Hamasaka in Tlu’wulahu costume with speaker’s staff – Qagyuhl

Description

The principal chief of the Qagyuhl is depicted in a “button blanket” (which is simply a woollen blanket ornamented with hundreds of large mother-of-pearl buttons), cedar-bark neck-ring, and cedar-bark head-band. His right hand grasps a shaman’s rattle, and his left the carved staff which, as a kind of emblem of office, a man always holds when making a speech. The button designs along the edge of the blanket represent “coppers” (see page 144). The tlu’wulahu ceremony is described on page 243 of Volume X.