Mark Brian, a young vicar, is sent to the First Nations village of Kingcome in British Columbia, home to people of the Kwakwaka'wakw nation (who are given the now-archaic name “Kwakiutl” in the book).
She is the compiler of, "the most comprehensive Native American string figure collection ever assembled from a single tribe," (or nation) the Kwakwaka'wakw, eventually published by Mark Sherman.
Many of the marine mammals they hunted for furs and food were sea otters, walruses, seals, and whales.
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Trade was carried out between internal Kwakwaka'wakw nations, as well as surrounding aboriginal nations such as the Tsimshian, Tlingit, the Nootka and Coast Salish peoples.
Among other peoples also, including the Kwakwaka'wakw and Nuu-chah-nulth, the seeds are burned as an incense at funerals and chewed by singers to ease their throats.
For some cultures, such as Kwakwaka'wakw, elaborate and theatrical dances are performed reflecting the hosts' genealogy and cultural wealth.
Kwakwaka'wakw | The Kwakwaka'wakw | Kwakwaka'wakw house pole representing a female Dzunukwa |
Variations of the myth abound within the Kwakwaka'wakw culture, but this man-eating giant was aided by an old hag, Qominoqa (possibly Dzunukwa), who gathered bodies for him to consume.
Known as "Copper-Maker", he is the god of the undersea world revered by the Kwakwaka'wakw and Nuxalk indigenous nations.
Dzunukwa (Tsonokwa) is a type of cannibal giant (called sasquatch by other Northwest Coast tribes) and comes in both male and female forms.
He had an interest in music in general and in folksong, and would sing songs from other tribes such as the Navajo he learned from his relative Bob Harris who met many people at the Chicago World Exhibition and even Japanese folk songs he learned from other Kwakwaka'wakw who had sailed to Japan on sealing vessels.
In "Crooked Beak of Heaven", Attenborough discusses the art and cultures of the First Nations peoples of the Pacific Northwest of North America: The Haida of present-day British Columbia and Alaska; the Gitxsan of Skeena Country; and the Kwakwaka'wakw ("Kwakiutl") of present-day British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon.