THE KEPEL FISH DAM T. T. WAaABY : T. T. WATERMAN and A. L. KROEBER- UNIVERSIB OE CIFORN PUBLICATIONS w . . . AMERICAN A-RCHAEOLJOGE AND ET:E[NOLOGY . . .. . . V, olume 35? No. 6, pp. 4940 * f : 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . > . , , ,. . . . . . . . , . . w , . . ... i . , . . . . .. . . . , . . . . , . g . , , , f \ . , , f : . . . . . E S . i . . .. .. 1 , . . , . . . . . ? : . . r ? \ ? - r . . . . . . . , . : . _ UNIVERSITY OE CALIPORNLs PRBSS . , . BERKELEY, CALIPORNIA \ , ! 1 9 3 8 - : . , . THE KEPEL FISH DAM BY T. T. WATERMAN AND A. L. KROEBER UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PUBLICATIONS IN AMERICA.N ARCHAEOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY EDITORS: A. L. 1KOEBER, R. H. LowI, R. L. OLSON Volume 35, No. 6, pp. 49-80 Transmitted December 12, 1936 Issued March 1, 1938 Price, 25 cents UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS BERR TLEY, CALIFORNIA CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON, ENGLAND [The University of California publications dealing with anthropological subjects are now issued in two series. The series in American Archaeology and Ethnology, which was established in 1903, continues unchanged in format, but is restricted to papers in which the interpretative element outweighs the factual or which otherwise are of general interest. The new series, known as Anthropological Records, is issued in photolithography in a larger size. It consists of monographs which are documentary, of record nature, or chiefly concerned with the presenta- tion of new data.] PRINTED IN TEE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CONTENTS PAGE Introductory ......................... 49 I. The fish dam ...................................... 49 The choice of the site .......... ............... 50 The dam chief ................................. 51 Preliminary ceremonies ........................ 52 Rules and taboos .............................. 56 Mechanical processes of the construction ....... 57 Final ceremonies .............................. 60 II. Account of informant A ............................. 62 III. Account of informant B ............................. 68 Episodes from a myth ......................... 74 IV. The fish-dam formula ............................... 75 V. Analysis and comparison ............................. 78 THE KEPEL FISH DAM BY T. T. WATERMAN AND A. L. KROEBER INTRODUCTORY THIS ACCOUNT deals with one of the greater rituals of native northwest Cali- fornia; perhaps the greatest. At any rate it was the most elaborate, possessed many peculiar local features, and was most definitely linked, by the white man's standard, with a specific purpose practically achieved: the taking of salmon by means of a weir. Section I, by Waterman, is a synthetic narrative of the entire procedure. The remaining sections, by Kroeber, consist of two verbatim accounts by par- ticipants (II, III); a fragment of the esoteric formula recited as a founda- tion for the whole ritual (IV); and an analytic comparison (V). Throughout, this paper is to be read in connection with the appropriate passages of Waterman's Yurok Geography,1 especially Rectangle E, pages 246-253, maps 18-20, and plate 6. I. THE FISH DAM Yurok informants continually make reference to a structure of former days which they call the "fish dam." This structure, which was really a weir, was in the old days made every year. In the early part of each summer, people from some distance up and down the river gathered at one point. Many of them camped at the town of Ke'pel and the remainder at the near-by town of Sa"a. Here they built a barrier of poles, logs, and small stakes entirely across the river. The erection of the structure demanded the concerted efforts of a large force of men, and its cost in labor was heavy; and, because of the rapidity of the current, it required some engineering skill. The purpose of the weir was to impound the salmon which came up the stream in the annual "run." It consisted of a tight fence of poles and stakes driven into the bed of the stream, strengthened and shored up with structural devices against the force of the current, and so carefully fabricated that salmon could not get through it. At regular intervals along the course of this weir openings were left leading into small inclosures, which the Indians speak of as traps, corrals, or pens. The salmon in their efforts to get upstream crowded along the lower side of the dam and entered these openings in very large numbers. Here they were imprisoned and removed with hand nets. The mechanism of the structure was 1UC-PAAE, 16:177-314, 1920. Under Rectangle E, the following items contain infor- mation on the dam activities: 7, 9, 16, 35, 39, 40, 46, 47, 49, 50, 53, 54, 55, 58, 66, 87; also B, 52, and G, 26, 29, 30. [49] 50 University of California Pusblications in Am. Arch. and Ethn. not particularly ingenious. The idea involved, however, a certain amount of enterprise and correlation of effort, and the actual construction required a high degree of dexterity in handling primitive materials. The Yurok themselves seem to have been much impressed with their success. At any rate, they hedged the construction about with almost endless religious performances and practiced in connection with the dam a great many cere- monial restrictions. Economically it was a great aid to the Indians, owing largely to the extraordinary numbers of fish which came up the river at the time of the annual run. Almost incredible numbers of salmon crowd into the river to spawn, fighting their way upstream with amazing persistence, clear to the headwaters. In their effort to get upsteam the salmon filled the Indian pens as fast as the fishermen could empty them. The fish were split and dried, and very large quantities were in this way preserved. Two things about the dam have always impressed me as almost equally sur- prising. The first is the courage originally required to initiate such an enter- prise; the second is the temporary character of the structure. Ten days were required to build it, and after being used for ten days more it was deliber- ately torn down. The reason for this I have never exactly understood. The Yurok had such primitive ideas of structural engineering, and the current of Klamath river increases so greatly in volume in the rainy season, that they could never have succeeded in harnessing the stream permanently. The salmon run, however, extends over a number of weeks, and the dam would certainly have stood for two or three times the length of the period for which it was actually utilized. The actual reason for tearing it down may have been a human one; namely, that otherwise the tribes from upriver would have come down en masse to destroy it themselves. It will be understood that the struc- ture absolutely checked the run of salmon. Only those got by which managed to squeeze through accidental holes. The dam reached entirely across the river, from bank to bank, and the openings in it gave access merely to pens from which the fish were taken. All the tribes upriver from the Yurok depended largely for their year's food on the salmon, and they too had their fish dams. There was even an additional dam in Yurok territory, built at a place called Lo'olego or Heyomui, above the confluence of the Trinity. As to why the period of use was ten days instead of nine or thirteen or some other number, I can say nothing definite. Possibly ten days were required for the construction, with all the men working who could find place on the structure, and the Yurok may have felt that there was something inherently appropriate in using the finished dam for the same period. Whether there was any special significance in the number ten in this undertaking I do not know, but five and ten are the usual ritualistic numbers of the Yurok. THE CHOICE OF THE SITE In giving an account of the weir, the Yurok say that it dates back to mythical times, to a period when the myth people, or "immortals" (wo'ge, as the Yurok call them), were fishing and hunting and celebrating festivals along the Klam- Waterman and Eroeber: The Kepel Fish Dam ath. They relate that these early people tried to erect weirs at various places, but things were not "right" until they came to Kepel. This "trial-and-error" method of deciding things is typical of Yurok thought as expressed in myths. The place which was finally found to be "right" is a wide and shallow one in the river just above a sharp bend. It seems possible that the selection of this was really a practical matter. In the first place, the river here is, or was, rather broad and shallow, with a gravel bottom which permitted the easy driving of stakes.2 In recent years the current has cut a deep channel near the north shore, and the Indians say it would be much more difficult to build the dam now. Upstream from Kepel the river is, generally speaking, narrow and deep, even close along the shore. There are numerous pools and eddies, often deep and overshadowed with rocks, where the salmon congregate and are readily taken with a dip net. A boulder with a deep pool beside it, together with a staging of poles from which the net is handled, constitutes a regularly recog- nized "fishing place." Such places are much more numerous upstream than down. Where the river bed is broken up with boulders and rapids, fishing places occur every few yards; where it is broad, however, and shallow at the edges, the salmon swim up the middle, so that some device must there be contrived for reaching them. The dam was built in a locality where fishing places were few and "not much good." I imagine, therefore, that the dam originated as a rather definitely localized enterprise. As a matter of fact, it remained to the end an institution in which the three adjacent villages took the leading role. The human aspects of the enterprise are the most interesting; that is, the organization of resources and effort which made the building of such a work possible. Along with this organization go various religious observances. It seems to be significant that a religious feeling existed which gave the work a most effective sanction and made the undertaking an unvarying success. It is not possible, in describing the dam, to separate the religious aspects of the enterprise from the practical ones. I will try therefore to give an account of the various steps in its construction, the religious alternating with the prac- tical, as they were given to me by Indian informants. THE DAM CHIEF The master mechanic and general superintendent of the fish-dam enterprise was a "shaman" or "priest." Like all Yurok religious functionaries, he ob- tained his office (or, to put it more accurately, he exercised his function) be- cause he possessed the necessary "medicine." The "medicine" is a mythical tale which recounts in elaborate detail how the first dam was built by the woge or "immortals." I do not possess the myth of the dam. The actual history of the dam opens with the story of an old man at Sa'a, who possessed this "medicine." His house stood in that town, and he "be- longed" there. Concerning the times before the day of this old man, nothing is known. The son of this individual was ultimately "half-married," as the 'Kroeber measured the depth as 6 to 7 feet in July, 1933. 51 52 University of California Publicationm in Ain. Arch. and Ethn. Indians say, to a woman in the village of Meta; that is, not having enough money to buy his woman, the normal marriage, he joined her and went to live in her village. During the period which my informants recalled, this son came from Meta every year to take charge of the construction of the dam. His son in turn was "half-married" into the village of-Nohtskum. The second man in the list, living at Meta, was "boss" of the last building of the dam. His son has inherited the medicine, but has never built the dam. The office has there- fore been in this family for three generations, and possibly has been so for a much longer period. The master mechanic was known by a special name, wi-lo- hego, "that-one-dam-he-makes" (cf. logen, dam), usually shortened into "lo." He was also called wokowis-hego, stake-maker. This man had an assistant or understudy every year, who for a time was a fellow from a certain house in Mulrek. PRELIMINARY CEREMONIES The first salmon in the river each year are taboo. Eating them was believed to be followed by convulsions and death. This taboo was removed by a special ceremony celebrated at the mouth of the river under the leadership of a "shaman" living at WeLkwiiw. At the proper time, after this taboo-removing ceremony was safely over, lo set forth from his home to initiate the under- taking at Sa'a. His first ceremonial act is to stop for lunch at a place called We1qem. This is an old dwelling site, as shown by the numerous pits which are to be seen there. The present-day Indians can give no account of these pits except to refer them to the distant past. The belief has developed that if anyone other than lo eats there, it will bring on a rainstorm. Arriving in his canoe at the village of Miurek, our shaman collects certain perquisites. For example, from the house hinkelo'b he receives acorns and salmon. At riiak he selects a deerskin blanket. He wears no other garment than this throughout the building of the dam. In his ancestral town of Sa'a also he levied contributions. I have record of the fact that from the house pleL he received among other things a "present" of food. Doubtless he collected a good deal of property in this way, for every religious functionary, even those engaged in a public enterprise like this one, worked only for a consideration. In this, his ancestral town, the dam chief takes up his abode in a temporary shelter erected on the site of the old house which belonged to his family there. The pit is still called lo-o-kepeL, "lo his house-pit." From this point messengers are dispatched and word sent up and down the river that, in a certain specified number of days, work on the dam is to begin. The intervening days are care- fully counted and, on the morning set, everyone connected with the enter- prise starts working at the same time. Our hero next sets about "making his medicine." In the shelter where he sleeps is a small hole in the wall called for ceremonial purposes a "door," which he keeps stopped with a plug. After all preparations are completed he takes out this stopper. When the wind blows in at that "door" he begins the medi- cine. According to the Indians the wind says to him, "When I blow in there, Waterman and Kroeber: The Kepel Fish Dam I am calling you." When a wind springs up from down-river, people say to each other, "That is lo's work"; because lo always gets ready and waits for the west or down-river wind to blow. Like most Yurok ceremonies, the present observances are begun in a sweat house. Here a small fire is built. Across from the village of Muirek, above the creek rkyer wroi, stands a single tan oak. Leaves and twigs are taken from this tree and placed on top of the sweat house. Four flat crescent-shaped rocks are next brought out and placed on top of the leaves. These rocks were used as pounders (weseyu) in driving two special stakes which stand one at each flank of the dam. Flat stones were the only pounders known, and ordinarily were picked up along the river to be thrown aside later. The four special pounders were said to have been first used by the woge, or "immortals," and were pre- served from year to year, being buried by the shaman. It is said that if they were thrown aside when the dam was finished they would go of their own accord to their hiding place. The last man to superintend the dam had the stones in his possession but did not produce them for actual use. They have never been seen since they were last used. The dam chief now mounts on the roof of his sweat house to give everybody warning that the "medicine" is to begin. Standing on the four stones, he shouts a number of times as loudly as he can. All the people in the villages go inside their houses-"hiding," as the Indians say. It is required that every house have a brightly burning fire in it while the medicine is being made. The underlying idea seems to be that the medicine is powerful enough to harm them unless they take shelter. When everybody is safely inside, the shaman goes along all the trails, "talking his medicine." I presume he imitates in this way the search of the original individual for the necessary secrets. After this point in the ceremonies lo keeps himself concealed from the sight of the people. Making the medicine occupies somewhat more than a day. After it is made, the dam chief waits until the established time arrives, and then sets forth up the river to initiate the next step in the dam construction, the cutting of young firs for stakes. A number of ceremonial features attend this trip. One man alone is not permitted to perform the journey; two are required. On the morning of the day appointed, the dam chief instructs his helper to gather the leaves of a certain plant called iimiisiiq. He puts them in his canoe, preparatory to going upstream. When the boat is reported ready, lo advances from the sweat house to the riverbank. He is forbidden under any circumstances to leave by the front door of the sweat house: he must crawl out by the "back door." Even his helper must not look at him now. In order to give warning of his coming, the dam chief sits on the ground just behind the bluff and drums with his feet. That spot is called lo-o-tsiego, "lo where he-always-sits." When lo enters the boat, his partner paddles him upriver to a point two hundred yards above Kepel to a rock called t'ulek. Here lo jumps ashore, and then jumps right back again into the canoe. Then he is taken directly across the river, where he lands and walks backward a few steps downstream to a rock called merkwi. He 53 54 University of California Publications in Am. Arch. and Ethn. passes around behind this rock and jumps into his boat again. These actions mark the exact site of the dam and are believed to have the effect of tying the dam to the two rocks mentioned. The shaman is now paddled two or three miles upriver to a place called himyegoL, to begin the cutting of stakes. As he goes upstream, he rides with a hand on each gunwale of the canoe. Ordinary persons should never do this. "Leave it for lo," the Indians say. The perform- ance suggests imitative magic, to cause the dam to hold on to both sides of the river and not be washed away. As lo makes this journey in his canoe, his wife follows afoot along the south bank of the river. Their camp is made in one of two places both of which are known as himyegoL, one of them above Waase, the other opposite Merip. The three stay there that night. They are said to use the two camp sites alternately, year after year. The woman goes along to cook lo's meals. This day is the last of the preliminary days. The next day marks the beginning of the actual labor. Daybreak the next morning sees several hundred people in a number of villages ready to begin work. It will be remembered that the time has been specified by lo in advance. The word has been sent up and down the river that in three days, or in four days, the work is to begin. Careful tally is kept. When the given day dawns, in every village parties of stake cutters are ready to go into the hills. Downstream as far as Rnr (Blue creek), and upstream as far as and including Wasek, each village has a party of workers. Stakes are actually cut for the Kepel dam along Atsepor (Bluff creek), the extreme limit of Yurok territory, but the work is done by Wasek (Martin's Ferry) people, who go there because the growth of firs is very fine. The people from Weitch- pec and other towns upriver do not help, because they have their own dam at Heyomu later in the season. All stake cutters are under ceremonial restrictions. For example, they sleep in the sweat house the night before. Moreover, all workers on every part of the enterprise go without breakfast and do the work fasting. The cutting of the stakes had to be done with sharp stones, mauls, and elkhorn wedges, even on the occasion when the dam was last built, although by that time the people had plenty of axes. The Indians tell with pride how, at dawn of this day, from every village parties of stake cutters filed into the hills, and how at one and the same instant, all up and down the river, far and wide from all the hills, came the sound of chopping. The Indians say that in the old days it was neces- sary to go to the hilltops to find firs; now, they say, the firs grow along the river. My experience is that Indians usually criticize very severely the policies of the U. S. Forest Service, insisting that they themselves have a better under- standing of the economics of forest regions than the white experts have. Pos- sibly there have been changes in forestation which actually account for the difference here mentioned. The firs cut upstream are tied in bundles or "rolls," put into the river, and floated down the current. All the materials cut below Kepel were brought upstream to the site of the dam in canoes. The dam chief, like the other workers on the dam, leaves his camping place on this morning and goes fasting to the top of the hill, accompanied by his Waterman and Kroeber: The Kepel Fish Dam5 helper. His duty is to cut three special stakes, one for each flank of the dam, and another one, the most important of all, for the center of it. When lo finds the trees he wants, he directs his helper to stop and kindle a fire. Then, while his helper dances and sings, he takes hold of the tree, to which he makes a series of remarks. "I want good luck," he -says. "I want everybody to be healthy. I do not want any sickness." Once in a while he shakes the tree to keep its attention. When the young tree has been felled with sharp stones, he directs the assistant to dance again while he says to the fir: "ki pemoiyoksik im womiLis purqwr (will greasy-be who acorns eat) ." This is a prayer that the birds who eat acorns will be so greasy "that they cannot eat." The gist of the formula is to cause a large supply of acorns to exist for people. The young fir is next trimmed into a stake. It is called wetspega'r, "that-one-who-has- ears," referring to the fact, I presume, that it "listens" to the shaman's request. A young tan oak is next selected and cut, and finally another fir. These last two are called weno"o, "its sides or flanks," referring to the dam. Wetspegar goes in the middle, the two weno'o at the wings of the dam. As the two men return to the riverbank, all the people in the village of Waase stay inside the houses, afraid. The assistant takes the weno'o stakes to the water and imitates the motions of putting them in, drawing back, however, without planting them. This he repeats a number of times. All the workers do the same with their stakes. The dam chief takes wetspegar into the boat and, towing the other two behind, returns to the site of the dam. By this time other parties of stake cutters are returning to the river with stakes. These stakes are cut in lengths of about ten feet, tied with withes, and launched in the current. Going back down the river, lo's woman rides in the boat, but is landed at qrmruk on account of the taboo at that point. The weno'o stakes they land at the north end of the dam, at the rock merkwi. The construction, by the way, invariably starts out from this shore, whether for purely ceremonial or partly for practical reasons I cannot say. "Ears" is taken out in the middle of the river, where the depth of the water is next measured. Around this stake they tie a string to mark the depth of the stream. I presume it is necessary to know this depth in cutting the various poles which go into the weir. For the next four days lo and his assistant remain in the sweat house. They never come out or walk about. Meanwhile a constant stream of materials from upriver and downriver is being sent to the site. On the fifth day people begin to assemble. Parties coming from downriver camp at WeIqem, from upriver at the place called HimyegoL above Waase, where lo camped to cut his stakes. The dam chief now moves out of his sweat house and takes a position on the north shore of the river where he can overlook operations. Here a pile of sand is made, capped with a flat stone. On this lo sits. He does no work, but sits there, with a deerskin blanket over his shoulder, keeping an eye on everything. By the time the sun is up next morning a large number of workmen are present. My informants can recall as many as seventy men actually working on the dam, besides those who were cutting stakes up and down the river, carrying messages, and doing other things. The north wing was the hardest 55 56 Untiversity of California Publications in Am. Arch. and Ethn. to build, because the water was the deepest there; however, larger numbers of the fish were taken at this end. AlI the workers stand by while the following ceremony is performed. The stake named wetspegar has been lying on the shore at merkwi. Some fellow who has never worked on the dam before- perhaps a boy-is now selected to carry it to the water's edge. It is fix"ed up like a woman's pack basket, with a rope to go across the forehead. The neo- phyte takes it on his back and, bending over, carries it to where lo is seated. "That is the time," say the Indians, "that everybody begins to yell." Some shout "Lower! Lower !" and the fellow has to get right down and almost walk on his knees. In that way he brings it to the head man and lays it down. Lo takes it, stands it on end, and talks to it, shaking it at intervals as one shakes a man when he wishes to rouse him. He tells the stake he wants good luck and plenty of salmon. Then he splits it. Then with a shout everybody begins to split stakes, and the work on the weir begins with a rush. RULES AND TABOOS A number of restrictions were formerly observed in connection with the con- struction of the dam. Lo himself ate only one meal a day, after sundown. That is one reason why people worked so fast in building the dam-"they were sorry for lo." Moreover, lo was allowed to look at no woman. If any female person approached, he covered his head. In his house, people piled up burden baskets between lo and the fire so that he could not see the flames. As to the other workers, it was a rule that no one could eat at the site of the dam. The people from down the river, who were camped at We0qem, often ate on the sand bar at Wa'a. People bathed every morning, going without breakfast. At noon they ate, and went to work on the dam. Actual construction work was carried on only in the afternoon; the mornings they spent in assembling ma- terial. It was a rule also that everyone must eat at once. If anyone were late for a meal, he went without. Sometimes parties of belated stake cutters, com- ing down from the hills, would find on arriving at the river that the noon meal was being served in all the villages and everybody was eating. Such a party would occasionally, for a joke, go to some place where they knew they would be heard, and begin to sing and dance. When men at table heard singing, they would drop all food at once and go to the dam and go to work. "Only mean fellows did this," the Indians say. Others would go hungry, and let the people eat. It was considered a matter of the utmost importance that exactly ten days should be occupied in building the dam. "Not nine," the Indians say, "nor eleven; but exactly ten." Moreover, only the material for one day's work could be brought to the site of the weir. It was a very important part of lo's office to keep track of the progress of the work, and to send orders out for the proper supplies of material. Every day he told the people on each side of the river how many bundles of stakes they were to bring. No matter how many stakes people had on hand, only that number was brought. On the fifth day of the construction, men from the distant villages came in person to see Waterman and Kroeber: The Kepel Fish Dam how the work was progressing and to report on the number of stakes they had ready to deliver. Lo would tell them how many additional bundles to provide. The fish dam was pushed out from either shore to meet in the middle of the river, but the first work was invariably done on the north bank. Travelers up and down the river were required to travel along the opposite, the south