Silver Totem of Shame

by R. J. Harlick

  Louise cheered and clapped with the rest of them, as did Eric and I.

  “Sorry you came?” I tugged at Eric’s buckskin sleeve. We were both appropriately dressed in deerskin jackets with plenty of rippling fringe and colourful beading. Eric’s jacket, made by his grandmother, was smooth and supple, almost silk-like with age, while mine, his wedding gift to me, was still a bit on the stiff side and rustled when I moved.

  His reply was a broad dimpled grin as he raised his arm in triumph and let out a war whoop.

  I smiled to myself. Just like a man. Show him a macho activity with lots of sweat and muscle and he’s as happy as a pig in … well, you know what I mean.

  Louise was wearing a black ankle-length blanket with a wide bright red border. Flowing creatures in red appliqué cavorted across the back. I recognized the bold eyes and sharp beak of an eagle and the long pointed beak of a hummingbird. The border and designs were edged with shimmering white buttons, hence the term “button blanket.” Her broad face beamed from under a high, flat-topped cedar hat with a similar design painted in red and black on the woven bark.

  She turned to embrace a young man who greeted her. From the moment of our arrival at the carving shed she had been and still was being accosted by people from the community. Judging by her broad smile and the crushing hugs, she was enjoying the attention. Clearly, she was well respected in the community.

  “This is a very big moment for us,” she said. “My clan, the Hlgaa K’inhlgahl Xaaydaga, or Greenstone Eagles, hasn’t had a clan chief pole raising in more than a hundred and forty years, not since we left our ancestral village, Llnagaay.”

  “How exciting for you,” I said.

  “We’ve had other pole raisings in Skidegate, but they were for public buildings.”

  “I gather becoming chief can be pretty expensive. Someone mentioned it could cost up to a hundred thousand dollars.”

  “It has to be costing Harry at least that if not more. But I suppose it’s not too different from the old days, when only the highborn had enough wealth to raise a pole and hold a potlatch. It usually took them many years to amass the necessary number of gifts for the potlatch.”

  A woman with a young girl in tow came up to say hello. They chatted for a few minutes before Louise turned back to us. “Where was I? Ah, yes, the cost. Harry MacMillan, the man who’s becoming chief today, has made a lot of money in the computer business in Vancouver. Although he hasn’t lived on Haida Gwaii for a good number of years, he’s returning home to reclaim his heritage.”

  I ran my eyes over the crowd, looking for a likely candidate. Instead, I noticed another man, tall and lanky with a grey-streaked ponytail, clambering over the railing of the deck behind the house. Unlike others wearing their traditional garb, he was dressed in threadbare jeans and a scruffy windbreaker. He strode across the deck to where a group of men and women stood, appearing very regal in their Haida button blankets, vests, and headdresses. He stopped directly in front of a much shorter man with close-cropped hair who looked vaguely familiar. Jabbing a finger into the man’s chest, he started yelling at him. He finished his rant by spitting in the man’s startled face.

  Everyone gasped.

  While we watched in stunned silence, the bully calmly jumped off the deck, shoved his way through the shocked crowd, and disappeared around the side of the house without a backward glance.

  As if a signal had been exchanged, an eagle that had been watching from a nearby spruce lifted his wings and with an angry squawk flew off after the man.

  “Oh my goodness,” Louise said.

  “Is the man who was just insulted the new chief?” Eric asked, just as I realized that he was the man I’d seen at the Granville Hotel with Ernest Paul.

  “Yes, yes he is.” Louise shook her head. “This is terrible.”

  She paused as people swarmed around the new chief. Some offered him sympathy while others held back as if unsure of what to do. A youngish, light-haired woman, maybe his wife, passed him a corner of her button blanket to wipe the spit from his face.

  “Oh, Johnnie, what have you done?” Louise muttered.

  “I take it you know the guy who did it,” Eric said, offering his arm for support. She appeared quite shaken.

  “Unfortunately I do. He’s my nephew, Johnnie, the son of my younger sister. He has a greater hereditary right to be Greenstone chief than Harry. You see, my late sister and I are the only direct descendants of the sister of Old Chief, the last potlatched Chief Greenstone. In Haida culture heredity runs through the maternal line.”

  “So why isn’t Johnnie becoming chief?”Eric asked.

  “Money. He doesn’t have any. Although he earned a fair bit in the logging camps, he spent it all on liquor and hare-brained get-rich schemes, like growing greenhouse cucumbers. I’m afraid Johnnie isn’t worthy of becoming chief, nor is his brother Colin. Although Harry isn’t an ideal choice, he is a better choice than either of my nephews.”

  “You mentioned that you had two sons,” I said. “Couldn’t one of them have taken it on?”

  “Yes, but neither of them wants it. They both moved off island years ago and have no desire to claim their heritage. Besides, neither makes enough money. Harry is the son of a cousin, a very distant one. We share great-grandmothers. Although Rose is also descended from Old Chief, it is not in the direct maternal line. That’s her with Harry. She will become senior Matriarch when her son becomes chief.”

  She pointed to a large woman with hair that seemed a little too jet-black. She was wearing a red and black button blanket, more elaborate and more bedecked with buttons than Louise’s and easily twice the size, which it needed to be in order to cover her expansive girth. She wore it with a haughty confidence that she no doubt felt her due as the mother of the soon-to-be chief. At the moment she was bending over her son, who was much shorter than her, and appeared to be berating him rather than offering sympathy. The woman who’d offered Harry a corner of her blanket stood outside this mother-son circle as if cast aside.

  “This must be difficult for you, Louise,” Eric said. “I assume this means that you will no longer be Matriarch.”

  She shrugged. “It is our tradition. I inherited my Matriarch position from my mother. While my brother was looked upon as chief by our clan, he never formally took on the name through a pole raising and potlatch. He was killed in a boating accident twelve years ago. Usually the chief’s sister is the Matriarch, but because Harry is an only child, his mother is taking it on.”

  She paused as she glanced back at her distant cousin, who continued to loom over her son and jab her finger into his chest. Although the anger expressed in his face suggested he wasn’t the least happy about the shocking insult or her badgering, he seemed to be silently accepting both.

  “Please, don’t get me wrong, this is a great moment for the Greenstones. After more than a hundred and twenty-five years we will finally have a potlatched chief. I’m glad. I’ll still be a matriarch of the clan, just not the senior one.”

  “Auntie,” called a voice from behind us. Allistair’s girlfriend was squeezing her way through the crowd. “Wasn’t that just awful?” Becky exclaimed when she finally reached us. “Have you ever seen such a thing?”

  “No, I haven’t, child.”

  “Does this mean Harry can’t become chief?”

  Many of the people around us turned in our direction. It would seem they, too, wanted to know the answer.

  “Johnnie did a very shameful thing, child. It reflects badly on all of us. But it’s up to Harry now.”

  Twenty-Eight

  It looked as if Harry was about to take up Louise’s challenge.

  Brushing his mother aside, he tucked his wife’s arm under his and together they strode to the deck railing. The wind tugged at his black and red blanket and ruffled the fur fringe of a band of woven fabric tied around his head. Although his wife had regained some composure, I doubted she ever gave off the bold confidence I sensed in many of the other Haida woman.
No doubt her mother-in-law did her best to trample it down.

  “Folks,” the soon-to-be chief called out. “We won’t let that little episode stop us, will we? What do you say? Is it time to raise the pole?”

  At first there was only an exchange of raised eyebrows and shrugs, with many questioning glances in Louise’s direction. But after what seemed an embarrassingly long silence, the cheers rose from the waiting crowd until they reached a resounding crescendo. The witnesses were willing to forget the insult and celebrate in the naming of a new chief.

  When the shouting subsided, Harry directed his gaze to Louise. Acknowledging her rank as the clan’s Matriarch, he asked, “Well, Auntie? Is it a go?”

