Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-08-02
ESPECIAL TELEGRAM TO THE prsPArcH.i

ESPECIAL TELEGRAM TO THE DIsPArcH.i
OTTAWA, ONT, August IAN agent Of
the Dominion Government, who has been
exploring in the northern part of British
Columbia, reports the discovery of "a tribe Of
Indians who have for generations INDUCED in
cannibalism as one of their sacred ordi-
nances during what is known as their winter
dances. They are the Tsimpsheans or
Kwagutls, and believe that the Hamadtsi
is spirit living entirely upon human flesh
on the mountains.
Many years ago a number of the tribe
went into the mountains, and having en-
countered the mythical Hamadtsi, became
ghouls or Hamadtsis themselves Their
families alone possess the right of becoming
initiated by going away fasting in the woods
to meet the Hamadtsi. The sole purpose is
to show the tribe that they are different
from ordinary men, and do not care what
they eat or what they suffer.
A FORMER CUSTOM.
Formerly captive or a slave was killed
and presented to be initiated, and the older
Hamadtsis would eat the corpse in the pres
ence of a general assembly of the peo-
pie. More recently, although slavery is
not wholly extinct, the Indians have be-
come afraid to kill, so they are reduced to
the stealing of a corpse. This has usually
been drying a long time, and is described
as quite 'favorless, the brains being a lux
ury.
After eating, the Hamadtsis do not taste
food for some days, but drink warm water.
Up to the time of eating corpse in public,
the initiate, whenever he appears from the
ind afolx haipD
however, generally exempt. Formerly the
faces were bitten, noses and ears especially,
but now the initiate merely
LIFTS THE FLESH
of mans arm with his teeth, which is
sliced off with knife by a bystander, and
probably spat out in secret. The father of
the initiate pays everybody who has been
bitten from two to ten blankets. There are
few men in Kwagutl tribes unscarred by
this practice.
The Hamadtsi begin these ceremonies of
the winter dance while entirely nude, a
heavy plated rope of cedar bark, adorned
with tassels, being carried. however, on the
shoulder. Thereare from to 20 Hamadtsis
in every village, and one OF them will eat of
perhaps four or five corpses In lifetime.
One old gentleman was reputed to have
eaten 20.
At Mamatilli-Cullah a white man was
taken by his Indian woman to the winter
dance, and turned out of doors because, as
the woman told him,
A CORPSE WAS TO BE EATEN.
He saw a woman's body taken into the
house by three nude men, and went round
to the back, where, through hole, he saw
the Hamadtsis holding the body in their
arms and biting pieces out. By the long
black hair hanging from the head be sup
posed this was the body of woman.
A. Kanaka, a man of good repute, told
the narrator of this story that at the head of
Knight Inlet he was admitted to a winter
dance and saw Hamadtsis eat a corpse in the
presence of the tribe. His wife, the Chief
tess, member of the Hamadtsis family, after
describing the origin of the rite in her
family, said that on Knight Inlet at the
winter feasts she was invited to 8
feast of berries for women. They were
interrupted bv the Hamadtsis bringing
in a human corpse. They were six in num-
Der, and all nude, and her brother one of
them. Attendants cut off strips of flesh
from the corpse, which were devoured by
the Hamadtsis.