bank. Moreover, they were required to shade their eyes with their hands so as not to see the partly finished structure. Looking at it would "spoil" it. MECHANICAL PROCESSES OF THE CONSTRUCTION The tools for building the weir consisted of elkhorn wedges with which tim- bers were cut and trimmed, mauls, and plenty of "pounders" or stake drivers (wese'y-). These last were merly flat stones which every man picked up for himself to use for driving the stakes. The young firs were split into several sections from the size of a man's thumb to the size of his ankle. A falsework was first thrown across the river, resting on tripods of poles. From this false- work or staging, the permanent stakes were driven. The men working on the weir were assisted by a number of boys, whose work was principally to hold the stakes while the men pounded them home. Sometimes one of the split stakes was found to be too small to use. In that event it was broken in two and the ends thrown in a certain place. These stake ends (we-ri'p) were carefully preserved until the dam was finished, for they had been "talked to" and were "medicine." As the dam approached completion, these ends were ferried over the river and were burned. The materials for "finishing off" the dam were held in the smoke, and the charcoal was used for face paint. The various parts of the weir were made fast to each other with hazel withes. In spite of the rudeness of the materials, the finished weir was a surprisingly firm and tidy structure. The falsework for the dam was pushed out from both shores, though the people on the north bank began first. The two wings, one from each shore, ran diagonally upstream to meet at an angle, with the apex against the current. First of all, workmen waded into the stream and drove two solid stakes into the river bed. These stakes crossed a foot or two above the surface of the river, and were firmly lashed with withes at the point where they intersected. On this support a pole was laid, extending out over the stream. A mechanic next pushed his way out on this pole as far as he could from shore, and drove new supports. Usually three poles were driven in, to form a tripod, which was firmly lashed as before. A second pole laid across these two supports, and lashed down, enabled a workman to drive a third set; and so the falsework was pushed forward. When the two wings met in the middle of the river, everybody shouted, "We are so glad." In the meantime, other workmen had already begun the driving in of the innumerable stakes (ro'gon) which formed the permanent weir. These were driven so that they were only a few inches apart, in order to form a barrier through which the salmon could not pass. The sacred pounders mentioned above were used, by the four stoutest men 57 58 University of California Publiications in Ain. Arch. andu Ethn. in the tribe, for driving in the two "flankers" (we-no"o), one at the end of each wing of the dam. Every few yards a substantial pile was driven on the downstream side of the dam, to give it solidity. Each pile was prepared on shore, being sharpened at the lower end. About three feet from the top it was tightly served with withes. This fulfilled the double purpose of preventing the pile from splitting when it was driven in, and of providing a foothold for the carpenter who did the pile driving. The detail of the process was this: The piles were taken out on the falsework, "aimed" at the river bottom, and jammed down with all possible force. While several men held one vertically as best they could, a volunteer climbed to the top, carrying a pounding stone. Clinging there on the swaying pile, his feet resting on the lashing of withes, he pounded away with the stone, "riding" the pile as it was driven in. When out of breath, he was relieved by someone else. In this way the heavy uprights were driven firmly into the river bed. There were ten of them in all, and they were called petsik-lmii'w, "upstream he stands." As soon as an upright was in place, a diagonal brace was driven in on its downstream side, with the purpose of shoring it up against the force of the current. These latter were driven, slant- ing downastream, until their tops engaged the uprights, where they were made fast with withes. The braces were called pu'lekilmiiw, "downstream he stands." After the braces were all in place, heavy stringers were floated up to the dam from below. These stringers were rolled up the "braces," lifted over the tops of the "uprights," lowered onto the dam, and bound firmly in place. As each of them fell into place, all the people gave a shout. These stringers, ople'piL (meaning, I think, "big ones"), had the double purpose of making a footway along which the people could pass, and of weighting down the dam structure. Any spots in the weir which were found to be weak were closed up with rein- forcing stakes (wi'egwoya'). The water level rose somewhat behind the struc- ture, and the pressure was rather serious. There were ten "gates" in the dam; that is, there were ten openings, each leading into a trap, tse'ktsin (a "corral," as the Indians call it). As a matter of fact the whole purpose of the dam was to prevent the salmon from going upriver, and to force them to enter these traps. The trap consisted merely of a pen, very carefully made, which stood on the upstream side of the dam, and into which the fish entered through the "gates." They were made of special stakes called wo'osel. Each individual stake was split slightly, and angelica root (wo'oLpe') was inserted, "so the salmon would come in." A pen or trap was built by a number of men who shared the catch from it. When the first stake of a "pen" was ready to be driven, the man held it poised ready to plant and repeated a "medicine." After the medicine formula was finished and he had plunged the stake into the water, a salmon invariably "jumped" some- where in the river near by. The width of the "doorway" or gate leading into the trap was measured by the distance from tip to tip of a man's elbows as he stood with his fists against his chest. This distance was marked on a paddle and the width of the door was Waterman and Kroeber: The Kepel Fish Dam5 made uniform by sliding the paddle up and down. The pen when completed (that is, when all the stakes were driven) was finished off by runing a stringer around the top. The opening was closed with a framework of stakes, hinged at the top. This door was manipulated by a fisherman on the dam. When salmon got into the trap, he lowered the door, which was weighted, and landed the catch with a small, specially made net. A point to be noticed is that a num- ber of men worked together in making each trap. The fish that got in the trap were the property of the group. All who had worked on the dam, including the stake cutters miles away, shared in the catch. There are said to be ten "traps" in the fish dam. Kroeber has supplied from his manuscript notes a list of nine proper names for them, as follows: merku (on the north shore) wo'oXp'to mo 'omeyets srepon mo'otsigwo trwryuwox tsalanew tuiloiyo (on the south shore, woxpi (in the middle of the water) next to the rock tfflek) Two kinds of material were necessary in adding the finishing touches and making the dam ready for service. One was a number of straight pepperwood (bay) logs, a pair of which, crossing each other in the middle, were placed across each trap to weight it down. Pepperwood was employed, I think, be- cause the logs were easily cut and trimmed, and underwent no strain. More- over, they grew close at hand. Another item was a quantity of redwood twigs (pe'iloL), which were packed around the bottoms of the traps; otherwise the current and the salmon would work holes. Redwood twigs were very feathery and made the structure quite close. Both of these were obtained on the ninth day. Apparently the dam was considered as practically finished, for on this day no fires were built in the sweat house. If the men who went after pepper- wood logs found any berries, they could eat only half of each berry. The redwood boughs were obtained in connection with a curious ceremony. A group consisting of all the down-river folk, that is, of all the people from villages below the weir, led by the people from Mu'rek, take a number of flat stones from the river and go to a specified place8 where "three" redwoods grew on the mountain side. The "three" redwoods, as a matter of fact, consist of six splendid trees. The Indians pretended that the flat stones were obsidian blades which were used for money. At the redwoods the party builds a fire. Next a man is chosen "to lose his wife." He sits down and begins to cry, ac- companied in chorus by the whole group. In the fashion of a regular mourn- ing party, they plaster his hair with mucus. Then they get ready to take the redwood boughs for which they came, but the mourner objects on the grounds that it interferes with his "sad" feelings. They proceed to offer compensation for the injury, tendering a payment of two "obsidians." He refuses, and they offer four. The mourner says he will agree if they will give him a woman plus two additional flints, plus a fishing place called oterai'u, together with a spring, tere'qsulr, which is to be found near it. The fishing place is a very good 8Waterman, Yurok Geogr., Rect E, 46, and pl. 6. 59 60 University of California Publications in Aim. Arch. and Ethn. one, and nowadays, when the fish dam is no longer used, it is considered the property of an Indian called Charley (A'mits), of Murek or Sa'a. I do not know how it came to be his. The spring is a very good one, with excellent cold water. It is called tereqsuir because it is small and shaped like a cooking basket. The bereaved man is finally offered all that he demands. The woman named in the bargain is invariably some well-known character; for example, some lazy woman, or a famous woman at Blue Creek who has no nose. When the bargain is struck, someone suggests that they have a Deerskin dance. The "ob- sidians" are left stacked up against the sacred redwoods in a neat pile. When I visited the spot, pigs had rooted among these stones and knocked them all down, but they were still lying there, scattered about. At one time hundreds of them might be seen leaning against the trees. The men of this party enjoy themselves in Indian fashion, having their Deerskin dance, though twigs and branches are substituted for the necessary ornaments. On the way down the hill they stop twice to dance again. The places where they stop are known as me'tsep-rgri'ts, "brush sweat house." Their "ornaments" of branches they leave in a pile at the mouth of the creek tepola'u. From this point the redwood branches for lining the pens are taken to the dam site in canoes. The upriver folk went to the top of the hill on the other side of tepolau creek for their brush and after a somewhat similar performance had an imi- tation or pretended Jumping dance. Another feature of the observances on this ninth day of the work was a canoe race. The winner was entitled to ferry across the river the broken ends of dam stakes (werii'p) mentioned above. These ends were burned, the logs and redwood branches being held in the smoke. With the resulting charcoal the people painted their faces on the tenth day. FINAL CEREMONIES Of purely ceremonial performances the following might be mentioned. Every night when work was over the people went home in boats. On this trip they danced in the canoes. One man stood in the bow holding an oar upright. An- other sat behind him and held the first one, so that he would not fall overboard. Other men in the boat, except the paddler, stood in a row, holding on "lock- step"-fashion, and danced. The songs they sang were called wi-lo'gonewoL, "the songs of the dam." They do not dance hard as they do on shore, but just so that the boat bounces in the water. A great many people throughout this period camp in and around Kepel and Sa'a, and there is a great deal of socia- bility and holiday making. On the tenth or last day a number of observances were held. Of these I will describe two. In the first performance a tall stick is set up near the south end of the weir. A party of women, numbering from three to six or eight, attired always in buckskin dresses after the aboriginal fashion, begin to dance in the town of Sa'a. One woman then runs down and begins to encircle the stick. Halfway round she stops. Here a place has been leveled where she puts down a blanket. She says nothing, but, as the Indians say, she looks at the men Waterman and Kroeber: The Kepel Fish Damr who are gathered on the opposite side of the river, and what she does is like telling them to come. Then she returns to the village. If no woman performs this action, the women living in the town of Sa'a have to throw away every- thing they have cooked, and the men have to stay where they are across the river. In other words, the restrictions which accompany the construction of the dam are thus ceremonially lifted by her action. It is essential that the woman pass around the stick in a contraclockwise direction. The story goes that once, in the days before there were Indians, a wo'ge, or "immortal," woman, who was engaged in this ceremony, ran down to the stick and went the wrong way around it. Running back up the hill, she got "lost" and sat down. She turned to rock; and can be seen there now, face and all, sitting with her head on one hand. The other performance, which I do not at all understand, involves the dam chief. This individual gets into a canoe, with two of the strongest men, and they paddle him down the river as fast as they can go. Suddenly one of them leans over and capsizes the boat, the three men swimming ashore. Everyone assembles at Sa'a, those who have worked on the dam carrying long poles deco- rated at the top. These are so long that when a breeze comes the men who carry them are almost blown over. The shaman crouches down with his back toward these men, who stand in a group. Someone starts a song, and these men join in, knocking their poles together and making such a noise that nothing else can be heard. Then suddenly they all drop their poles on the crouching shaman, almost crushing him with the weight. Two women stand by to ease the poles down on his back. Sometimes the weight makes him fall over. Then each man seizes his own stick as best he can in the rush and carries it off. It is considered absolutely essential that every man get his own pole. After these ceremonies are over, everybody eats supper. That night they have a Deerskin dance. This is a serious performance, not a pretended one, and the richest regalia are brought out for it. The next day they have a still more elaborate Deerskin ceremony. For the next four or five days everybody "lays over," as the Indians says, resting from their exertions and getting a supply of fish. Then there is a general movement down toward the town of Wo'htek below Pe'kwan, where there are performances of the Deerskin dance lasting for twelve or fourteen or even sixteen days, if the crowd is large. For these final ceremonies at Sa'a and Pekwan, people came from great dis- tances, Tolowa tribesmen from Crescent City, Karok from Orleans and above, Hupa from Trinity river, and Yurok from as far south as Trinidad. Of the performances originally accompanying the fish dam, only a very small part has been here described. 61 62 University of California Publications in Am. Arch. and Ethn. II. ACCOUNT OF INFORMANT A This document was dictated to me on July 1, 1902, in the little glade at the mouth of Kepel creek, across the Klamath from the remnants of the old town of Kepel and Sa'a, by Umits (=Amits ?), an old man of Sa'a, Weitchpec Frank translating for him. Umits had assisted the lo or head formulist and director of the ritual (whom the interpreter referred to as "medicine man") several times, according to my recollection, though his story mentions only one occa- sion. His account is given verbatim, except for smoothing of Frank's some- what jargonized English, and a few transpositions of groups of sentences in the interest of consecutive clarity. Long ago they were going to make the fish dam at Turep. Then they breakfasted before they went to work. They could not make it work right that way. Then they went downstream from Kepel here to get it, because they thought that better. So they brought it up and made it here, and it was right. Now when they work on the dam, they know when to eat: they do without breakfast. The medicine man stays in the sweat house at Sa'a. At the beginning of the dam making, he has to travel about all night; he knows how many places fo go to to speak his medicine. Then he puts tan-oak leaves on the sweat house, and certain stones on top of them. He stands on the sweat house and shouts five times downstream, and then five times upstream, then goes to the river's edge in front of Sa'a. I went with him, painted black with angelica-root coal. He sat down in a boat, wear- ing a deer-hide blanket, a buckskin belt, and around his forehead a piece of an old lamprey-eel net; and he carried an ego'or [folding case or Jumping-dance basket]. We went in the boat as far as the upstream end of the bar at the upper end of Kepel. There he told me to stop, and we got out. Then I could hardly hear his talk; it was low. That spot is where he still lives, the one who first brought the fish dam here. That is why the medicine man tells him before he makes the dam. He said to me: "Don't look at me where I stand, because it is bad to; I must recite medicine." His wife came to the boat some way upstream; she went along to cook. Then we got up to opposite Merip. He bored fire with the drill; he must not take fire from a house. He had a small, slender, old, wooden pipe inside his egoor, with tobacco mixed with angelica root. Before sleeping that night, he smoked, then blew out tobacco, saying: "I wish all the people to be healthy. I wish no sickness about, but everyone to be well." Ee did not sleep much that night, but threw angelica into the fire every so often, and smoked, and talked about good luck and no sickness. We ate supper there at Merits-hiko, but next morning went up the hill without break- fast. The medicine man had a net sack, with elkhorn wedges in it, and a sharp stone, also a white man's hatchet. High up the hill side, he began to talk to a young fir, shook it, talked to it again, shook it, because it was the one we were going to cut. I started a fire. At his orders, I struck the wedge with a stone to cut the bark, then used the sharp stone; but I could do little with it and took the steel hatchet. When the tree fell, the old man said, "Dance," and I sang [like shouting] and danced, flapping my arms. To peel the bark and sharpen the log, I used the hatchet; and then the stone, to make believe we used it, because formerly they had only stones. By now I could hardly talk, I was so hungry and thirsty: it was nearing noon. We went higher up the hill, and he found a tan oak. So he talked to it, had me make a fire, chop the tree, dance, trim it, as before. At his orders I measured off four fathoms, marked the place with the wedge and sharp stone, and cut the top off the tree. Then I cut a notch around it for hazel withes to drag it by [later]. He smoked again there because we had a fire, then started to elimb higher to cut a third. He saw another tree, a young fir, and again I made a fire, he talked to the tree, I Waterman and Kroeber: The Kepel Fish Dam notehed it around with the wedge, felled it with the hatchet, danced, trimmed it, measured off four fathoms, and tied on hazel withes. When we were ready to go back downhill, and I began to drag the log, the medicine man said, "Now shout," and I began to shout. Then we had to go where we had cut the others, for we had three. The first one was the smallest and is called "his ear," wetspega'. This one the medicine man took; I dragged the two large ones. Sometimes I could not pull them. Then the medicine man helped me once in a while, because I was so weak and hungry. By the time we were opposite Merip one could not hear me shout, and I did not try any more. We reached the river above our camp, and I swam the logs down to it, and put them into [ I sic] the boat. The woman came too, from the camp. Then we paddled downstream, back to the same place at Kepel, and let the woman out. Then we two men started to cross the river toward the rock at which the dam is made. Then he said to me, "Let the boat drift head upstream." So we drifted that way, and he took the wetspega stick, held it in the water, point down, and when we came to where he knew its place was, he talked to it, then pushed it down and let go of it. The stick came back to the surface. Then we finished crossing and laid the three stakes on the rock at which the dam would begin. Then we went back across, landing on the sand above the bar. The medicine man must use only one boat for all this. He calls to the old woman who lives in the earth, saying: "I want you to watch my boat. Whoever wants to take it, hold him down, so he will not live." He puts tan-oak brush into the boat at both ends [for protection against the sun] and sticks a paddle through the pine withe at the head of the boat into the sand [as an anchor]. Then we went downstream: it was nearly dark, and we had not eaten. But he said, "Now we have to swim before going up to the town." Then he took off his belt, and said, "Carry my belt, and the egoor too." When we started up to the town, I could not hear what he was saying, but he had told me not to look back, to keep going, but fast. As we went, I heard a little, from behind, of what he was muttering. He said to me, "When we reach the town, go right into my house; don't look back, and lay the belt where I will sit down." In the house ten carrying baskets were stacked up high for him to sit behind, sheltered from the fire; his wife had prepared them. On top of them lay an acorn-soup dipper. I had to go around the baskets and put down the belt where he would sit; I came back, and sat facing the other way: he did not want me to look. The old woman did the same. When he came in, he alone went behind the baskets, and I heard him shake up his blanket. After that we turned around. Two places in the house were made up with stones like boxes in the floor: whenever he had eaten, the old man washed his hands in one of those. And I used one too. Then we ate acorn soup. The old man could hardly talk; his throat was like dried up. When we got through, we washed our hands in those stone boxes and went out, I walking around as I had come in. We went to the sweat house, but the old woman had to sweep the house very clean. When we went to the sweat house, we must not go in by the door, but by the ventilator [emergence exit]. We took the egoor with us. It had both our pipes in it, also two little sticks, were'rkutsir, to pick up coals for lighting the tobacco. I used these too. After we smoked, we put angelica root in the fire. The old man talked: how it was going to be good, without sickness, and acorns and everything growing well. All called the medicine man lo, because he has to have a different name while he is doing that. I was called lo onl'geL, "with lo." We had two [wooden] sweat-house pillows, one each. About midnight we went out and he talked; then we went in again. I got up at daylight, to get sweat-house firewood. That day about noon we ate for the first time, in the house. The old man knew when to eat: he had laid some small stones on the ground outside the sweat house. When he saw the shadow come to the right place, it was time to eat. But we bathed first. 63 64 University of California Publications in Am. Arch. and Bthn. Then he went to the large rock in the sand, at the upstream end of the bar, and made a pile of sand next to the rock. After a while it was high; then he got up on top and sat down. I made a fire there. When the medicine man sits on the sand pile, he may not go to urinate; and no one may pass on the opposite side of the river. If one wants to go downstream he has to cross the river above, go by Kepel, then cross back below at Murek; and the same when traveling upstream. Women at Kepel do not look upstream at the river when he is there, nor will they come after water; only men carry it. I sat down near the medicine man on his sand. I had got some tan-oak bark, so we had a fire all the time, for him to light his pipe from whenever he wanted to smoke. We had to bathe before going up to the town. I carried his belt and egoor. He said to me again, "Don't look back." In the house, I had to walk around and put his egoor in his place, then go back to my own. Then he came in, went behind baskets, shook up his blanket, and we turned toward the fire. After eating, we washed our hands in the stone boxes again, and went into the sweat house the same way: I entered first, he left his egoor outside, then reached for it from inside. For ten days we did that way, every day and night. When it was ten days, they were going to begin work at the river [on the dam]. Then I ate only at noon, but the medicine man ate nothing. They began work on the dam where the medicine man sat on his sand heap. Sometimes there are two groups of men, one on each side of the river. Every place in the finished dam has a name. Each man calls a name and says, "I want to help work on that," or "I'll take this place." They do that on the first day, saying which place they will take, about fifty men; any man can choose any place. Each one has to prepare sticks. Sometimes they think they have not enough men, then send one down-river to get more help. So they come, each one bring- ing his own sticks, many small ones. If they do not have much time in the day, they send a messenger downstream at night. They also help from Wohsek and, Kenek: all prepare sticks. The small fir log which was the first we chopped upstream on the hill, the wetspega, is the one that has to go in first, and has to be put in by the medicine man. When all have prepared enough sticks, they send a man to the medicine man to say, "Well, begin that dam." Then the old man sent me to get the little fir which we had left on the rock previously. Sometimes a little boy helps on the dam; then the old men may tell him to take the wetspega to the medicine man. It has a loop tied at the end, and the boy takes it hanging on his back, with the loop over his forehead, crawling on his hands and knees. Sometimes he slips a foot, and falls over, as if it were too heavy. All the men on the north side of the river shout across to the boy [on the south side]: "Tell him [the medi- cine man] to retract his foreskin! Tell him that when you come close to him." After lo has put the wetspega into the water, all can work. It must be the first stick used. It stands at the farthest salmon door on the north side of the dam. Lo is the first to tie together the sticks with grapevine. There are four layers or places where the sticks are tied. They tie up four fathoms and an arm-length; then lo picks out men, so many to go at each end of the grapevine, and tells each side to pull. Then they pull [as in a tug-of-war]; sometimes they pull the other side downstream, or upstream; and the people across the river at Kepel all shout. They roll it up when it is fixed. When a stick projects, it is called kitkwerteryer; when a bundle rolls up crooked, with ends overlapping, it is called kitrekwom'eci. They always have six rolls for each salmon house, but some are shorter than four fathoms and an arm-length. They begin each salmon house by placing two posts upstream of the dam; from these, wings spread to the dam. Whenever the men working on the north side cross the river, the old men on the Kepel side pursue them, sometimes catch them, then retract their foreskins, saying it is not a penis, but a sucker. Sometimes they rub sand on, which dries, and when the man tries to draw the skin forward, he can't; but it is against the law for him to be angry. Watermn and Kroeber: The Kepel Fish Dam6 Sometimes they see something floating down-river, perhaps a dog [virulent poison] drowned somewhere, or a piece of driftwood. Whoever sees it first shouts, "It is going to your place, it's yours." Then the man called has to go catch it, treat it like a salmon, club it with a stick, put it on the land. Then we went to the rock where they started the dam. Lo hid himself under the rock, I sat near by; the rest came close. When the