Dzunukwa is the wild giantess of the woods in the mythology of the Kwakwaka’wakw (Kwakiutl) people of the Pacific Northwest Coast — a huge, dark, fearsome ogress who roams the deep forest, a stealer of children and a devourer, yet also, paradoxically, a giver of great wealth and supernatural power to those who can master her. The “Wild Woman of the Woods,” one of the most powerful and ambivalent of all the beings carved on the masks and totem poles of coastal British Columbia, Dzunukwa is among the most striking figures of Northwest Coast myth.
The Wild Woman of the Woods
Dzunukwa (Dzonokwa, Tsonoqua) is pictured as an enormous, dark-skinned giantess — black, hairy, with deep-set half-shut eyes, pendulous breasts, and pursed, protruding lips through which she utters her characteristic cry, the booming “hu… hu…” that echoes through the forest. She dwells in the deep woods, far from the villages, in a great house in the wild interior. Drowsy, slow, and not over-clever, she is nonetheless immensely strong and dangerous — a wild and uncanny power of the forest depths, the very embodiment of the dark and untamed wilderness that lies beyond the ordered world of the coastal villages.
The Child-Stealer and the Giver of Wealth
Dzunukwa’s most famous role is as a bogey and child-stealer: she is said to creep to the villages and carry off children in the great basket on her back, to take them home to her house in the woods and devour them. Many a Kwakwaka’wakw tale tells of children seized by Dzunukwa — and of how clever children outwit the slow, drowsy giantess, escape her basket, and even destroy her (often by pushing her into her own fire). Yet Dzunukwa is profoundly ambivalent: for those who master or slay her, or who win her favour, she is a source of immense wealth and power. Her house is full of treasures — furs, coppers, and riches — and to overcome her is to gain supernatural gifts and prestige. She is associated above all with copper, the supreme symbol of wealth in Northwest Coast society, and a chief who claims the right to wear the Dzunukwa mask displays his access to her riches and power.
The Mask and the Potlatch
Dzunukwa is one of the great mask-beings of the Kwakwaka’wakw, appearing in the dramatic masked dances of the winter ceremonials and the great potlatch — the feast at which chiefs display and distribute wealth and affirm their rank and crests. The Dzunukwa mask, with its dark face, sunken eyes, and pursed lips, is among the most powerful and recognizable of Northwest Coast carvings; figures of Dzunukwa also support the coppers and the seats of chiefs, embodying the giantess’s role as the source and guardian of wealth. In the potlatch and the dance, the fearsome ogress of the woods becomes the supernatural patron of the riches and prestige on which Kwakwaka’wakw society turns — her terror and her treasure bound inseparably together.
Legacy
Dzunukwa endures as the wild giantess of the woods of the Kwakwaka’wakw — the dark ogress and child-stealer of the forest depths, and at once the giver of wealth, copper, and supernatural power to those who can master her. In her the cedar-and-salmon people of the Pacific Northwest Coast embodied the dark wilderness beyond the village and the dangerous, ambivalent source of riches and prestige. Carved on masks, poles, and the coppers of chiefs, and dramatised in the dances of the potlatch, Dzunukwa remains one of the most powerful and unforgettable beings of Northwest Coast mythology.