potlatch.

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Dancing and Masquerading.

The Hydas are fond of dancing, and display great ingenuity in devising
many grotesque and fanciful costumes for wearing upon such
occasions. Every beast, bird and fish almost of which they have any
knowledge, is represented in some form--the heads of bear, seal and
other animals are worn upon their heads, and also hideous masks, with
moving eyes and lips The costly _na-xin_, or blanket, woven from the
wool of the mountain goat, is thrown over the shoulder; curiously
carved rattles are held in their hands, whistles imitating owls, wild
geese, loons, eagles and other animals, are blown, drums are beaten;
castanets--small hoops upon which numerous puffin beaks are
suspended--shaken, birds' down is scattered until it fills the air and
covers the performers, who, with a swinging, slouchy movement, dance
for an hour at a time, rattling, whistling, singing and grunting.
There are reception dances--_Skaga_ and _Hi-ate_--house-building
dances--_Skadul_, the _Kata-ka-gun_ dance when the house is completed,
and the _Skarut_ dance, preceding a distribution of property--and also
on occasions of tattooing and death. The latter is performed by a
single man, naked with the exception of a breech-cloth, wearing a
hideous mask on his head. He runs at large through the village, and
simulating an infuriated wild beast, seizes dogs, tears them in
pieces, and eats the raw flesh. Nearly all these dances have been
abandoned at Massett and Skidegate, but most of them are still
practiced in those villages not yet reached by the missionaries.