1: QU'LAD'S WOLF

Qeldedzem (as a shaman this man had the name Qu'lad.) [unclear if this line is from the ethnographer or the uncredited interviewee.]

It was at the time that many chiefs of all the tribes died of the great epidemic, influenza.

Then we all saw Qu'lad was really sick for he was coughing all the time and yellow fluid was running all the time from his nose. His breath was short and he was not able to walk. Then he was informed of the death of many people. For seven days he was in bed. I mean Qu'lad. Then he slept for a short time.

Then it is said he had a dream of a wolf which came into his house. Then it is said the wolf spoke to him and said, "Do not act like this Qu'lad, good friend, but go into the water of this river morning and evening. For four days do this if you want to get well, and take a bucket and dip water out of this river while you are sitting in the water, and pour the water in the bucket over both sides of your neck. Two buckets full of water in the bucket pour over the right side of your neck, and in the same way two buckets full over the left side of your neck." Thus said the wolf in the dream of Qu'lad. Then the wolf left.

2: TOGUMALIS'S SQUIRREL

This was also the dream of the shaman Togumalis as he was dreaming. [???]

A squirrel came here and asked me to go into the water of the pond behind the village of Fort Rupert for he was very sick of the influenza. Then I was asked to sit down in the water early in the morning when day broke, and to spray myself with cold water also late in the evening. And I obeyed the squirrel. Then it showed to me what I was to do, and I went into the water. Therefore I do this when I begin to cough. Then I go immediately into the water in this pond behind our house; therefore, I am never sick."

SOURCE: The Dream in Primitive Cultures edited by Jackson Lincoln, 1935, p.312 in 1970 reprint. Primary source: Contributions to the Ethnology of the Kwakiutl, Boaz & Hunt, 1925, v.III, pp3-54; dreams 41 & 42.

MEDICAL NOTE

The 1918 flu, like the 2020 pandemic, hit Northwest Coast peoples harder than the general population, with death rates around 5%--not of diagnosed cases, of entire populations (that's comparable to death rates in big hospitals, which of course handled the worst cases--mild ones weathered it at home). In some villages of the Alaskan interior, up to half the population died--more like the Black Death than the flu as we know it. [Statistics from America's Forgotten Pandemic by Alfred Crosby, 1989.]

Curiously, in Feb. 2019 I read a print magazine for chiropractors (I forget the title, sorry) presenting records from 1918 in a homeopathic hospital (quite common then). That flu induced dangerously high fever (frequently over 40°C/104°F); homeopaths could only give water, supportive care and cold baths to keep patients alive (if uncomfortable; I've been hospitalized twice in my life with fever approaching 105°, and believe me, it's no fun). The death rate was about 1%. The reason it wasn't 5% is clear, too: other hospitals used the new miracle drug aspirin to bring down the fever, much more effectively--in doses we now know are deadly.

Again: a cold-water cure may sound inadequate against the worst pandemic in centuries, but it led to death rates about one-fifth that of standard hospital practice at the time. These dreams of squirrel and wolf saved lives.

"--Shaman. Too many witnesses."

--Chris Wayan--

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