The Wild Man of the Woods (Beku’s) is a mythical character of the Kwakiutl people, who lives in the deep forests and brings away drowned people. His body is cold like ice, another characteristic which puts him in association with death. He appears as chief of a small group of myth people. The Beku’s is regarded for this reason as the Chief of the Ghosts. He lives into the deep woods and is the keeper of the souls of drowned people. He is of small size and represents the impersonation of all living things of the forest.

Kwakiutl Mask of the Wild Man of the Woods (Beku’s), made around 1900 (Royal British Columbia Museum, Victoria, Canada)

The Wild Man of the Woods has a green hairy body, a skull-like face with prominent cheekbones and some zoomorphic characteristics, like a crooked nose, similar to a beak which touches the upper lip, and animal-like ears. The Beku’s could be dangerous for hunters and warriors, whom he captures attracting them with food, especially smoked salmon and berries. But  if they accept the food offered, they can leave from the Land of the Wild Man no more. Thus, a tale shows the vicissitudes of a woman  who is brought away by a person who she believed to be her lover, but who reveals himself to be the Man of the Woods. The dwelling into which she entered the night before disappeared at dawn. When she is given roasted salmon, the woman eats and thus she cannot leave this man’s country. The roasted salmon was really rotten wood (Boas-Hunt, 1902: p. 502). The Wild Man’s food is like human food, but in reality it is made of rotten wood, frogs and lizards (Boas 1935: 146).

Kwakiutl Mask of the Wild Man of the Woods (photo E. S. Curtis, 1915)		Contemporary Kwakiutl dancer wearing the costume and mask of the Wild Man of the Woods (Le-La-La Dancers, Victoria, Canada)