  Silence reigned but for the sound of waves grinding the gravel on the beach behind us and Louise’s heavy breathing. Everyone held their breath. She fiddled with a silver bracelet on her wrist. The crowd waited. Even Harry’s mother had lost some of her bluster as she stared anxiously at her distant cousin.

  Finally, Louise straightened her shoulders. “It was a shameful and cowardly act, but I will not let it ruin this momentous occasion. Please begin.”

  I felt more than heard the collective sigh of relief, immediately followed by loud clapping. Eric relaxed his grip on my arm.

  “Dodged that one, didn’t they?” he whispered in my ear.

  A sudden burst of drumming brought our attention back to the pole. The throng of several hundred crowded around. Because of Louise’s honoured status, we, along with Becky, were pushed to the front, where we saw several people standing in ceremony next to the pole, still resting on the crib. An elderly white-haired woman, regally bedecked in her red and black button blanket, started chanting in Haida. While everyone dropped their gaze to the ground, Becky leaned over to Eric and me and whispered, “She is blessing the pole.”

  The elder threw bits of white fluff over the pole. It scattered and soared with the wind. One clump attached itself to Eric’s sleeve. So delicate, I couldn’t feel it when I picked it up. I tickled his nose with it, prompting him to sneeze. We laughed.

  “Eagle down,” Becky whispered. “We scatter it as an offering of peace and friendship.”

  When a heavy-set man and two others similarly attired in blankets began dancing beside the pole, Becky said, “That is the carver and his apprentices. They are breathing life into the pole. The carver always comes from the opposite clan to the chief. So Denny is a Raven. He’s a cousin of Harry’s wife.”

  When the carvers finished dancing, Harry, his mother, and his wife filed down the stairs from the deck and approached the pole where it angled into the hole. Each in turn threw what looked to be blue beads into the yawning depths. Louise was invited to join them.

  When she returned, she whispered, “In the old days we put a slave in the hole.”

  I glanced up in shock only to chuckle when I noticed the mischievous glint in her eyes and the laughter in Eric’s voice as he whispered, “My little red flower, she’s tugging your chain.”

  The carver approached Harry. Ignoring the strands of wind-whipped hair gyrating around his face, he shouted a few words in Haida, then asked, “Can I raise the pole?”

  The soon-to-be chief gave his solemn permission, though the glint in his eyes betrayed his restrained excitement. He shouted, “Move back everyone.”

  As we started to move back a man approached us. He glanced first at Louise as if seeking her approval before turning to Eric. “Sir, we’d be honoured if you would assist us in raising the pole.”

  He pointed to where men were lining up beside four separate lengths of heavy rope radiating out from the front of the pole. The ends were tied around a thick wadding of material placed around the pole a metre or more from the top.

  Before replying, Eric sought my consent with raised eyebrows. Although I worried the strain might be a bit much, I knew I couldn’t say no, so I reluctantly smiled my support.

  “I would be honoured,” Eric said. “Although I’m not exactly at the top of my game, I can still bench press two hundred with the best of them.”

  To emphasize this, he jokingly raised his arms in a strongman stance and, with a sprightly spring to his step, followed the man to one of the lines. The man placed him in the centre of the line of about a dozen men, beside a couple of others of middle age. I hoped this meant the middle would be the least strenuous.

  Although Eric was in good shape for a man in his early fifties, his abs weren’t quite as hard as they once were. With his busy schedule and extensive travelling I found he was more inclined to relax in his favourite chair than go out for a jog as he used to when he was band chief. Lately I’d been pestering him about getting more exercise.

  Louise, Becky, and I pushed and shuffled our way back with the rest of the crowd, away from the pole and onto the loose pebbles of the beach. With the rising tide, we were forced to spread out along its edge. Hopefully we were well out of range of the pole should it fall.

  The four lines of men, their hands gripping the ropes, began spanning out. Eric’s line was on the far left. I waved, but with his head down, his back braced, he was too busy pulling to notice.

  A number of people continued to linger near the pole. I thought I spied the bleached blond beehive of François’s companion, but wasn’t sure.

  “Move back everyone!” a man called out.

