Sisiutl

The Sisiutl is the double-headed serpent of Kwakwaka'wakw tradition on the Northwest Coast, with a serpent head at each end and a human face in the middle, a being of great danger and power linked to warriors.

Appearance

The Sisiutl is the great double-headed serpent of the Kwakwaka'wakw (formerly called the Kwakiutl), whose homelands lie around northern Vancouver Island and the nearby mainland of British Columbia. In carving and painting it has a long body with a serpent head at each end, each head often with a curled horn or plume and a long tongue. In the middle sits a human or humanlike face. The design is one of the most recognizable images in Northwest Coast art.

Powers

The anthropologist Franz Boas, who began working on the Northwest Coast in 1886 and later collaborated closely with George Hunt, who grew up in the Kwakwaka'wakw community at Fort Rupert, described the Sisiutl in his 1897 study of their social organization and winter ceremonies. In the accounts he recorded, the Sisiutl is deadly to meet: seeing or touching it can kill, or twist a person's body and joints. Yet to someone it favors it grants great strength. Parts of it, such as its blood or skin, were said to make a person tough and hard to wound. It is closely tied to warriors and to the war spirit Winalagilis, and in some stories it can change form, appearing as a fish or serving as a canoe that moves by itself.

In Ceremony and Art

The Sisiutl is a crest and a ceremonial figure, not just a character in tales. It appears on painted house fronts, carved posts, dance screens, headdresses, and the belts and regalia of warrior dancers. In the winter ceremonies, dramatic carved Sisiutl figures could be made to appear and move before the audience. Its two heads facing opposite directions are often read as watchfulness, guarding in both directions at once. Because these images and ceremonies are owned by particular families and are part of living practice, their meaning is best explained by Kwakwaka'wakw people themselves. The U'mista Cultural Centre in Alert Bay holds potlatch regalia returned to the community after it was confiscated in 1922.

Legacy

Neighboring peoples of the coast have their own serpent beings, and the Sisiutl is sometimes confused with them in popular books. Its striking two-headed form has made it a favorite subject in Northwest Coast art, where Kwakwaka'wakw artists continue to carve and paint it. It also appears in fantasy fiction and games, usually much changed from its source.

Related

• Horned Serpent: The Horned Serpent is a great water serpent with horns found in the traditions of many Native American nations, a powerful being of rivers, lakes, and the world below, often opposed by the Thunderbirds.
• Amphisbaena: The amphisbaena is a venomous serpent of Greek and Roman lore with a head at each end of its body, said to live in the Libyan desert and to move in either direction.
• Uktena: The Uktena is a great horned serpent of Cherokee tradition, as thick as a tree trunk, with a blazing crystal crest called the Ulûñsû'ti on its forehead, and so dangerous that even seeing it could bring death.
• Dragons Across Cultures
• Dragon Types

Sources and Further Reading

• Franz Boas, The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians, Report of the U.S. National Museum for 1895 (Government Printing Office, 1897)
• Franz Boas, Indianische Sagen von der Nord-Pacifischen Küste Amerikas (A. Asher, 1895)
• Bill Holm, Northwest Coast Indian Art: An Analysis of Form (University of Washington Press, 1965)
• Aldona Jonaitis, ed., Chiefly Feasts: The Enduring Kwakiutl Potlatch (American Museum of Natural History and University of Washington Press, 1991)

Cite this entry: “Sisiutl,” Draconika Encyclopedia of Dragons, https://www.draconika.com/dragons/sisiutl.