Bakwas

What it is

Bakwas is a spirit in the stories of the Kwakwaka'wakw, a people whose territory lies along the coast of British Columbia in Canada. He is thought of as a solitary being of the deep forest, its untamed resident. His meals come in cockle shells, but the food is not meant for human mouths: it belongs to ghosts. When someone loses the way among the trees, Bakwas is said to press this fare on them, hoping to draw them across into the ghost world. A person who swallows it would change into a bakwas in turn. His dwelling cannot be seen, standing somewhere in the timber, and there the souls of people who drowned gather around him. Some accounts also make him husband to Dzunukwa and father to her children.

Where it comes from

Bakwas sits within the spirit lore of the Kwakwaka'wakw, one of the supernatural beings they recognize alongside others. The figure does not stop at the borders of that one nation. Peoples across the Northwest Coast tell of beings of much the same kind, which points to a family of ghost beings shared along the coast. Two neighbouring names even look like word-kin: the Nuu-chah-nulth pukubts and the Tsimshian ba'wis both seem to be related etymologically to bakwas, the form the Kwakiutl use.

Tools and materials

Cockle shells, the ribbed shells of a small edible sea clam, serve him as dishes. What the shells hold is the point: the food inside belongs to ghosts, not to the living, and taking even a little is said to change a human into a bakwas. His dwelling completes the picture of a host from the far side: the house itself cannot be seen, and within it those who drowned keep company.

What people believe

In this worldview the dead are not far away. People who drown go on existing and gather as a company in Bakwas's unseen house among the trees. The line between the living and the ghost world is crossed by eating: his shells hold food from the other side, and a single swallow would make the eater a bakwas like himself. That is the danger he poses to anyone stranded in the forest, an offer of hospitality that works as a door out of human life.

Compare and confuse

Along the coast the same kind of being carries other names. The Tlingit know the kushtaka, people of the land-otter. The Haida know the gagit, ghosts of those lost to drowning. The Nuu-chah-nulth speak of the pukubts and the Tsimshian of the ba'wis. Each nation keeps its own name and its own telling of the figure.

Questions people ask about Bakwas

Good reading and sources

• Bakwas on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data