  A few moved farther back as the pole rose into the grey sky. I felt a few drops of rain on my face and worried that it might make the rope too slippery.

  I noticed with considerable surprise Cloë’s blond head amongst the group still lingering near the base of the pole. Amazingly, she was standing next to François, a man she’d said she wanted nothing to do with. He was leaning back taking photos of the rising pole. I wondered what charm he’d laid on to entice her to come not only to the pole raising but also with him.

  As the pole rose higher into the air, the carvings became more visible. “Louise, some of those carved figures look like the ones you have on your blanket.”

  “You’re right. The eagle, hummingbird, and dogfish. Quite well done, aren’t they? Those are our clan crests. You’ll soon see a beaver with its big teeth. The two figures at the top with the tall hats are the traditional watchmen. They face the sea to watch out for our enemies. Harry will have other carvings to tell his own story. Maybe he’ll have a beaver typing away on a computer.” She chuckled.

  “The dogfish is an interesting crest. It means that the dogfish woman was one of our clan’s ancestor’s. Our stories tell us that she was carried away by a dogfish, which is a small shark, and became one herself. But she was able to transform herself back into a human.”

  “Get back farther!” the man shouted again.

  The pole rose steadily, then stopped as the men pulling on the ropes stopped. The three watchmen hovered as if undecided about moving higher. Then they slowly slipped backward.

  “Don’t stop! Keep pulling!”

  The ropes strained and groaned as the men strained and groaned. The watchman began to inch back up. They sat on top of the head of a huge eagle with two very bold eyes and a fish tail sticking out of its large hooked beak.

  “Keep at it guys! It’s moving again.”

  The hummingbird with its straight, almost horizontal beak shifted ever more vertical.

  “Hey you! Get out of the way!”

  At that precise moment, a rope snapped, then another. They whipped toward us. Without thinking, I pulled Louise to the ground.

  A shriek rent the air and the ground shuddered as the pole landed with a booming thud.

  Silence.

  Then, “Oh my God!”

  Twenty-Nine

  A high, piercing shriek spiralled above the sound of the wind and the waves.

  “Eric!” I screamed.

  While the people around me remained motionless, trying to absorb what had happened, I scrambled to my feet.

  Completely forgetting about Louise, I raced around and over people to where I’d last seen my husband.
The line of men lay clumped on the ground like collapsed dominos. I found him sitting on a clump of grass rubbing his hands.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Christ, what happened?”

  “A rope broke, maybe two. Are you hurt?”

  “My bum’s sore and my hands hurt like hell. But otherwise I’m okay.” He held his hands out to reveal angry red rope burns on both palms.

  I winced at the sight of the torn skin. “We better get some ointment on those.”

  He pulled his hands away and hid them in his pockets. “It can wait.”

  “Poor baby, afraid it’ll sting.” I ruffled his hair and kissed him on the forehead. “I’m very glad you’re okay.”

  We both turned at the groans coming from a man lying on the ground near us. As far as I could tell, he lay where he’d fallen. His eyes were tightly closed; he grimaced in pain.

  I leaned over him. “What hurts?”

  He gasped. “I think I did something to my back.”

  Before I could tell him that I’d get help, a teenager ran up calling out “Dad!” Close behind him was a stocky woman about the same age as the injured man. Tears streamed down her cheeks. An older, silver-haired man, his brow creased with worry, limped up behind them. In the distance I could hear sirens. After suggesting they don’t move him until medical help arrived, I turned back to Eric.

  “I tell you, Meg, there was nothing we could do. When I felt the sudden dead weight of the pole, I tried to hold on, but the rope slipped through my hands like it was greased and down I went crashing into the other guys. I sure hope no one has been seriously hurt.”

  The shrieks that continued to rise above the other sounds told another story.

  Most of the men slowly struggled to their feet. Family and friends crowded around. Two broken lengths of rope lay forgotten on the ground. Apart from the man with the injured back, two others remained seated. Both had been at the front of their lines when the ropes snapped. One had a deep gash across his face; the other cradled his arm.