dam is finished, after ten days, anyone can go on the north side of the river; before that, only workers may. Lo, where he sat under the rock, had ten little flat stones, thin ones, right around him; he put a little native tobacco on each stone. I carried his egoor for him all the time. While he worked on the dam he ate only in the evening, I at noon and evening. When they have made the dam, right in the middle they leave it open for about three days. A person from Kepel once went to Ok6nile'l (Inam, where the Karok make New Year's the farthest upstream): that is why it is open for three days, to let the salmon pass through for him. Then he always becomes sad up there when he sees smoke rising at his old home, because those that stayed here said, "Whenever you see smoke at Kepel, then you can be sure we have got through building the dam." When they have finished building, they throw a little fire on the north side, and it runs 'way up the hill burning the brush. That is why that one is sorry [homesick] when he sees the smoke and knows they have finished. Then all went off again to get more sticks, those from below downstream, those from above upstream. The posts in the dam have names; so when they came back, they knew what post their sticks belonged to. While they were working on the dam, someone shouted from across the river, "Paddle, paddleI" A man with bark made to look like a woodpecker headband, painted red with alder, and with a stick knife, was sitting in the middle of a small boat, with two men paddling. He pulled out his chin whiskers. The two began to paddle as fast as they could. When they came to the proper place at the dam, the steering paddler would [pretend to] be angry at him because he pulled at his whiskers instead of paddling, and leaped on him. Then the front paddler helped. Soon they tipped over, and swam, one of them hanging on to the boat to land it. Then all [on shore] shouted, because lie had lost his valuable woodpecker band. Then they begin to drive in the petsiksume', the large posts (7 to 8 inches in diam- eter). All of these, perhaps forty, are put in in one day. The two posts which I had cut for lo on the hill, together formed the first pair of petsiksum8' at the north edge of the river; at other places there are perhaps three petsiksume' in a group. Next day the pulgksum8', the braces slanting downstream, are put in and tied on. Some of the workers push the ends of these down, so that they will give more support to the uprights. The uplepil, the rafters lying across the dam, are the biggest and longest. The first uplepil on the north side belongs to lo and is short; the next one has a salmon house [behind it], then every alternate one. They all work together on each rafter in turn. The dam is built from the north side across to the south. This is the time when they leave the middle of the dam open [for three days]. When they lay these on, they play the same way with the man in a boat with his bark headband. The wa'e'woyes are the small upright sticks. They are so called only when on land; in the water, in situ, they are werarhkwa'. This work, like that with the upl8pil, again takes one day. Next is one day to cut pepperwood sticks, ume'sa; another day is taken to tie these all on crosswise near the bottom of the river. The tops of the pepperwood trees are put against the dam. The only time the medicine man helps [in the actual work] is on the first salmon house. There I assisted him as he talked to the [wetspega] post, that there might be plenty of salmon. Each salmon house [pen] has two spreading posts [upstream of the dam], joined on 65 66 University of California Publications in Am. Arch. and Ethn. top; to drive them in, a stick [post] is laid across their tops, then hit with a stone. Long branches are then selected from the pepperwood tops, little fires made, the branches held over them, bent U-shaped, then put around the pair of posts to form the frame of the salmon house. While all this work is going on, anyone can call anyone across the river by some bodily defect, or a thief if he is so, and that man may not get angry. Then one man on each side says, "I'm going over to fight," pretending to be angry. They wear [imitation] wood- pecker bands of madrofia bark, clamp sticks under their arms to club each other, and hold sharp rocks in one hand. They each run into a boat: two or three men follow to stop them, but they say they won't stop, on both sides; they say, "I'll hit you if you try to stop me." Then each jumps into his boat, those trying to stop him pull the boat back hard, and the fighters tumble into the river; and everybody shouts. Then lo and some old men go out on the dam. He sinks himself to inspect the bottom. After he comes up he talks [secularly]; until then he never has spoken [except ritually] since the dam was begun. Now also women can look on the river again. The next day from that, they will finish the dam. That evening all begin to travel uphill to cut brush. They dance the Deerskin dance in boats, crossing the river from Kepel to the little fiat below the mouth of Kepel creek, on which they will camp. The downriver people similarly start from Murek-iko and dance across in boats to Murek, to start uphill. When they are at Kepel-iko fiat, they designate one who [is to pretend he] has lost his wife. He sits apart from the rest, who are congregating, and begins to cry. They say, "Let us pay him, so that we can dance." They send a man to him. The messenger takes mucus from his nose, rubs it on the mourner's hair, and says, "It is too bad you lost your wife." "Yes." Then he comes back. Another goes to him. Many go to talk to him. Sometimes one takes four [imitation] obsidians [of ordinary stone] to him. But the mourner says, "I won't accept them, I want a woman." The messenger agrees. There is an old woman at OYOL who has no nose; they say they will give her to him. He answers that he will accept her if they also give him the spring on Kepel bar [where all the women wash when the dam is over], because when the women wash there he wants to peep at them from behind. When they agree, he himself begins to dance because now he has a new wife and the spring too.-Then they go a distance up Kepel creek, make camp, and sleep there. In the morning, at daylight, they start uphill; one man climbs the young redwood trees [sic, probably firs], cuts off limbs; they do the same in the party going up from Murek. The cut-off branches are laid crosswise to form a circle. The cutting is done uphill and upstream from Kepel creek, the branches carried to the top of the ridge. There they can look across the river and see all the women coming [from the town] down to the dam, wearing [good] buckskin apron-dresses. The men all gather and start to dance. They come down, then begin to dance again, all with loads of branches on their backs.-They do the same on the other side o? Klepel creek, the Murek party.- Then all throw down their loads, which roll clear to the river. They pile them in boats, and get ready to take them to the dam. Boys have fixed themselves up with grass on the head, and begin to dance in a boat as they cross the river; they are all little boys. The men wear bunches of grass on their heads, tied on with strings of maple bark under the chin; and deerskin blankets. So they cross to the Kepel side and land. Then they go to the dam, jumping in the river, boys and men, and working with the branches they have brought from uphill, putting them in the water. This is the day they finish. Many help them. Many come downhill from Kepel town to see them, all painted black. In carrying the branches to the dam, they go in boats, daneing, and walk out on the dam, carrying more brush-the dam must be fixed firmly on the bottom, else holes will wash out. This is the time they throw into the water the four-fathom-wide gratings [they have made]. It is slow work to fasten them. Sometimes two or three men, holding Waterman and -Kroeber: The Kepel Fish Dam67 back the sticks if they do not go straight, will shout, "They [the sticks] have on a breechelout (kiLp8raks), therefore they won't go in straight" [probably a double en- tendre]. Then also they shout across the river to the Kepel side, "Don't work too fast"; because on the north side the water is deeper. From the north side, they watch a woman coming down on the Kepel side with a food basket with salmon and acorns in it. Lo is hidden under the same rock [as before]. The woman sets down her basket and runs back to Repel as fast as she can, and lo comes out. Then all cross the river to the Kepel side. Now all have prepared poles, painted with alder [bark] and dogwood berries; and with [fringed inner] maple bark, and rotten white wood with a hole in it, hung on the poles. Then lo went behind the rock standing at the upriver end of Repel bar; all the men stood downhill from him. He said to me, "When you hear the noise of my feet dancing, throw a stone at them." So I threw it. Then all jumped into the river; then came back on shore. Lo again danced, and again I threw a stone, and they all jumped into the river. When they came out, they stood in a row. They have got a boy to eat the [dried?] salmon that the woman brought down. Some- times he does not want to do it, and they offer him salmon which they will catch at the dam. Still he may refuse. Then they pay him so much, and he accepts. On the Kepel terrace is a eertain rock. As the crowd goes up to the town, they first carry their [decorated] poles on the right side; when they reach this rock, they change to the left side. Behind them come four men. The first is the boy who is to eat from the basket. Next is a man who carries the basket. I was third, carrying a broken paddle; lo was last. At the rock, all with poles stand to one side. Sometimes four women dance. The four men behind arrive, the carrier holding out his basket. The boy is as if fed, but the food is moved back from his mouth and he does not really eat. Then lo says, "Throw the basket in the air" and the holder throws it. Then all let fall their poles on these four men; but many women stand by [to receive part of the weight], because they do not want them to get hurt. This is at the women's dancing ground. Then all run to Repel and Sa'a, to their brush houses [in which they are camped, to eat?]. Some boys go to swim in the river, then go into the sweat house without supper: that night they begin singing the Brush dance in there. Formerly they also began the Deerskin dance that night. Now all got ready their nets for fishing in the dam. The first salmon caught they call deer; his tail they call deer-foot. The medicine man and I always [from now ont] went to the fish dam and stayed all night; we went home at noon. Some of the boys and the medicine man swam in the river before breakfast; some went to gather sweat-house firewood. Some of the boys did that for ten days, some for twenty. After about twenty days, lo and I were all right too [ex taboo]; before that, we slept at the dam and ate no breakfast.-That is the end. 67 68 Universty of California Publications in Am. Arch. and Ethn. III. ACCOUNT OF INFORMANT B This informant, generally known as Mack of Kenek-hiko, "opposite Kenek," had also assisted the dam director, but he dwelt less on this fact, and on his hardships of service, than A. His account, like A's, is given verbatim, not only as a document representative of a different individual, but because no cere- mony could be learned completely from one old Yurok: their narrations are too unsystematic. A and B, and Waterman's synthesized account, will be seen to conflict at several minor points; each mentions some episodes that the others forget; and where they agree, the corroboration builds up the salient points of the story. This informant, who dictated to me on June 7, 1902, also through Weitchpec Frank, began with what is here given as the seventh paragraph; in other words, with the next to the last day of the actual construction of the dam. The first six paragraphs he told last, perhaps in response to my prompting. I have put them first to accord with the sequence of events. Like A, and like every good old Yurok, B thus began his description with a myth; and he kept sliding back into myth. His (or the interpreter's) "Kepel" was used, in his dictation to me, in the white man's loose way, jointly for the twin towns of Kepel and Sa'a, which stood adjacent on the same terrace. The whites speak of Capell village, bar, and creek. Actually, when there is reference to sweat house, house, dance place, town, or myth, Sa'a was no doubt meant; only the bar and specific dam site are in front of Kepel. The large creek opposite, in- cidentally, is not Kepel but "prairie" creek in Yarok. The man who makes the dam is awake all night; and I [as his assistant] was too. After sweating he may bathe in only one spot, in the river nearly half a mile below Kepel. There the medicine man shouted downstream to Kowe'tsek, saying that they would begin the next day. This was the evening before they began: that night he did not sleep, and from then on he spoke to no one. He pieked up a flat stone at the river where we washed, took it to Kepel (Sa'a), put it on top of the sweat house, stood on it, and shouted three times. All the people ran away that day: they did not want to hear that shouting, because maybe one would cut himself, or a rattlesnake bite him, if he heard it. And one could hear no birds: they, too, had all run off. That night we did not sleep. The medicine man had his own trail from the sweat house down to the river, also downstream to his bathing place. He sent me on the downstream trail. "When you feel yourself getting sleepy, get up, go on the trail, starting from the sweat house pull up grass, go a little way, then come back. If you are sleepy again, go back along the trail, pull up more grass." He did that on his own trail too. "If you lie too long, you might sleep; and if you slept, perhaps you would never wake up." So I did that all night, pulling out grass every little while. In the morning we started up the river: I worked [poled or paddled] the boat; the medicine man was in it, too, but did not work. I could hardly hear what he said, he talked so