Masked dancers – Qagyuhl

Description

The plate shows a group of masked and costumed performers in the winter ceremony. The chief who is holding the dance stands at the left, grasping a speaker’s staff and wearing cedar-bark neck-ring and head-band and a few of the spectators are visible at the right. At the extreme left is seen a part of the painted mawihl through which the dancers emerge from the secret room; and in the centre, between the carved house-posts, is the Awaitlala hams’pek, showing three of the five mouths through which the hamatsa wriggle from the top to the bottom of the column. See page 175 and footnote.