The initiation of a new hamatsa, who is held to be taken away to the woods by the cannibal spirit BaxbakualanuXsiwae and returns possessed, biting people and eating human flesh before he is tamed.
Material type
Initiatory rite
Restricted to
Initiated members of the hamatsa society and the other winter-ceremonial societies
Restriction mechanism
grade_requirement, social_sanction
Stated reason
Not yet recorded from a Kwakwaka'wakw source
Tradition origins
ancient
Recorded practice status
Modified
Provisional: no dated status evidence is linked.
Status as of
Not recorded
Status claims
Not recorded
Disclosure dates, source publication dates, tradition origins and dates of practice are separate.
What this disclosure covers
The hamatsa's seclusion, return, biting and corpse-eating, the preparation of the corpse and the hamatsa songs; Boas's text for pp. 436–443 checked
Report of the U.S. National Museum for 1895 (Washington, 1897), pp. 311–738. Read in the Internet Archive text on 2026-11-04.
Claims about this item
These claims may cite other sources for the same restricted item. Supporting and contradicting evidence remain separate.
CLM-0082 · Content
The hamatsa returning from the woods bites pieces of flesh out of the arms and chests of the people. By the 1890s the flesh was no longer really bitten out: the hamatsa pulled up the skin with his teeth, sucked out blood, and secretly cut off a small piece of skin with a small sharp knife; the piece was not swallowed but hidden behind his ear and returned to its owner after the dance, as an assurance that it would not be used against him in witchcraft.
Checked against the Internet Archive text on 2026-11-04. Boas also writes that a person bitten was formerly believed to suffer inflammation if the hamatsa drank hot water after swallowing the flesh (p. 440).
SRC-0076: Source authenticity is unassessed; this is separate from the truth of its assertions.
SRC-0076: No source-level content_hash is recorded; linked artifact hashes may identify excerpts, derivatives or metadata instead.
ITEM-0036: The recorded practice status is provisional: no dated status claims are linked.
CLM-0083 · Content
A new hamatsa may return from the woods with a corpse, which must be that of one of his own dead relatives. The healers take a mummified body down from a tree burial, soak it in salt water, remove the decayed flesh with stripped hemlock twigs until only skin remains, and smoke it over the novice's hut; the hands and feet are cut away because eating them is believed to bring immediate death. After the dance the master of ceremonies cuts the body and hands out the flesh; the hamatsas must bolt it without chewing, and the onlookers count how many bites each swallows.
Boas reports this as the account of Q'omEna'kula, who took part and had died a few years before Boas wrote; Q'omEna'kula told him fresh human flesh was much harder to eat than dried corpses. Testimony relayed second-hand; no independent source recorded yet. Checked against the Internet Archive text on 2026-11-04.
SRC-0076: Source authenticity is unassessed; this is separate from the truth of its assertions.
SRC-0076: No source-level content_hash is recorded; linked artifact hashes may identify excerpts, derivatives or metadata instead.
ITEM-0036: The recorded practice status is provisional: no dated status claims are linked.
CLM-0085 · Suppression
Section 3 of the 1884 amendment to the Indian Act made it a misdemeanour, punishable by two to six months' imprisonment, to take part in or encourage the 'Potlach' festival or the 'Tamanawas' dance, and the potlatch stayed illegal from 1885 to 1951. People who attended Chief Dan Cranmer's potlatch at Village Island in 1921 were charged and tried; the chiefs were made to sign a promise to give up the potlatch, twenty who refused were jailed, and the community's masks and regalia (the Potlatch Collection) were taken under this agreement. The law was dropped from the Indian Act in 1951 but never formally repealed.
The statute and the community's account are independent, but each supports a different part of the statement (the law; the 1921 prosecutions and confiscation), so the 1921 events rest on SRC-0077 alone. Neither says whether hamatsa regalia was among the confiscated items, or whether the 'Tamanawas' dance of the statute covered the hamatsa rites. Read on 2026-11-04.
SRC-0077: No source-level content_hash is recorded; linked artifact hashes may identify excerpts, derivatives or metadata instead.
SRC-0084: Source authenticity is probable; this is separate from the truth of its assertions.
SRC-0084: No source-level content_hash is recorded; linked artifact hashes may identify excerpts, derivatives or metadata instead.
ITEM-0036: The recorded practice status is provisional: no dated status claims are linked.
CLM-0103 · Content
The cedar-bark ornaments, masks, whistles and carvings of the winter ceremonial must not be seen by the uninitiated, and anyone who saw them was formerly killed. Boas was told of a carver who killed his own daughter with a hammer after she saw him making a carving, and buried her under the fireplace. The initiated still warned the uninitiated away with the words 'Go away, else we shall bury you'.
Checked against the Internet Archive text on 2026-11-04. The killing is a single story told to Boas.
SRC-0076: Source authenticity is unassessed; this is separate from the truth of its assertions.
SRC-0076: No source-level content_hash is recorded; linked artifact hashes may identify excerpts, derivatives or metadata instead.
ITEM-0036: The recorded practice status is provisional: no dated status claims are linked.
CLM-0104 · Content
When the novice hamatsa reappears near the village his sharp whistle and his cry 'hap, hap, hap' ('eating, eating, eating') are heard. The whistles sounded during the hamatsa's dances, mostly small and made of red cedar, a few of bone, represent the voices of the spirits.
Checked against the Internet Archive text on 2026-11-04.
SRC-0076: Source authenticity is unassessed; this is separate from the truth of its assertions.
SRC-0076: No source-level content_hash is recorded; linked artifact hashes may identify excerpts, derivatives or metadata instead.
ITEM-0036: The recorded practice status is provisional: no dated status claims are linked.
CLM-0105 · Content
The secret song of the hamatsa who carries a corpse, in the Awikenox dialect, runs: 'Now I am going to eat. My face is ghastly pale. I shall eat what is given to me by BaxbakualanuXsiwae.'
Claim support
Single source
Record review
Reviewed
Period
1890s
Locators
SRC-0076: p. 459 (translation); pp. 691–692 (Awikenox text)
Checked against the Internet Archive text on 2026-11-04. Boas also prints secret songs of a Laolaxa dancer (p. 631; text p. 731).
SRC-0076: Source authenticity is unassessed; this is separate from the truth of its assertions.
SRC-0076: No source-level content_hash is recorded; linked artifact hashes may identify excerpts, derivatives or metadata instead.
ITEM-0036: The recorded practice status is provisional: no dated status claims are linked.
Evidence qualifications
SRC-0076 · source_authenticity_unassessed: Source authenticity is unassessed; this is separate from the truth of its assertions.
SRC-0076 · source_without_content_hash: No source-level content_hash is recorded; linked artifact hashes may identify excerpts, derivatives or metadata instead.
DISC-0066 · record_unreviewed: Record review status is unreviewed; review is not proof of truth.
ITEM-0036 · status_without_dated_evidence: The recorded practice status is provisional: no dated status claims are linked.
Reviewed means checked against a source. It does not establish source authenticity, independent corroboration or present-day practice.
Item notes
Boas (SRC-0076, pp. 440–441) already reports that by the 1890s the biting was done by a sleight of hand (CLM-0082).