low. Where the dam would be, he said, "Stop a little." I landed; he got out of the boat, went behind the rock, and there made his medicine [spoke his formula]. Then he entered the boat again. A little upstream, he said, "Cross!" Then he said, "Let the boat drift down; do not paddle, only steer it!" Soon he landed, went uphill a little, and came back with two small sticks, wererkwetserL, of tsole [woodt], to be used for picking up a coal to light his pipe. It was only in this place that he must get them. Waterman and Kroeber: The Kepel Fish Dam6 He entered the boat, and we went upstream about a mile. Then his wife came [to join us] because she was to cook for him. Then we came to Merip. There we slept at the river, without supper. Early in the morning we went uphill, high, just to cut a stake [sic] and a little one. Then I chopped the stake and we started baek. It took us all day to come down to the river, because every little way he began to talk medicine to the two stakes, since those are the first to be put into the water for the dam. The little one is called "its ear." That night, we went downstream again, landing on the Kepel side of the river. The medicine man piled up dirt [sand] several feet high down [-hill?] from Kepel, to be his place [seat]. He did not sleep that night [-he was] carrying dirt. He sat on that pile, after it was done, for ten days, while they were building the dam. In the beginning they tried all sorts of ways of doing: that is how they found out it would not be good if they ate while working at the dam. The dam did not belong to Kepel [Sa'a] at first, but to Turep. No salmon came up, because of the dam there. Then they talked together along the river here-Thunder, Earthquake, and all of them who were living at Kepel. They said, "Let us go down- stream and take it away." So they went down, took the dam, broke it up, and came back up to Kepel with it. Then those from downstream [Turep] came up to take it back. Some came [over the hills] nearly down to the river opposite Kepel; you can see them, they are redwood trees, they were persons; many stand back up on the hill, one nearly reached the river. These are the ones who used to make the dam down-river, and wanted to take it back but did not, and gave up. Then one of them said: "Well, I'll stay here. I will not go back home. But whenever they start to make the dam, I want them to pay me two obsidians." And another said, "I must get paid, too, then." Now whenever they start [are about to finish] the dam, the people first come up to those redwoods and say, "We have come because they are about to begin." An old man offers a tree one short [imitation] "obsidian." The tree says, "No, I won't take it, I want two." So he gives him another and longer one, and he takes them. Then they start an [imitation] Deerskin dance there near the tree, uphill from the river opposite Kepel. They are not obsidians but flat boulders picked up at the river, but they call them obsidians; and they decorate themselves to dance as in the Deerskin dance, but they use only brush and stones, and such things. Then some of the dam workers start to go uphill while some stay at the redwood which they have paid. Those on the hill cut sticks, small firs and pines, for the dam. As they come down again, they hear crying and stop. The old men say, "Well, I think someone has died here; I hear crying." Then they send a man to where the crying is. He comes back and says, "The man lost his wife; he is a redwood, and he wants pay, before we dance again." They agree and send him obsidians. The messenger comes back to say, "He wants one more obsidian and a woman." The old men are prepared with obsidians, knowing how many will be needed. They also pick up a fair-sized rock, which they call a woman. This is taken to the tree, which says, "Good, I'll take her." Then everything is settled; they have been paid twice, just like head men owning the dam at Turep. Then they dance again on the fiat on the hillside opposite Kepel. The tree that lost his wife cries and says, "My wife is dead." The old men have picked out several who stayed at the trees when the rest went uphill after sticks, and have told them how to cry. One cries for his wife, another acts as his brother, and others as his relatives. As they cry, they take the mucus from their noses and rub it on the head of the one who acts the widower until it is covered, so that it looks as if he were really in mourning. When they all start back to the dam, they bring the brush cut on top of the hill. It is top limbs of pine, three or four feet long, in fiat bundles, tied with branches sticking out in all directions. They have to carry them on the head. A strong man makes a heavier 69 70 University of California Publications in A-m. Arch. and Ethn. load than a little one. They gather on the hillside opposite Kepel, at the creek; others on the other [downstream] side of the creek. Then they stretch out in line as in a Deer- skin dance; one begins, and all dance, with their loads on their heads. They have a [special] song for this. When they stop singing, all throw their load downhill, and it rolls clear down to the river. Those on the other side of the creek sing and do the same. Then all come down to the river, carrying nothing. Now all get into boats, perhaps twenty, every one with [at least] two men. They go downstream [from the dam] as far as the mouth of Kepel creek. There a lot of boys join them, as many as they can get, and enter the boats. They count the boys, because there are twenty boats and they have to be distributed. The boys wear what are called dance feathers, but they are tsl'sep, red flowers growing on the rocks by the river, strung on sticks worn on the head; some wear two sticks, some three. The men are behind them in the boats, wearing deerskin blankets but otherwise naked. They lay the boats side by side, across the river-the current was not swift there then, as it is now. Long sticks, perhaps three, are laid across the gunwales. The boys hold these, so no boat gets out of line. They begin to sing the same song as before [on the hill], then paddle. The boys wearing feathers are in the prows, moving their heads as if they were dancing the Deerskin dance. But only the men [actually] dance behind them. The boats move to the dancing: not one drops back, because they hold the sticks. So they dance upstream right to the dam, then stop. Soon they start the boats again, the boys with their "feathers" but the men now without their blankets. They hold some of the brush they have cut on the hill; so they do not have to hold the poles across the boats any more. Then one begins to dance in his boat, and soon all the boats start into the dance, singing, across the river. The first boat that lands, the boy jumps out; and so for each. The boys all run to the dam, clamber out on it, each to his [family's] pen; they know these, having been shown them before. Each boy climbs to the upstream end of his pen and jumps into the river; the men come after them; all jump in with brush, dive to the bottom, pack the brush against the dam so the bottom will not wash out, come up, breathe, dive again, heap gravel on the brush. They go on the dam only from the Kepel side to do this. Now they rest a while. They begin again on the north side. Two men have picked out the best paddles and go into a boat, also a third man who has a long stick, with a pipe in its scabbard tied at the top. This stick holder begins to sing, the boat starts, they paddle as fast as they can, while he dances. He sings to the middle of the river, then chaages his song. When they have crossed, they paddle slowly upstream to the dam. As soon as he takes his pipe out of the scabbard, all on the Kepel side crowd in and smoke it. A man on the north side has said, "Take the pipe across, let them smoke our tobacco." Now a man on the Kepel side says, "Take my pipe across the river, too, in the same boat." Then they do just the same to the other side. Soon a boat is seen coming upstream from above the mouth of Kepel creek: two are paddling, one sits; they are carrying stakes. They go in the middle of the river, to the dam, work there a little. Then they go downstream slowly, one sitting in the middle and doing nothing. Soon someone shouts from the Kepel side of the dam, "Paddle faster!" The two go down on one knee and begin to paddle hard. But the one who is sitting in the boat takes out his woodpecker-scalp headband-it is called so, but it is yellow-pine bark-and ties it on his head. He has [an instrument] like a long knife, but it is only wood. With this, he does just as if he were pulling out his chin whiskers with a large upward motion, throwing the whiskers into the river. Soon the front paddler lays his paddle into the boat, looks around at the one sitting behind him, leaps on him, tries to throw him into the river. Then the steersman jumps on him too. They rock the boat; soon it tips over. Then everyone shouts, "Is being lost the woodpecker head- bandI" Then they bring the boat ashore. So they do all kinds of fun. The ones who first made the dam said they would have to make all kinds of play; Waterman and Kroeber: The Kepel Fish Dam7 they wanted no one to cry there; if someone cried, they would not be alive in a year, because that was bad. Now they go back to the dam. On the Kepel side, they start the jumping dance, all wearing headbands of pine bark. Then there is one headband over. So one man holds it in his hands while wearing another on his head, and those looking on from across on the north side [act as if they] thought, "He is a really rich man, he has so many that he has to hold a second one," and they all laugh. The next is on the north side. Two men wearing young redwood tops around their foreheads get up, go to the river; all follow them to the boats. The two examine every paddle, try it if it is strong. Finally they find two strong, good paddles, perhaps in one boat. They take those and a fairly small, light boat. The medicine man has hidden behind the rock on the north side of the river at which they begin building the dam: he wears a deerskin blanket. The boat comes to the dam, close to the rock. All can see the medi- cine man as he begins to talk his medicine. Soon they hear a shout: "Nouma! She is coming!" If the medicine man sees the woman who is coming down from the town, he will die-maybe a rattlesnake will bite him; therefore they all shout for him; and he at once covers his head with his blanket. The boat is standing ready, near by. The woman carries a small soup basket, with only a spoonful of acorns and a little piece of [dried?] salmon in it. That is why she has come down, to bring that. She wears a maple-bark apron and civet-cat cape. As soon as she has set her basket on the ground, she runs back up, and they shout, "kitskw6'melal (She has gone back!)" Before she returns to the town, she has to go downstream, but by the town, not along the river, to awi'ger, nearly opposite Murek, and wash herself there in the river; only she may wash there. Then she returns to Kepel (Sa'a). Three or four women are ready to dance in buckskin aprons; she halts where they dance. When the medicine man across the river hears that she has gone away, he throws off the blanket from his head, begins to sing a medicine song, then enters the waiting boat and sits down. He has a basket with water or something in it, his medicine. They start across, as fast as they can go, in the middle of the river turn downstream, and at the mouth of Kepel creek land. As soon as he steps out of the boat, the medicine man throws his medicine water on top of [a bundle of] sticks. These are [of the] sticks got on top of the hill, split yellow pine [limbs] five or six feet long, tied together with hazel twigs like a basket, a solid pile several feet in diameter, that have been rolled down the hill. It takes half a dozen men to lift the bundle; but as soon as he throws his medicine on, he can pull it alone, this medicine man, because when he sang, it was to make it lighter. Then they ferry the bundle up to the dam in the biggest boat they have. Now all come to work, going in boats to the middle of the dam. The medicine man goes with them. Until now he has not done any work, has hidden [covered] himself every day, spoken to no one. He speaks to no one even now, because the sticks belong to him [sic]. The men lay them on top of the dam; they are tied several together, form- ing a filat surface when spread out. They take as many as they can handle, roll them up, tie them with hazel withes, lay them on the dam, later to be spread out flat and put in the river. The medicine man takes the last sticks, and goes to the middle of the dam. It is now afternoon; he is in the middle, the men ready on both sides with their stick [gratings]. When he says, "Ready," they, all together, plunge them in. Sometimes two men holding a grating of sticks fall in with it. Then the medicine man makes the [first] salmon-pen gate, the one in the middle of the dam. As he begins to make it, he calls to k8wetsek [across the ocean], singing to the salmon chief, nepgwoi, "I want many salmon to come in." Then he goes down into the water [to work]. After he comes out, when he has fixed the salmon gate, he may speak to everyone. Now it is they take the brush and put it against the bottom so the dam will not wash out: it is not done before, but now. When they are through with that they all come on the Kepel side. Formerly, when there were many people, they had ten gates and ten pens; the last time, they had only five. The medicine man makes one door, his own; 71 72 University of California Publications in Am. Arch. and Ethn. but his medicine is for all; the other men make the remaining doors the same day; later on they may fix them better. Now the dam is finished, and all swim before going up the bank to Kepel [Sa'a]. Those that have not worked at the dam must go up ahead of the workers, [who will carry] poles. All of these have prepared each one a long pole, painted in bands, red with chewed alder bark, black with dogwood berries, and white with earth. Now they hang shredded maple bark on the tops, also pieces of rotten wood shaped like knives. The young men each