The Cannibal Society (Hamatsa) was the most important among the ceremonial societies of the Kwakiutl and it played an essential role during the celebrations of the Winter season. The Cannibal Dancer personified the Cannibal Spirit (Baxbakualanuxsiwae), the “Man-eater at the North End of the World”. The initiation of new members into the Society was the nucleus of the Winter Ceremony.

The initiates belonged to the most noble and influential families of the community and inherited this privilege by descent. But they had however to submit to a ritual procedure during which they were deemed to be kidnapped by the Cannibal Spirit and taken into the deepest forest, where they had to remain secluded for a certain period.

Young man initiate to the Cannibal Society, wearing hemlock branches during his period of reclusion in the forest (photo E. S. Curtis, 1915)		Hamatsa dancer wearing cedar bark ornaments as a symbol of his condition as full member of the Cannibal Society (photo E. S. Curtis, 1915)

At their return from the ritual seclusion, the initiates showed themselves at the edge of the village, with their bodies covered with hemlock branches, and behaved as they were possessed by the Cannibal Spirit: they were dominated by a wild “fury” that made them fierce and hungry. They destroyed all the objects they could put their hands upon and tried to attack the onlookers and to bite them. The initiates sung certain songs which expressed their desire to eat human flesh and to swallow other humans alive. Through a set of songs, dances and ritual actions, they were gradually tamed and brought back to normality, were submitted to certain purification practices and at last integrated into the Society as full members.

Reconstruction with wax models of the ritual episode in which the Cannibal initiate, after he had come back from the forest, comes out of the ceremonial room, to be pacified by the dance assistants (American Museum of Natural History, New York)

The Cannibal Spirit who possessed the initiate during his seclusion period in the woods was described as a bewildering and monstrous being, living at the margins of the world, in the extreme North, a place associated with darkness, winter and death. His characteristics were those of a sort of inverted image of humanity: wild, cannibal, dominated by an uncontrollable frenzy and an insatiable voracity.

A rare mask representing the Cannibal Spirit, who possessed the Hamatsa or Cannibal initiate during his period of initiation (U'mista Cultural Society, Alert Bay, British Columbia, Canada)

However, from the relationship with such dangerous and fearful being, the initiate obtained new powers and qualities, which permitted him to communicate with the animals and to impersonate the spirits, assuming their characteristics on himself through the employ of masks during the celebrations of the Winter Ceremony. These powers were regarded by the Kwakiutl themselves as alike those of the shamans  (Boas 1897; Comba 1992).

Multiple mask worn during the Cannibal Society ceremonies, representing the cannibal birds that were the assistants of the Man-Eater Spirit. To the right, the "Crooked Beak of Heaven"and to the left the "Supernatural Raven"  (artwork byWillie Seaweed realized in 1920 and now in the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada)