is their habit of
"pot-latching" their money away after it has taken
a lifetime of work and self-denial to get it, or after
it has been suddenly and luckily gotten at the end of
long-endured poverty, as happened not long ago when
one poor man sold a piece of land for a handsome
sum. The "pot-latch," as they call it, is a festival
celebrated when a man of the tribe has got a large
sum of money and wants to throw it all away. Five
thousand dollars is the usual figure which, once
attained in dollars, fits a man for inviting his friends
to a "pot-latch." Before doing so he builds a large
house, plainly, inthe form of a shed, stocks it well with
liquor, showy calico, and cloths and blankets, with
nice and useful little knick-knacks like pocket-
knives and pipes and ribbons, or whatever he knows
the Siwash are fond of. The day set having
arrived, all the Siwash for miles round come to the
big new house and eat, drink and divide the spoils,
When they have gone and the pot-latch is over,
which may not be until the close of the second day,
the man who gave the feast is almost as poor as the
day he was born. He has nothing except his roof
and the clothes on his back. Ah, but he is richer
than ever in another way. He is ennobled by his
own generosity, and takes a high rank above his
fellows. He is apt to work on just as he did before
the pot-latch, but he need not do so. He need not
do anything. His tribe :has become proud of him,
and will see that he never wants. The Tsimsheans:of
the more northerly coast, including that of Alaska,
and the once fierce Hydahs of the islands off the
soast, all celebrate the pot-latch, and at Tacoma, in
Washington territory, the Indians also indulge in the
custom, though many of them are Flatheads. In
Tacoma a very gifted and observant little lady of
New England descent, who has had much to do with
the Chinese as house servants and peddlars, says that
the language in which the best conversational pro-
gress can be made with a Chinaman is the "Chinook,"
or pigeon Indian, with which the traders talk to the
Indians. They understand the Indian words far better
than the English ones. To say the least, these are
very queer coincidences. Here we find the Indians
ne,arost to China look like Chinese, use the same
boats the Chinese use, and talk a language which the
Chinaman faintly understands.