want to have the longest stick, outdoing the others; the older men do not trouble to fix theirs so nicely. Of the boys, called ts&'ro [novices], some can hardly talk [from weakness], because no one [working on the dam] has eaten breakfast, and the builders may eat only when they are all through with the dam. When those [who have been working] on the north side of the river are about to cross to Kepel, they set fire to the grass. This they call salmon-backbone-burning, uip'ec-ulo"o. It is done also on the Kepel side. They have had a fire on each side, where they work, because going into the river they get cold. Now they take brands from this and set fire to the dry grass of the hillside. It is called salmon-backbone-burning because [sic] the dam is now finished; no bones are actually burned. There were ten brothers [in ancient times]; the oldest one was at Kepel, the others started [founded] New Year's [eeremonies] upriver. This fire is a signal to them: the smoke is like a fog; at night they see it. One of them coming out of his sweat house far upriver, sees a small fog and knows they have finished the dam at Kepel; the same down-river. The workers are gathered on the sand bar, at the foot of the town. The medicine man says, "All shut your eyes and put your hands over themI" He does something, and some- thing "nice" happens: it sounds like thunder running. Then he says, "Enough," and all look up and jump into the river. Then one can see where the water on the opposite bank has washed far up, because perhaps sixty men all jump in together and a wave runs across the river like a breaker coming. The medicine man says that that is to drive the salmon up to the dam so all can catch plenty; without that it would be as if they drove the salmon back downstream. Now we started up to Kepel [Sa'a], nearly at sundown. The medicine man had told me to make my pole apart from the rest; I was to be the other man [with him], I now found out. So of course I had to do it. Then the rest started uphill to the town with their long poles, about sixty of them. The medicine man [and I] came behind; also a little boy selected to eat the acorn soup and salmon brought down by the woman. The boy did not want to serve on this occasion, because he has to stay there [quiet and fasting] for ten days after. Some, according to the work they do, have to be five days, or ten, or nearly a month, before they may go about: each one has to know how long. Then [another] boy agreed to act. I was last, with another old man and the boy-three of us. When we came nearly to the [women's] dancing ground we stopped; the medicine man stopped; the rest went on; we could see the people all in a crowd. Then I began: I put brush on my head and around my loins; the man behind me held me. Ail looked at me: not at the sixty with poles, but at me. I had n little bow and arrow and pretended to shoot. All watched me, thinking I would shoot. I counted how many times I went up to them and back. When the time came, the third, I knew it, and went to where they all stood. The reason I did this was that there would be more acorns growing: Megwo'mets' is the name of this performance. I had no real bow and arrow, just little sticks; I pointed them toward the crowd as if I would let fly. Then the medicine man came and said to me, "When I come, follow right behind me; then lay yourself straight on the ground, and I will cover you." All the poles were going to be laid on me. The women who had been dancing came to help me: they threw deer- skins over me, and crouched themselves down on both sides of me. If the poles touched me, it would be bad luck: I might cut myself or something; that is why they wanted ' A long-bearded dwarf deity of acorns and growth. Waterman and Kroeber: The Kepel Fish Dam7 to help me like this. When the poles had been dropped on me, all ran off dragging away their poles without raising them again. Each man takes his own pole; he takes it to his camping place by the town. Then I was the last one to get up, having been 'way at the bottom of the pile. Then all went to their camps to eat. But we went to the sweat house without supper. This fasting for two days held for myself, the tsaro [dam novices], all who used medicines, and the women who danced. The same evening they began the Deerskin dance; but we stayed in the sweat house. Next morning, they made the real Deerskin dance [with regalia]; they danced nearly all day. The sixty dam workers had had supper [the night before] and this day they breakfasted; but we went without breakfast. When the dance was finished and it was nearly evening, we ate, along with everyone else. It was three days now since we had eaten: the paying of the redwoods and the finish- ing of the dam come on two days, not one. They dance Deerskin at Kepel only one evening and the next day. Then it is ten days before they go to Wohtek; there they dance it again. If tsiro boys [under taboo] come downstream to Wohtek to watch the dance, and stay all night, they [may not eat there; they] eat at Kepel, and again after their return. Sometimes there are ten or more tsaro, boys and men: all who have never before helped at making the dam are called so. The Deerskin dance at Wohtek lasts maybe twelve, maybe fourteen days. Then, after ten days more, they come upriver to Meri'tswon, opposite Merip, on the hill above Squire Lewis' place, three miles below Kenek-hiko [where this account was dictated]. There they dance the Jumping dance. So there are three places to dance; that is why it is hard to make this ceremony: they must build the dam at Kepel before they make the Deerskin dance at Wohtek, then, after ten days, they make the Jumping dance. For this they stay one night [on the hill] and all next day if they want to, as at Weitchpec. There are four [sic] parties in these Deerskin and Jumping dances: from Wohtek, Ko'otep, Pekwan, Srggon, Murek, Kepel [Sa'a]. That is, there were so many. When they have finished the Jumping dance, all the ceremony is finished. If once they make the Jumping dance at Meritswon, the next time they make it, instead, at above Murek; and the third time at Halega'u, downstream from Wohtek, but here they make a second Deerskin instead of the Jumping dance. The Kepel dam and Wohtek dance are made only every other year. A woman who had had children that had not been paid for went to the Halegau dance place and said, "Those who were very highly paid for, and those who were not paid for at all, may not dance here, because my children were not paid for." Then she turned into a tree. When they go up to this place, they first dance at the river, then on the way up, then camp at Halegau for the night and dance next day. The sweat house [for the dam] at Kepel [Sa'a] is gone now. It belonged to the person who first made the dam. There is a rock where the sweat house stood; it is chickenhawk's (spegi'); it is the rock that holds the sweat house [sic]. If they wanted to make the dam now, they would have to build up the sweat house before beginning. A brother of the Kepel founder went upstream to Hupa; that is why they dance there, Deerskin and Jumping. One went upstream to Camp creek [Orleans], one to Katimin, one far up to Okonile'l [Inam]. Another went downstream to Wohkel, not far above the mouth of the river. His brothers did not like him to go there, but he wanted to. Then, a little angry, they said, "Well, go; but we will not let you have a dancing ground." Now, whenever there is the dam at Kepel, he likes to come up to see it. Whenever he does visit, it always rains, because he is angry at them, because he has no dance place but all his brothers have something: at Camp creek they have New Year's, and at the two other Karok places.-I do not know the names of the ten, I only know they are brothers. There is a stone at Kepel [Sa'a] that belonged to Earthquake. It is like the moon in shape; they use it as a maul to drive in the [first] dam stakes. Thunder had another stone, flat and round, that is also used. 73 74 University of -California Putblications in Am. Arch. and Ethn. Once there were three brothers who had the medicine [formula] to make the dam. The one of them who first made it thought, "Every other year let them build the dam, every other year let them pass it by; that is how it will have to be." So he thought it would be right: then he began to build it. He said, "If they don't make it when the time comes, it will be bad: there will be much sickness." Now there is a hole there, if they shut that, all the people will die; wherever they go, they will feel sleepy, begin to sleep, never wake up. Once, these three brothers were building the dam. They had put the small sticks in, and the next day were about to stuff the brush against the bottom so it would not wash out. When one of them went under the water to do this, another man, a stranger, went under too, caught him, choked him,, killed him. He stayed at the bottom, the stranger came up. When they found their brother did not rise, they asked the other, "What did you do with him?" "I did nothing; I did not see any man." "Well, only you went under with him; I think you killed him." Another brother dived to see, found him dead, brought his body out. They took it up to the town and buried it. More than a year passed; it was nearly time to make the dam again. Then the two brothers went off, hid somewhere, no one knew where. Then people began to be as that one had said: they were sleepy, slept here and there, some never woke up. A rich man living at Murek was gathering sweat-house fuel every day, because he feared all on the river would die. One day early, at daylight, he went up on the hill above Murek and, looking upriver, thought he saw smoke from Kepel creek; it was just light enough to see. He went nearer and knew it was smoke. Wanting to know who made the fire, he came close and found the two brothers hiding. Now because there was much sickness, and death, he persuaded him who had killed their brother to offer com- pensation; he offered much, and they took it. Then, when they had accepted it, he said, "I think you must begin the dam: it is the only way to stop the sickness." Now it was late [in the year]. "I think we had better just lay poles across from both sides [as a skeleton dam], because the season is so late." That is the only time they made it that way. And that is the way they ought to make it now, since there are not enough Indians left really to build it. EPISODES FROM A MYTH The following extract from a myth, told by a Weitspus man popularly known as Lame Billy, confirms one episode and adds a new one. The myth is of "institutional" type: it tells how a young man who grew at Tsurau, Trinidad, wished for wealth of dance re- galia, miraculously got it, and then triumphed as he went to visit dances on Mad river and at Oketo, Rekwoi, Wohtek, and Kepel. At Kepel he finds the people building the dam, but it is not yet fully instituted: they sometimes get a headache as they work on it or play. When brush is collected, the hero orders fifty boats abreast and has the people try dancing with the brush in their hands. It does not look right, and he has them put it on their heads; then they dance in the boats up to Repel. Here he has ten boats start from each side, dancing to the dam, and putting the brush on it. Next, the hero finds Coyote from Kenek and, in order to make the people laugh, per- suades him to put on whiskers of iris fiber, carry a knife and quiver, and let himself be paddled upstream, pretending to be an old Karok who has run off with another man's wife and who wants to retur3i home but is afraid. He answers questions throughout in Karok. They are told to go through the middle of the dam, which has not yet been closed; but there the hero has stationed his partner, who leaps on him as if he were the offended husband. Coyote throws his knife and quiver overboard, and they scuffle, while the paddlers jump out. The people shout in pretended concern for the old man, the boat tips, the two wrestlers go under, Coyote comes out on the Repel side, dashes into the bushes, tears off his whiskers to impersonate the pursuer now, and finaly re- luctantly pretends to give up the chase. Thus the dam ceremony is completed.-The hero is given a boat to return to Tsurau, and thereafter revisits the ceremony each year. Waterman and Kroeber: The Kepel Fish Dam7 IV. THE FISH-DAM FORMULA The last man to "make the dam" was Meta Jack's father-in-law. He was prob- ably the last man who knew the complete formula: thirty years ago the Yurok doubted if anyone possessed it entirely. Mrs. James Marshall, a Kepel-Sa'a woman married in Hupa, had learned the following portion from her uncle, and dictated it to me at Hupa on July 7, 1906. It will be seen that this text assumes the dam ceremony as already established, and deals with the evil consequences of failure to perform the rite, and its supernatural restoration. Presumably this passage was spoken very early in the ritual. The first four paragraphs seem to be explanatory description; the next five, the formula proper; the last, explanatory again. The complete "medicine" for the dam must have been a whole series of such narratives and prayers, each spoken at the appropriate stage and spot. The text is somewhat approximate both in phonetic rendering and in trans- lation. The glottalized stops, the glottalization of which is faint in Yurok, were almost throughout not distinguished under the pressure of dictation; but fuller knowledge of the language will restore these. Hyphens separate parts of the word clusters which were heard more or less separately acousti- cally; most of them possess also etymological distinctness, with greater or smaller degree of adhesion to the core of the cluster. Sa"a 1'genweg8'hko kiwe'Lowo'rkneLheg8'mep kino"Lmi'a's kino"Lmokliha'ihpe'u pis-n8"Lolego"l Tsu'lu' rai'iyor nii'h'tsu'in kemome'rkwerL kemto'amLheigo's so wes'onii' n6L-eLne'skwetsokw . . . kl-koeg8'hkumi'n wo'LpA'i pis-onew6'r-noL-h6'mep k0'-6'new6r-noL-tswegi'nke' ho-we'sonii'L ky8'ku kis6-ho8'lle'm 6"lekwi'L kiwer-skfili-so-h0olem'Oo mo'kikweL kyekwan'is-kists'ewomok kilmi-wosku'its-s&-he'gO'k k8'm kinile"li-eni' ke'mi kinel8'nekwa ke'm kiLmei'ki meL-meye'pir n6L-oke'mei-tsnewo'r ke'misnira'yoL nimihe'gokw numi-wer6-onelpek-tspi'n nOL-on6'war ho-sa"a o'wOL kekirO n6L-k'oLonep nim8'kwi newo"mo pis-noL-ke'skisot noL-ate'run p6i-osiaLko'm ku'ko'oh8"ku-ki-logen n8'L-atsw1'n-kepsohe'siko'o mis-kwel&'s-koso'tspei kwe'las-sa'-hiko"-oko'-tse'wani At Sa'a / when they build the dam / for ten days he makes fire in the sweat house, / so long he drinks no water, / so long he eats alone; / then they begin to build it. At Tsulu' [on Bald Hills] / he travels at a trot / at night. / At the peak of the ridge / when he arrives he shouts / to the world. / When he arrives at / [name of place for- gotten] / where he will dig / angelica [roots], / then he maintains a fire all night / and all night he speaks / to the world / how / will live / people / [how] they will travel about well, / but if / there is who doubts [the phrase is archaic] / he will not travel about well [will meet bad luck], / perhaps / he will burn himself, / perhaps / he will drown, / perhaps / he will have trouble / with a rattlesnake. Then at daybreak he returns, / traveling at a trot / not walking / only running con- stantly along / he arrives / at Sa'a. / Next day / in the middle / then he eats / no one / seeing him. Then he goes down [to the river]. / Then he talks; / first he kicks it / where they will build the dam; / then there he speaks across [the river] / because he said it / he who was caught opposite Sa'a. 75 76 University of California Publications in Aim. Arch. and Ethn. w8'golek wi'l't-ki'se'gon mo'tso-ki'mi-w8hOki ki-l8'gen ko8-mo'okwola' tu-wi'i'ti-meL-neme'gei-kwi'lewe n8'sek aiw8'kw ki-O'L kiti'-wi'u' weLawo'r nor-OLOihko-srarotsin-kiu-kohtse'wer nin6'ko hipu'r-kitsat8'toloL ke'm6s-ki'tsmai k'6m-kitsmiwo'neu kiti'wi-u'weLawor n8Loles kustukisanko'kw l.'yekw ok6' oko"moip hipu'rkits-ote'toloL 1"o'8'1o' kwesi'-nu'miw6n-wino"omeL oko'minep ko'lo r8kw h8ne'skwetsok Owets8'kwus5' kitsk8'minep Le'notu houks kitsta'm Le'notu kitsnumipe'L kftw8nsonki8w8k ki'tsonomipeL kitoh6'Lkep Leno'O'newfr n8L'o'tswinkep o'le ('im) ki'yegok ke'yo'nin n8'kwe'el8'k na'hs's8we'n tspin hi'gok ole'm kftis-eko'ninpa'a motinike'meL-t7'get ole'm tokiye'ktsek newega'hsak kwe'lek-kiti-mokwo'18 meLkisomaweg8hkumek 18'gen tokikokn8'ktsitsek neru'rawo (n) tokikog8'ktsitsek tsoke"yona n8L-one'rme'ri tsowitmeL-regu'rawo [n] kito'tsmeyin e'ni-ku-18'gen ko'olo'hku ot8'ikti hi'iiVigon wi'l't-tso'-oni'nawo [n] himer'hguk wiF'tu-koon6'won permerye'r ha'aigon we'L'awo'r tsege'ihk8ki pis wi'it-tso'-6lekw-le'komelite'm tson8L-ose"me ku-wo"Lpei ku'meL heg8hku kul8'gen tsowite'mL-wesa'hpe'm pis-tutso'kei'yon'a' mokikweL-kowitsoke'ms6n'owom so'ma-w8ku k'i-18gen kweLtsawit-segonko ke-wo'Lpe'i tsomeLwagesatspi'me kiha'iii-yu-8'tektin ko'OkikinoLko'ni ki'noLmi'wotsk8'yem kin8wornoLtegerum ki-wes'ona tukl'nyason m8'ki-kweL-kyekw6n tsi'l's-ki'maw8tspurkoni kimi-w6pyAkw-tsi'nihegokw kinumwiwege'no'oL ki'tso-hegohkwu wai-ki-l'gen kweL-kiyoso"n owe'giiihpeger motso-kimi-w6hoku pis-nek8neg8'leke'lk motso-kiti'h6ku towi-pe'l kitskoneknoksitsek He says this: / That is how it will be / if they do not make / the dam / there will be no more people. / That is what I cry for / I think / 'Alas ! / the people I ' / For nearly / ten days / he always tried to catch him [as he passed], / always heard him / downstream beginning to cry, / again [perhaps?] he passed by / again he did not see him. After nearly ten days / now he thought: / 'What shall I do about him9' / On the trail / he stood, / he heard him / downstream beginning to cry, / still he stood there [with his arms spread], / in the middle of the night / he felt / like / wind / coming to / his heart, / he felt him / soon / baby / as big as, / soon / he was larger, / when it was nearly day / he was larger, / he began to twist [to escape], / soon it was day / then he spoke. He said: / Let me walk / let me go / I am the one who / at night / only / travels. / He said, / the one who was holding him: / Why do you constantly cry? / He said: / I will tell you. / I am so sorry for that / that there will be no people / because they do not make / the dam. / I will leave you my song, / I will tell it to you, / then you must let me go. Then he sang it. / That is the one / you must sing /... / That dam / where they will build it, / at the lying [flat] / rock, / there is where you must look / underneath; / you will find / greasy [smooth] / stones / ten / small ones; / then / carry them up to the house / and pound up / the angelica root / with which / you make / the dam / and [bathe with] rub that over your body. / Now let me go. Do not let that happen again / not to make / the dam. / I will tell you how to use / the angelica: / you must 'bathe' with it / at that rock which lies flat. / As long as they are at work [on the dam] / so long you will not sleep, / all night long you will talk to / the world. / It will always be so. / But I will tell you this: / whoever does not believe it / will not travel about well. / It will always be at the same season / that they make it / this dam; / it will always be so / that there will be sickness / if they do not make it; / but they will mention me [archaic phrase] / if they make it. / It is a great thing / which I am leaving with you. Waterman and Kroeber: The Kepel Fish Dam no'L-oke'yonem tspermokowene'woyek pis-tuwi'tu-wi'itu-sO-teger&'mi ki-IO'gen weg6'hku' mokikweL-kitspurki Then he let him go. / It is the only time he was seen. / Now that is the way he talks, / this dam / when they make it; / but he is under restrictions. The song referred to in this formula is: kitsw&'niL ko weye, brings news of evil to my stomach (heart). It is not used in the dam ceremony, but if there is disease about, or approaching, the song is sung night after night in the sweat house by a company. The informant's version of the dancing women and the act with the long poles on the last day is as follows. Four girls stand at a certain spot (in Sa'a), dance, and sing. There are two larger ones in the middle, flanked on each side by a little girl; these sing the same song an octave higher. They do not look about, else the people will have bad luck; they do not laugh, or the acorns will crack that fall. Behind them stand several women with blankets, and behind these the men with long poles carrying maple bark. The formulist comes up behind, passes the group, turns left to right, stops in front of the four girls, and sings. When he finishes, the girls let themselves fall forward into a shallow pit, the women throw the blankets over them for protection, and the men lay their poles on them. This ends the ceremony, and that evening and next day they dance Deerskin.-In this woman's account, only the girls are covered with the poles; according to the formulist's assistant, he receives the load, they merely helping to lighten it. When the first stake (the wetspegar) is to be set, the formulist has to hold his breath while two men furiously paddle him across the river. 77 78 Universitty of California Publication in Am. 'Arch. and Ethn. V. ANALYSIS AND COMPARISON The Sa'a-Kepel dam ritual is of interest in several ways. First, as Water- man says, it represents the largest mechanical enterprise undertaken by the Yurok,5 or for that matter by any northwest California Indians, and the most nearly communal attempt. These aspects he has made so clear that no further comment is necessary. Next, the ritual complex is evidently the most elaborate and longest in the world of the lower Klamath. The accounts conflict somewhat; but a total of some 50, perhaps 60, days is suggested. Days Events 1 Calling down-river; people hide; formulist to Merip 1 Three stakes cut; return; sand pile (on next day?) 10 (4?) Interval 10 Construction of dam. Ninth and tenth days with many interludes 1 Deerskin dance at Sa'a 10 Interval 12-16 Deerskin dance at Wohtek 10 Interval 2 Jumping dance at Meritswon or alternate places 51-62 Among incidents peculiar to the dam ceremony are: the crescentic stones; the magic dragging of the stick bundle by the director; the boat dance with the feathered boys; the making of "breakers" across the river; the firing of the hillside; the women's dance; the Megwomets ceremony, with the feeding of the boy and the pretended shooting; the laying of the long poles. Dam features found in Karok rituals, but not in Hupa or other Yurok ones, so far as known, are the formulist's sand pile, and the hiding or detouring of the population not to look at him. Tarticularly characteristic are a number of jokes, imitations, dramatic plays, and games or contests which enriched the ritual and gave it a popular and light side wanting in other important ceremonies. Some of these root in myth or magic, but others are simply play. They are almost certainly by- products of the active communal cooperation involved in the weir building. There may be mentioned: Paying the tree mourners Capsizing of the whiskered one Pretending to fight, being jerked overboard 5 The dam at Lo'olego above Weitspus was set where the river is somewhat smaller, and was evidently constructed by a smaller group of men, only the towns close to Weitspus being involved. The ritual adjuncts are unknown, but did not include any important dance. On Kepel precedent, the construction of the Lo'olego dam ought to have been the ocea- sion for the Weitspus Deerskin and Jumping dances; but I have never heard a Yurok allude to a connection, and to assume one to have existed would amount to developing a pattern into a historical hypothesis. The Yurok attitude toward the Lo'olego dam is that it was an affair of no great significance. Waterna'm and Kroeber: The Kepel Fish Dam Attack on the adulterer Dancing with two headbands-of bark Carrying the pipes across on poles Canoe race to ferry broken stakes Tug of war with gratings The first imitation Deerskin dance Driftwood or dog carcass treated as a salmon Cripple, thief, etc., so called publicly, without liability Sand rubbed into penis Obscene message sent to formulist Visitors beginning to dance to put an end to supper The Yurok, Karok, and Hupa definitely regard their major ceremonies as equivalent, and usually speak of there being 10, although there were at least 12, and probably 14. Yurok: Oketo, Orekw, Rekwoi, Pekwan, Kepel, Weitspus; probably also at Wetlkwau opposite Rekwoi. Karok: Panamenik, Amaikiara, Katimin, Inam. Hupa: Takimitlding, Medilding. Wiyot: Jumping dance at mouth of Mad river is probably to be counted in. On the basis of available data, these classify as follows: 1. Jumping dances, largely indoor, for ten or more days, with generic world- stabilizing rather than specific world-renewal features. The four lower Yurok ceremonies, at Oketo, Orekw, Rekwoi, Pekwan; presumably also the Wiyot one at Mad river. The major Wiyot dances on Humboldt bay and Eel river, and, according to Drucker, the Tolowa ones, were not specific Jumping dances, but were held largely indoors, and perhaps represent the substratum out of which the Yurok developed their "pure" Jumping dances. 2. Deerskin dances, outdoors, of two or three days' duration, with marked world-renewal emphasis expressed in new fire, sand pile, not looking, etc. Karok at Panamenik, Katimin, Inam. Although it cannot be proved that the Deerskin dance as such is Karok in origin, this type of Deerskin ritual ob- viously is so. 3. Specific first-salmon esoteric rites, with an associated dance: Karok at Amaikiara, Yurok at Wetlkwau. The Amaikiara esoteric ceremony is fol- lowed-exceptionally among the Karok-by a Jumping dance. The Wetlkwau one seems to have been followed--exceptionally among the lower Yurok-by a Deerskin dance; which, however, has not been made since 1850, so that its association, and even its historical authenticity, are not quite certain. The two sites lie respectively at the mouth of the Klamath and at the foot of its highest fall. 4. The remaining four ceremonies are the two of the upper Yurok and the two of the Hupa; in other words, those which geographically lie between the areas of type 1 and type 2. They vary noticeably among themselves, but have one feature in common: outdoor dancing for ten or more days. The varying contexts are the following, in order downstream. 79 80 University of California Publications in Ain. Arch. and Ethn. Hupa by Medilding at Haslinding, first-salmon rite, perhaps without dance, perhaps associated with spring Jumping dance indoors in Takimitlding. Hupa at Takimitlding, first-acorn rite followed by ten-day outdoor Jump- ing dance, perhaps also by outdoor Deerskin dance. Yurok, at Weitspus, ten-day outdoor Deerskin dance followed by two-day Jumping dance on hill. Conspicuously absent are first-salmon, first-fruits, new fire, world-renewal and other symbolic-magic features. A salmon weir was built near by at Lo'olego, but was not connected with the ceremony in historic times. The Weitspus dancing parallels that of Kepel, and is as fully developed, but the esoteric features seem reduced to bare formula recital. Kepel-Wohtek, on the contrary, adds to its long dancing certain first-salmon and first-acorn elements, a fair amount of Karok world-renewal, special ex- pressions of magic, and a mass of play interludes, besides, of course, the im- pressive dam construction. It is as compositely rich as Weitspus is simple and barren. It seems clear that these four ceremonies have in quite varying degree ab- sorbed and reworked esoteric and exoteric materials typical of the first three groups of rituals, the fullest recombination and elaboration having been made in connection with the stimulus of the communal enterprise of the Kepel weir. However diverse and locally rooted the rituals, it is characteristic of na- tive attitude that they were rated as equivalents of one another. The population of this little world, or culture, was perhaps 6000; certainly, even with the Wiyot and Tolowa included, fewer than 10,000 souls. Of any- thing that lay outside its small circle, there was but the meagerest knowledge or interest. Each major ceremony accordingly served, on the average, 500 or 600 persons-say a scant 150 adult males. A tremendous amount of cultural energy must have been at work among these small numbers to produce so rich a set of ritual patterns and to vary them so greatly.